Oh, about the X10. It should not cause any buzzing problems. The X10 puts out a very short and very high frequency signal on top of the AC lines in the home. The buzzing that most are talking about is low frequency stuff (like 60Hz). If X10 causes any problems, it won't be noise related. Just Gremlin type stuff. But X10 has improved ALOT since the first products came out.

Originally posted by maifimd
Mike, Your service on the H30 was great. I'm closing in on finishing (?) my HT with WAF hanging in the balance. H30/Zenith DVB318 (component to H30)/JVC SVHS (s-video to H30)/Kenwood 1050 (Panasonic or Yamaha replacement soon) all have their own remotes - HELP!
Please suggest which remote will make it easy for her to:
1) watch TV or a VHS tape (H30/JVC SVHS (S-video)/Kenwood
2) watch a DVD (H30/Zenith DVB318 (component)/Kenwood
TIA
Probably not the right place for a full discussion here as there is a remote control thread. I bought a Harmony 659 from Mike because of its "activity based" concept where you push a button that says "watch TV", etc- great WAF factor. While it hasn't been perfect it is about 95% of the way there. I just need to get some delays figured out as when you fire up the H30 I don't think it's ready for something like a "native 16:9" button press for maybe 20 seconds.

Mike- when we spoke of that unit on the phone you mentioned you weren't sure it could do the two consecutive button presses required to turn off the H30. I found that exact question on the Harmony website FAQ pertaining to a projector and it worked flawlessly.

Cheers!

Originally posted by fallenturtle
The manual says the safest length of screw is 6mm... I wish I lived in a country that used the metric system...
I hear ya there Turtle. I do a ton of international work for my job and I pretty much have www.convert-me.com loaded and minimized on my machine most of the time. You can convert pretty much anything to anything by hitting the tab key.

6mm is .23", yikes! Not very long :)

Got my replacement H30 at work today, plugged it in for 45min (at work) and no Buzz!! Nice and quite...for now at least. This is good news!

Hopefully the calibrations might be better too....couldn't be any worse than my other unit. Will know probably in the next day or so.

Fleaman

So-

My H30 is dead. I try to turn it on, it sounds like the color wheel starts spinning a bit, it makes a grating sound and then stops and then does it twice more and then the lamp light comes on and that's it. No picture, nothing.

And right when I was trying to show off to one of my friends. For all of you with the Buzzes, send yours back cause it could turn into something worse. Do it while you get the free round-trip shipping. I'm calling Optoma tomorrow, and I am just making it within that period, at 27 days.

I still love it, just a *little* less.

:)

geoff

My H30 got a Rainbow Effect if I put subtitle on (480i), but if I run in the progressive mode, there is no problem, smooth picture. Is there anyone have the same problem like mine? Or it is something wrong with my unit?

Cheers

Parst P.

Originally posted by shatten22
So-

My H30 is dead. I try to turn it on, it sounds like the color wheel starts spinning a bit, it makes a grating sound and then stops and then does it twice more and then the lamp light comes on and that's it. No picture, nothing.

And right when I was trying to show off to one of my friends. For all of you with the Buzzes, send yours back cause it could turn into something worse. Do it while you get the free round-trip shipping. I'm calling Optoma tomorrow, and I am just making it within that period, at 27 days.

I still love it, just a *little* less.

:)

geoff

Shatten make sure you don't have any inputs active when you turn on the H30. If you have an S-video, Component, or Composite signal active before the H30 starts up it can behave the way you described. If it does this with no live feeds then you need to return it.

Originally posted by fleaman
Got my replacement H30 at work today, plugged it in for 45min (at work) and no Buzz!! Nice and quite...for now at least. This is good news!

Hopefully the calibrations might be better too....couldn't be any worse than my other unit. Will know probably in the next day or so.

Fleaman

Ok now I am starting to wonder. I mean I was ok with keeping this pj with the buzzing if it was something that everyone had to deal with on some level, but now it is starting to sound like some units buzz and other ones don't. Thanks for keeping us posted Flea. I am going to watch till 100 hours and then calling Optoma if mine doesn't go away. It hasn't been loud lately, but why should I have to deal with any buzzing at all if other units don't make any buzz. Let us know how it sounds when you get it home.

Originally posted by hikarate
Shatten make sure you don't have any inputs active when you turn on the H30. If you have an S-video, Component, or Composite signal active before the H30 starts up it can behave the way you described. If it does this with no live feeds then you need to return it.

h-

already disconnected everything and tried to turn it on with nothing attached and then with stuff attached but with nothing on. no dice.

i was in the middle of starting a movie up when the h30 shut down and went into standby. the buzzing had gotten a bit louder and then stopped. then when i pressed the power button, it refused to start up ending with lamp signal turning on.

i hope my next unit doesn't buzz...

g

--- Mine is finally going to be sent back next week for a NEW unit . I am now getting a strange pulse in the projected image [ brightness fluctuates up & down ] .

--- Plus the top right corner is now darker than the rest of the image [ uniformity was perfect when new - now at 136 hours ] .

--- I am back to considering selling the NEW H30 once I have it , man these issues are really bringing down the enjoyment of this otherwise fantastic PJ :( .

----------- Jason

hikarate-

The only way I could hear any kind of slight (very slight) buzz in my boss's or my new quite H30 was by putting my ear right up to the rear vents...only then I could barely hear something, probably the color wheel spinning. Once I move my ear about 1-2ft away, I could not hear it, just the fans. This is what I considered normal noise level, the fans are the only thing that I would expect to hear from a normal distance (much more than 1-2ft away!).

My H30 that is going back for the loud buzzing is a whole different story. That sucker buzzes much louder than the fans when it is at it's loudest. Even though I'm in a small space, I could easily hear it from anywhere in my apt.

Bottom line: You shouldn't hear any buzz at ALL. This does not include putting your ear right up to the grilles, but at a normal distance you shouldn't hear any buzz.

Fleaman

Oh yeah, I already proved to myself that the H30 shouldn't buzz as my boss's never did and still doesn't.

Now I have heard 3 H30's side by side and only my defective H30 buzzes, the others are nice and quite (when in economy mode).

Fleaman

Originally posted by fleaman
The only way I could hear any kind of slight (very slight) buzz in my boss's or my new quite H30 was by putting my ear right up to the rear vents...only then I could barely hear something, probably the color wheel spinning. Once I move my ear about 1-2ft away, I could not hear it, just the fans.

This is exactly what I hear from my H30--except for once, when I heard a much louder buzzing that went away when I removed and reseated the VGA cable. I can only hope that one doesn't come back.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

I'm now up to 108 hours in 3 1/2 weeks. It probably would have taken me 3 1/2 months to view for 108 hours before this thing :)

Unit seems slightly louder on startup then it use to until the fan slows down after it's on like 4-5 minutes. Then it goes very quiet with nothing but slight fan noise.

I use to notice a kind of flickering of the brightness like Jason mentions in the first 5-10 minutes of operation on Svideo only. Now I haven't seen that in awhile. I had hoped if that was caused by a shaky bulb that it would have blown by now. I'd be ticked if I had a corner going dim, sorry Jason.

So far- so good. Knock, knock, knock, fingers crossed.

I have similar issues as you, gottahavapj.
H30 is quite loud at beginning, then noice is much quieter after some time. This is ok for me.

I have also noticed brightness changes occasionally, in corners mostly. Especially if movie has non-moving whitish object in corner. (whitish door in corridor, for example). Somebody told me that this could be specific issue for DLP projectors determining correct brightness.

I don't think it is bulb either, but maybe some expert knows more.

For now, this seems pretty minor issue. I have been only one to spot them in my unit, others have just enjoyed the movie. :)

Well that's it, I'm definitely waiting to see some 4805 reviews before I plunk down money for an H30. As good as it sounds, I just can't take the risk on this machine. Lets see...

- buzzing problems
- green bar problems when switching signals
- premature bulb death
- pulsating/flickering in bright scenes
- black lines added to color red when using 480i
- uniformity problems

The list seems to build daily. Do all new PJ's usually have these many teething problems? Is this normal or does the H30 seem to have more than usual?

At least in 2 months we'll see some 4805 feedback and, at the very least, the H30's shipping at that time might have some of these build problems worked out.

Unknown shadow, it is good to discuss all problems and issues here.
However, regarding those mentioned by me above, let me clarify:
- brightness change has been very minor issue so far, I have noticed it maybe twice in one 2hr movie. Reason for it could also be in cables or DLP technology, it is not necessarily "Optoma" issue. Let's not make too fast conclusions.
- regarding the start-up noice: It is not problem for me if fan gets more quiet after few minutes, but for someone this start-up noise could be an issue.
- regarding the lines in small red surfaces: Tom already mentioned that this is feature of de-interlacer, so you could easily check demo machine to see if this is a problem to you. For me, this is not a big issue, since it is only related to some small red surfaces, not in all red color surfaces.

I don't see above issues as deal-breakers. Someone else might, but you should remember that all projectors at this price class have their share of problems. (VB, dust etc.) Even without any "problems", overall picture quality might not be that good.

To answer your question: IMO, all PJs have specific "problems" and by waiting, you may end up with another early version PJ which means you will end-up reading about problems, waiting etc.

Vierimaa, something like the "brightness change" issue would indeed be a deal breaker for me. If this is because of DLP technology then I'd sure like to find out because maybe I should be looking at LCD (which also has it's own problems of course).

For example, if I'm sitting there watching a great movie like LOTR and the camera starts one of those amazing "sweeping the landscape" scenes and stops on a nice blue sky with snowy mountains in the background and suddenly I see a flicker/brightness change then yes that would annoy the heck out of me.

Again- I don't recall seeing this slight brightness flicker on any input but Svideo (SDTV) and usually within the first few minutes of operation. It could be a bulb warmup thing in my case.

I agree with Vierimaa in that pretty much any lower end, new projector is going to have some teeth cutting issues. The real consideration is how well the manufacturer stands behind the product. That appears to be excellent in this case.

Well I have a plugged in lamp behind my couch. I bought a dimmer control for it that it plugs into. It then has a wired control that runs to the recliner so the light can be turned on and off while sitting on the couch. It has 4 levels including off, low dim, high dim, full.
I always hear some level of buzzing from my pj. Last night, after reading all these posts about dimmers, I tried turning on the light to see if it had an effect. The low dim and high dim setting made the H30 really HUM loudly. The off and full on positions didn't seem to effect it.
Could this dimmer plug be causing the buzz just by being plugged in (Even while the lamp is off). I will probably be unplugging everything in the house including this dimmer just to see, but figured I would ask.
I also have 4 of those electronic bug repellent devices plugged into the house. I don't think they are scaring any bugs away, but maybe they are introducing line noise.
This guessing what is causing the H30 to buzz is no fun. What if its my Fridge or something that I can't unplug?
The fact that the pitch and loudness of the buzzing changes when the dimmer is active really makes me doubt it is the color wheel. I should also note my H30 is ceiling mounted, so I am listening from about 4 ft. away.

Flea did you get your new unit set up at home yet? Any buzzing?

I should note that I am exceedingly happy with this PJ.
The buzzing I am currently experiencing is pretty slight while the lamp is off. Other than this one issue, I am completely happy with the PJ and would still recommend it to anyone considering it. If you are going to wait for the 4805, just remember the H30 thread looked pretty spotless for 4 months, so you will probably need to wait that long after the 4805 is released to know what the issues are with that PJ.

Darn, this is not sounding good. I have dimmers all over my house. Afterall, who builds a theater room without dimmers! Has anyone been in touch with Optoma about this issue lately? Do they actually recognize this is a problem?

One of you H30 owners should give them a call and explain how your dimmers make the H30 buzz. Ask them if they are going to be using different/better electronics in newer H30's so they can handle line noise better? I'd like to know what their latest response is to this issue and what steps they have taken (if any) to prevent it on newer units.

Exactly what part causes this buzzing anyways? If it simply means using a $2 part instead of a $1 part then they should do it and add the extra buck to the MSRP! ;-)

FWIW, the only time I've seen any brightness change is when I've paused a DVD I'm playing. A static image will often dim, then regain full brightness when playback's resumed.

I've also never had any buzzing with any of the ones I've either used or tested. They have been as described above, light fan noise after a 4-5 minute warm up period.

Has anyone noticed a difference in brightness between different H30's. My new one just doesn't seem quite as bright as the old one, could be my imagination though. So far I've had no issues, no buzzing, hardly any green bar (although I don't use interlaced often), no uniformity problems (some are caused by the lens mask). Just doesn't seem quite as bright. But maybe that's a good thing, longer bulb life. Who knows. I'm thinking about a 4805 too with all the issues people are having, but $250 extra dollars (real street cost) almost covers a new bulb, and my H30 seems to work perfectly. So I don't know if it's worth it.

Mechanical dimmers generate tons of a/c line noise! Go to any mechanical dimmer in your house and lower the light level. Listen closely to the switch and what do you hear? Loud buzzing! Now try the same thing with a Lutron, or equivalent quality electronic dimmer. What do you hear? Nothing. Ask any electrician about noise and heat from dimmers and they will tell you they are notorious.
The H30 does not have a design flaw. I use mine in the same room as a Lutron Spacer and have no problem. I have installed 10 H30's in the last couple of months and have yet to see the reported problems of green push, buzzing or flicker.
I am still awed by the performance of this projector and am anxious to see how the 4805 compares.

We dim the lights in our home theater using the X10 controls and have not experienced any buzzing etc when we do so.

Is the buzzing I hear while the lamp is off probably coming from some other line noise or could the dimmer cause this even when the light is off?

Glad you have had good luck with your H30s RtB, but that doesn't mean those problems don't exist and that the H30 is not the cause. We are just trying to get to the bottom of things here. I have a lot of other electronics in the house and they don't buzz when I dim the lights, only the H30 does that.

Originally posted by RoberttheBruce
The H30 does not have a design flaw.

I know zero about electrical stuff but I am assuming with most "cookie-cuter" houses like mine (ie. entire sub-division grown overnight) that electrical noise is going to be a VERY common thing. To start with, I'll bet that 99% of all dimmers out there are of the lowest quality available. In order for the contractors to keep the cost of the house as low as possible.

Having said that, if someone has line noise then why doesn't their Receiver buzz? Why doesn't their TV buzz? Why doesn't their toaster buzz? Sure, you can hear a buzz from all electronics if you put your ear next to them. But when sitting several feet away you should NOT hear buzzing. If an electronic device cannot handle this "typical" line noise without buzzing then I would say it has a design problem. (yes you could argue it's the HOUSE with the design problem but you have to go with what is typical here and line noise seems to be typical).

Now before anyone gets their panties in a knot, I'm not saying the H30 has design problems. If they ALL buzzed then yes we'd have a design problem. But maybe there was a bad batch of circuits/resistors/thingamajiggies that were not able to deal with much line noise and this is the reports we are seeing? Maybe they fired whoever made those "bad" circuits/resistors/thingamajiggies and they now buy those parts from someone else ;-)

I just want to know what Optoma techs found out. What caused the buzzing, and is it fixed in newer units?

One last question... if someone does have a situation where dimmers / line noise is causing their H30 to buzz, is this bad for the PJ? Can this be leading to some of the premature bulb deaths?

First off, I would like to give a big thanks to everyone that posts in this forum. I have read post after post till my head would hurt and finally talked myself out of buying a 53" hd Rptv.(Probably looks like a 19" next to my Carada screen.) The knowledge i gained here helped cure me of my ignorance toward front projection.:D

My current setup is as listed minus the Zenith Player that should be here any day now. It is running with a Samsung with no progressive scan and the picture is still,:D WOW. I have my dvd player, and PS2 connected through component cables to my onkyo reciever. And then the Onkyo to the H30.

The straight up pimp factor is ridiculous. My friends come over and they are all like :eek: . They all say the exact same thing, " it's like being at the movies."

I do have the buzz but none of the green bar lock up. The buzz comes and goes and is pretty annoying but I have my fingers crossed that it will go away at 100 hours.:) The other problem i have is that the picture is gorgeous but i am having problems with certain reds. Vehicle taillights at night in the picture looks like is has excessive pixelation. Even when faces have red light (ie. the chopper scene in Predator when they are getting taken to there drop.) on them it looks very bad with the pixelation.

I Love my purchase and i like to thank the people on avs forum, David Giles at Carada Screens (Just helped me out the wazoo and was very friendly and quick with his response.), and the people at projector people. Thanks again and sorry for the long post.

- Henry

Hey Guys,

Just have to say that if Fleaman and Valks buzzing was anything like what I get when my dimmers are on then no wonder it was driving them crazy. Its very loud, there is no way I could watch a movie like that. Luckily I never even use these lights while I am watching a movie so thats not a problem. Now my only issue is finding whats causing the quieter less annoying buzz. It could be line noise from something else, or the color wheel spinning, I am pretty sure its line noise at this point though.
And I need to know if you guys who sent your buzzers back in got a new unit that fixed the problem. The buzzing as it is, is only a problem for me during quiet scenes, but you can imagine how annoying that is, to be reminded of it everytime the movie gets quiet.
Anyhow, I guess I will run around and unplug everything I can and see if anything eliminates the buzz. If not, I still haven't decided if I am sending it back, the buzzing isn't too bad and I don't think most other people will notice it, but if I could send it in for a new unit and get the whole problem resolved then that seems like the best option.
Anxiously waiting your response Fleaman, hows it working once you got it home?

hikarate, is the dimmer you are referring to a 2 wire dimmer of a 3 wire (ie, it uses a neutral wire). I designed a 2 wire dimmer before and it would induce a small amount of electrical line noise just by being hooked up (regardless of whether the light was on or off!). Usually, they will have a black wire for the 120V (or "hot") and a red wire for the lamp load. But remember, this was a "smart dimmer" so it had electronics that needed power even while in the OFF state. Glowing LED and memory.

If you have an EL Cheapo from home depot, like one of those simple rotary dimmers that have some type of hard mechanical off, then the answer is no, it is not still using the AC power.

Its very interesting that you able to "create" the loudness of the buzzing at will!!!! This is VERY VERY VERY important information and should be relayed immediately to Optoma. The H30 buzzing is most likely a capacitor or inductor that needs some design investigation.

Someone send me an H30 and I'll get right on it! Just let me keep the unit when I'm done. LOL!!!

Hey Chuck,

Not at home, I'll check that out when I get there. Its just a cheapo dimmer with a wired control. It plugs into the wall, then the lamp plugs into it. I should note that it is not sharing an outlet with the H30, but I don't know how my house is wired so it probably is on the same circuit, but I don't know. Anyhow, I can reproduce it at will. It is like a horrible superpower that I would rather not possess.

On another note, what about the AVS Panamorph powerbuy at $499, who is going to try this thing out with the H30? Thats quite a price drop.

Originally posted by HenrysTheater
My current setup is as listed minus the Zenith Player that should be here any day now. It is running with a Samsung with no progressive scan and the picture is still,:D WOW.

. . . The other problem i have is that the picture is gorgeous but i am having problems with certain reds. Vehicle taillights at night in the picture looks like is has excessive pixelation. Even when faces have red light (ie. the chopper scene in Predator when they are getting taken to there drop.) on them it looks very bad with the pixelation.


When you switch to a progressive scan input (with the Zenith), the issues you're having with reds should go away.

Originally posted by hikarate
On another note, what about the AVS Panamorph powerbuy at $499, who is going to try this thing out with the H30? Thats quite a price drop.

Arrrgh, my wife would kill me if I bought that now after dropping almost a grand on an HD Tivo. But that price is hard to pass up . . . :rolleyes:

Originally posted by MikeSRC
When you switch to a progressive scan input (with the Zenith), the issues you're having with reds should go away.
Thanks alot Mike.:D Peace.

I just received my H30 today. Glad to know someone nearby is enjoying his H30 with no problems. I can't wait to get home and try mine out. I'm still waiting on my Panavise mount, so I'll desk mount it until then.

Good Morning,
Thought I'd post up some 4.3 screen shots with the first two comparing full 800X600 vs the cropped version for a 16.9 screen.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h304.31.jpg
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h304.32.jpg

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h304.33.jpg
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h304.34.jpg


http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h30lee14.3.jpg
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h30lee24.3.jpg
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h30lee34.3.jpg

Here's a example of how strong the colors remain even on a 120" 4.3 screen. People have been asking if a 4.3 is good for the H30, I say yes, that you don't give up any real estate for 16.9 material and you can play your games or any other quality 4.3 goodies at full screen 800X600 getting every square inch this baby can pump out. Also you can see by the pictures you don't lose intensity.

I'm not saying you can't enjoy things on a 16.9 screen if that's the style you like. Just showing the other option for anyone that want's to go the 4.3 route.

Good ones Tom! I tried some screenshots with my little nil adjustment Olympus 2.1MP camera last night and most of them turned out rather pathetic. I should just go get a tripod as pretty much all the issues were with blur. What I'm taking a picture of certainly is not blurry :)

You could try to steady your hands by using the high end of a chair but a tripod is the way to go.

Evan at PC is always saying don't go with a big screen or you'll lose punch. Not so the the six/segment color wheel and the H30's light power. :)

I'll try the chair tip, thanks! I just posted two of the better ones in my gallery although they don't come close to doing the image justice. The face shots I took were just to blurry and looked more grainey even though they don't when you're watching. Oh well! :)

Ok, Got the new replacement H30 at home and did a quickie comparison with my defective buzzing H30. First impressions:

--New H30, no buzz.
--Defect H30, no buzz. WHAT?? Yeah, for some strange reason my old H30 wasn't buzzing today! Lately the buzz would start to get louder after about an hr or 2, but today it just wouldn't buzz, and that is really the 1st time it hasn't done it (except when brand new). It could be because it was during the day and maybe there is more pwr line noise at night from neighbors or what not, so I will try again tonight.

The new H30 had pretty much the same calibration look as my old one, meaning, crap. Had the same severe red push and same terrible mosquito noise blacks, horrible dithering, blah, blah, blah. I did notice that the red push was mostly on progressive, not interlaced. But either way, the blacks were still very noisy. Putting the same calibration #'s from my old unit into the new one brought it pretty close, but not the same...my old one still looks a little better, probably cause the lamp is more stable after 52 hrs.

Well, I think I'm gonna test these 2 out a little more over the next 2 days, even though I really don't have the time to. I don't want to look like a complete idiot sending my old H30 back that stopped buzzing!

Fleaman

Fleaman,
You can get zero blacks by lowering the DLP-brightness in the service area. I had to lower mine from 32 each to 27 each. I use a 4.3 screen and had a 2.35 dvd going. Lowered the DLP-bright until the 2.35bars matched the mirrors off area.

Hey Fleaman,

What did you have to do to get an RMA for your unit? Did you just report that it was buzzing to them? I don't know how Optoma is treating this issue right now, from the last statements from Wing it sounded like they were not taking it seriously and may not take back a buzzing unit. Anyhow, just worried about keeping this PJ too long and then getting stuck with a defective unit. Would this fall under the 2 yr warranty or 30 days or what?

Concerning getting blacks to match the off pixels, I was able to do this over S-video, but now that I am running over component it looks like I am going to have to go into the service menu to get it dark enough.

Hey flea,

How many hours did you have on the unit that stopped buzzing? As of last night, mine's still buzzing (i.e. buzzing is louder than the fan), but it's quieter than it was initially. I have about 65 hours on it thus far.

Originally posted by hikarate
Hey Fleaman,

What did you have to do to get an RMA for your unit? Did you just report that it was buzzing to them? I don't know how Optoma is treating this issue right now, from the last statements from Wing it sounded like they were not taking it seriously and may not take back a buzzing unit. Anyhow, just worried about keeping this PJ too long and then getting stuck with a defective unit. Would this fall under the 2 yr warranty or 30 days or what?

Concerning getting blacks to match the off pixels, I was able to do this over S-video, but now that I am running over component it looks like I am going to have to go into the service menu to get it dark enough.

Wing doesn't hv control over the Tech RMA area, he's in Design/Engineering. You can try the Tech area about the louder than normal sound being a problem for you.

I think is was Val that sent his back and they couldn't find a problem. What ever happend to Val, did he get his PJ back and the sound was gone? Where's Val.

Whoops, there's Val. :)

What did the tech area tell you when you talked about the buzz?

Tom-
I actually did lower the DLP brightness in the service menu as a quickie try out....it got a little too dark and with my other crazy calibration #'s, it didn't look quite as good. But that is because before I had lowered all the RGB bright and contrast in the normal menu. I tried adding like 5 points to all those #'s evenly, but still seemed a little off. Having all the RGB bright and contrast in the negatives on my old machine w/o touching DLP brightness, seemed to look pretty good. Not sure if there is any benefit to lowering the DLP bright or just lowering the RGB bright/contrast in the advance menu? I only use 1 input on my unit, progressive RGB.
Bottom line is it's something I will have to fiddle with later, don't have time now.

hikarate-
I told them it buzzes while my Boss's H30 doesn't. They didn't seem to question that excuse at all, probably since I had another unit to compare to.

valkyrie-
52 hrs now. But I'm not convinced that the buzzing will not come back. As mentioned, this is the 1st time it didn't really buzz, but it was during the day and I normally only use the H30 at night, so will try again during the night (maybe more pwr line noise then).

Fleaman

Fleaman, I had to use the service area because lowering the user brightness couldn't get the mirrors off and I basically wanted to have the service adjustment effect all signals. Sounds like your blacks aren't too far off, especially if the blacks were crushing by using the DLP-brightness.

Guitarman, since you have seen the panamorph on the H30, do you feel its worth the extra $500? I would like to know if the improvements were very noticeable.

I did send my buzzing unit back, and the Optoma techs went over it and said that it was "within the specified noise levels." (I think he also quoted something about 35db, which was a bit higher than I expected, but I took his word for it). I really didn't find out many details, because the information was being relayed to me through one of the Optoma RMA/Customer Service people, and I knew he wouldn't have tons of details. I've just asked him to keep me appraised if they hear of any noise-related issues with the H30 that start cropping up more often.

I'm still interested in trying another unit, so I'm trying to get one through Fry's (local chain). They're out-of-stock, but I've asked them to transfer one here. It would at least give me one more sample to compare to. I know some people here would consider me crazy, but I'm still convinced this projector is "supposed" to be quieter than mine have been. Maybe I just want it all, haha.

Flea, one other question - did you do anything else to your defective H30 before trying it? Unplug and plug it back in, use a different power cable, anything that might have made a difference? Or did you just come home and hit the power button?

On my first projector the buzz sounded like a trickly sizzle type sound that did go away. I do have one dimmer in the dining room and maybe it was in use at that time. Mostly it's off though. I'll check that out tonight and maybe I can get mine new one to buzz.

That would be interesting. I do have one set of dimmers in the same room as the projector, but to my knowledge, they've never been on at the same time. I have a few halogen torchieres in the house with their built-in rheostats, but again, I don't think they've ever been on when I've been watching a movie. I'll have to see if I can make it louder if they are on, though. Good experiment to try tonight if I have time.

Tom - what's your thoughts on the panamorph. Think it's worth the 500 bones? Since I watch all my stuff in 16:9, might it be worth the increased resolution to buy the lens?

Am I reading properly here that after the initial positive impressions of the new masked lens cover that most people are now happier without it, due to a loss in overall brightness and uniformity?

Well I unplugged everything upstairs, and even unplugged my PC downstairs, no dice there is still a buzz. It is very faint though, and I am probably just going to live with it since getting a new unit is a dice roll at best, and this is a minor annoyance on the scale of things that could go wrong. Plus I figure I got 2 years, if something else goes wacky I will send it in because of that. If they told Valk his was in spec, then I am sure mine is when the dimmer is off. Having the dimmer on is another matter, but I rarely use that lamp anyways, my fiancee uses it when she is downstairs with her friends or reading and stuff.

I like the lense mask, fixed the light spill problem. Mike did some testing and noticed a few problems with some of the IR patterns I believe, but everything looks good to ignorant folk like myself.

I've left the mask on, it's on on the recent pictures I just posted. Seems to help the contrast a little.

Val, I saw the H30 with a panamorph lens at Optoma. I didn't think it made a huge enough difference. The H30 looked just as great without it. The lens does make the pixels allot smaller, maybe half the size. Since the screen door is minimal now the smaller pixel effect didn't make much of a difference either.

Originally posted by valkyrie

Flea, one other question - did you do anything else to your defective H30 before trying it? Unplug and plug it back in, use a different power cable, anything that might have made a difference? Or did you just come home and hit the power button?

Just turned on the unit with the remote after turning on the pwr strip that it is plugged into.

If you looked back to my posts over the last couple weeks, you will see that I took my old H30 to my boss's, compared it to his at his house (full of dimmers!!), mine buzzed the same, boss's didn't.

Back home, the old H30 was still a buzzer...and I have no dimmers in my place at all.

The only main difference is that this is during the day...and that I unplugged the RGB adapter to plug into the replacement H30 (moving it back and forth for some pix comparisons).

Fleaman

After a mere 8 hours, I am still loving the H30. I have several questions for you all! I'm certain much of this has been covered, but searching is not always helpful!

1. I have lowered the DLP Brightness to 28 for all colors. Blacks are really very good. Shadow detail is also very good. I am using the lens and I do prefer having it on. I have been eyeballing the greyscale and it really is amazing how easy it is to calibrate this projector (you are right guitarman). My eyeball results are very good, but I wanted some advice: I am not adjusting the green brightness/contrast, only the reds and blues- someone told me this would be better without some calibration equipment. I imagine Colorfacts would really work well on this projector since I believe it can calibrate both greyscale and the optimum brightness/contrast of each color for NTSC viewing. I have gamma set at 2. Any suggestions for further tweaking for best results in this arena? Should I just try to get colorfacts? And does the normal 100 hour burn in time apply here?

2. I am projecting on a parkland plastics screen. Is this okay? Does cost justify improvement?

3. I am particularly susceptible to screendoor, although it seems the better I get the projector calibrated the less I notice screendoor. Any tricks for eliminating screendoor apart from smaller size, panamorph, etc. (I am currently projecting about 85" diagonally 16x9).

4. I am using a Panasonic XP-30. Is there a better alternative for this projector for DVD?

That's about it for now. Colors are fantastic. I love this projector!

Thanks,

Ryan

I am using a Panasonic XP-30. Is there a better alternative for this projector for DVD


well that was what i was using with the h30 :) run the dvd player in progressive and use the user 1 setting and adjust the contrast on the dvd to 4 and adjust the brightness to 5or 7 and add color to 3 that should give you a little more pop ;)

let me know how it works out :)

anyone willing to help me put a step by step "how to calibrate your H30 with Avia" ? - as more folks come on board it would help- i have spent some time with mine but i still think i can milk a bit more out of it- This thread is way too much to take in and i think some valuable info could get lost. We could add it to the FAQ after it's complete. I want to get into the auto calibrate features esp since the H30's are so far off from each other and from my understanding the auto cal's adjust to the output of your player.
Is it agreeable that avia is the better of the calibration disc available to the general consumer? If not- it is possible to put together a diy test disk with the necessary test patterns? I think i have all the tools to pull it off and if it works well- I could make a few discs and we could pass it around or what ever.

chime in with thoughts esp guys who've been messing around with pj's-

rudee

So Optoma is cross-shipping me a new H30, which I've asked that they take out and test to make sure it doesn't buzz. Hopefully they will do that and everything will be all right. I had to put a charge on my credit card, but it'll come back to me in a couple of days, so no huge loss. At least now I will have the H30 in time for my party.

Hopefully I'll have better luck with this unit.

geoff

Ryan,
Wait till after 100hrs to use a program like colorfacts. You seem to be doing ok without it though. Milori did have a rental program but when I checked they didn't send out the One Eye or the newer sensor. Mabye things have changed.
It's a very good program and it's good for peace of mind.

yes i agree with tom wait till after 100 hrs :) ,one to make sure the unit is ok

2- to let the red push go away ;)

Anyone have an idea what this is --

I see a border of unused pixels all around the image. I sending the h30 a vga 800x600 @75Hz. It correctly recognizes this signal. But I see a thin band of pixels all around the picture which are not being used.The projector is in 4:3 native, switching to 4:3 did nothing.

I tried the adjustments in the signal menu ands the zoom, nothing seemed to cover these pixels up. They remain unused.

For a 480i widescreen pic, I still see the unused pixels on the vertical edges regardless of the mode the pj is in (16:9 or 16:9 native...).

Thanks!!!

Thanks, guys. I will certainly wait awhile before any serious calibration.

Thanks Tom for the screenposts. Im going to die if I dont get my H30 soon! If I go with a 4:3 screen and set PJ to 16:9 where will the 16:9 picture be displayed ie top middle or bottom of the 4:3 screen?

It will be at the bottom Himate. All the light spill will be at the top. This holds true regardless if you have it desktop or ceiling mounted. One thing you have to be careful about this projector is the huge offset coupled with the fact that the image is projected to the bottom of the panel forces you to place it really high on the ceiling.

Originally posted by jigrillo
It will be at the bottom Himate. All the light spill will be at the top. This holds true regardless if you have it desktop or ceiling mounted.

Right, you're 1.85 and HDTV will fill more than 2/3's of the bottom of the screen. You can use 16.9native with HDTV & DVD. You just get different sizes and quickly get use to the fact the image is at the bottom. On the plus side the image is closer to your eye viewing level.

I find this works great. Hit 16.9native for a 2.35 movie and you get the full 480 vertical res while the width covers the full width. Somethings on in 4.3, hit the 4.3 natve button and your image covers the whole screen. Watch HDTV hit the 16.9native button and get an image that covers 2/3's of the lower area of the screen. Works very well indeed! :)

Hey Tom, is the pixel size the only difference that you noticed with the panamorph? Did it appear brighter, and what about the contrast or light spill elimination? Could you tell the difference between the picture with or without the panamorph. I really appreciate all your help Tom.

to continue with aspect ratios...

If I build a 16x9 screen and get the H30 setup so everything is aligned properly, then throw in a 1.85 or 2.35 DVD, will the top/bottom black bars be of equal size? That is, will 1.85 and 2.35 DVD's always be centered on my 16x9 screen? Or will I have one big black bar at the top or bottom?


And on a side note...

Just noticed over in the 4805 thread that someone got a response from an Infocus Engineer saying the noise level for the 4805 is 39db normal / 37db econo! That will likely be a turning point for many users. I don't care how good a PJ is, if it's too noisy it's not an option for me. Mine will have to be mounted 3' to 4' directly above main seating area.

Originally posted by Hi8mate
Thanks Tom for the screenposts. Im going to die if I dont get my H30 soon! If I go with a 4:3 screen and set PJ to 16:9 where will the 16:9 picture be displayed ie top middle or bottom of the 4:3 screen?
If you take a close look at the Gladiator Tiger 2 screenshot in my gallery (sorry for the poor quality) you will see where a 2.35 movie "lands" on a 4:3 screen when using native 16:9 setting. For a 80" diagonal 4:3 screen there is about 5" below the image not used and about the top 25-30% of the screen is not used.

As a side note- the light spill on the unused portion of the screen above the image shows up in the photograph MUCH more than in person. It will however give you an idea of placement. This was also done without the lens mask as that thing basically doesn't do much for me other than dim the bottom right edge of the image no matter how many times I adjust it.

Cheers!

We just tried the lens for a minute. Didn't check all the things you need to like offset or how different aspects work. It didn't look much brighter because the H30 is bright to start with. I'm just happy with the image without the lens so I didn;t see a huge difference.

My experience with panamorph lenses is with the HT1000. I tested NEC's lens and it did brighten up the picture allot, almost too much the black bars went to a gray color. What I did like with the 1024X768 res being compressed was the resolution difference was very noticeable. DVD & HDTV looked more intense and the pixel size was half the size again and allot less noticeable. I'd imagine the same rules apply to the H30 but at a lessor degree.

You thinking of jumping on the $500 deal?

Just thought of something, you'll have to swing away the lens for any 4.3 viewing. If you leave it on all 4.3 will be stretched out wide.

I am thinking of jumping on the $500 deal. I just want to make sure that I will actually notice a difference. My fear is spending the money, to then find out that I can't notice a difference. I don't mind swinging it away for 4:3, but I would like to know if its worth its hefty price tag.

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
to continue with aspect ratios...

If I build a 16x9 screen and get the H30 setup so everything is aligned properly, then throw in a 1.85 or 2.35 DVD, will the top/bottom black bars be of equal size? That is, will 1.85 and 2.35 DVD's always be centered on my 16x9 screen? Or will I have one big black bar at the top or bottom?


And on a side note...

Just noticed over in the 4805 thread that someone got a response from an Infocus Engineer saying the noise level for the 4805 is 39db normal / 37db econo! That will likely be a turning point for many users. I don't care how good a PJ is, if it's too noisy it's not an option for me. Mine will have to be mounted 3' to 4' directly above main seating area.

You right that's going to be way to loud. I can't imagine them having a fan that loud at this time in the game. That's as loud as the old NEC LT150 which I had and needed a hush box for sure. Lets hope for them those numbers are wrong.

If you want to go 16.9 screen for the H30. You use the 16.9scaled aspect and setup with a 1.85 movie. From there everything else falls into place. The bars will be of equal size above and below on a 2.35 movie. They'll be no bars on a 1.85 movie. 4.3 scaled aspect will display 4.3 material within the 16.9 screen with black bars on the sides. You could make use of the lens mask to cover the light spill above the 16.9 screen. Make use of the tape tweak to blot it out. You can find the sweet spot where the light starts just above the 16.9 screen.

Originally posted by jigrillo
I am thinking of jumping on the $500 deal. I just want to make sure that I will actually notice a difference. My fear is spending the money, to then find out that I can't notice a difference. I don't mind swinging it away for 4:3, but I would like to know if its worth its hefty price tag.

The lenses are normally $800 to $1000 so you'll be protected on resale down the road. Not so much of a gamble.

Hey Guys,

Do you think there is something wrong with my unit because the dimmer causes it to buzz or do you think that is something that would happen no matter what unit I got?

I decided to just keep the one I have as of right now, as long as the buzz doesn't get louder during movies (Something it was doing early on). I should note that I can hear the unit buzz from 5' away even when its the low buzz, but I can hear the fan from the same distance and even further, so its not that big of a deal. When it gets louder during the movie, I could probably hear it in another room, and when I have the dimmers on it gets the loudest.

Well as I said I decided to stick with this unit unless you guys think this might cause some other problems down the road. If I notice the buzz getting louder during a movie again though then I will send it back. Have about 60hrs on the bulb at this point.

Thanks for your recommendations.

Originally posted by ac2003
I see a border of unused pixels all around the image. I sending the h30 a vga 800x600 @75Hz. It correctly recognizes this signal. But I see a thin band of pixels all around the picture which are not being used.The projector is in 4:3 native, switching to 4:3 did nothing.


I see this as well, though I had assumed it was because I was using the keystoning feature. Perhaps I was mistaken...

Also, you'll probably want to set your output to 800x600 @ 60Hz. I noticed a lot of "tearing" when watching DVDs when I had my HTPC set to 75Hz.

-MD

Originally posted by hikarate
Hey Guys,

Do you think there is something wrong with my unit because the dimmer causes it to buzz or do you think that is something that would happen no matter what unit I got?

I don't know what to tell ya bud. My projector is in the same room with 8 recessed lights on two separate dimmer switches. It is not on the same circuit with them however but others have said that doesn't make a difference. There are another 3 dimmers upstairs for different lights. I also bought all these dimmers from a home improvement store (not HD or Lowes) and installed them myself. They were like $18-25 units so I would guess they most certainly are not high end. I got no buzzin whatsoever no matter which ones are on and at what level.

Sorry...

hikarate ,

--- I just tried my current H30 with a Wall Dimmer and I heard no Buzzing [ just as gotta posted above ] .

------- Jason

Also I was noticing that above 60hz I would see some sparkies intermitently...like a sparkling star brighter than the picture,..specially just in windows desktop. So I have it set to 800x450 @ 60hz and it works rather well.


Originally posted by Maboroshi Daikon
I see this as well, though I had assumed it was because I was using the keystoning feature. Perhaps I was mistaken...

Also, you'll probably want to set your output to 800x600 @ 60Hz. I noticed a lot of "tearing" when watching DVDs when I had my HTPC set to 75Hz.

-MD

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
hikarate ,

--- I just tried my current H30 with a Wall Dimmer and I heard no Buzzing [ just as gotta posted above ] .

------- Jason
So how does that work Jason- can you set the wall dimmer at half way and have the H30 in super econo mode? Should the bulb then last 6,000 hours? I would guess complete light control would then be mandatory. :)

Hey hikarate!! there's your answer pal. Put the H30 on a dimmer and turn the switch down slowly till there's no more buzz. Problem solved. :D

hehehe

Haha , Very Funny gotta :D - lol

_____________________________

--- For the refresh related issues , the H30 should be getting 60Hz [ even though higher refresh rates will work they are not ideal - remember this is not a CRT PC monitor ;) ] .


--------- Jason

Thanks for the feedback guys,

Good to see ya posting again Pimp, its been a while.

I am gonna bring it down this weekend and try it on some different plugs and take it over my buddies house and see if it buzzes over there just to make sure it isn't something to do with the wiring in my house. It was built in 2001 though so shouldn't be a problem, plus haven't had any other issues with any other electronics, but ya never know.

hikarate, I would not give up on sticking it to Optoma. This is their fault, not your house wiring or even if you are using cheap noisy dimmers.

Stick your ear on just about any electrical appliance that is plugged into the wall and you can hear slight buzzing. DVD players, TVs, monitors, PCs, stereo units, etc. Got a Flurorescent (sp?) light in your house? Flip it on, chances are you will hear a buzz coming from the ballast in the fixture.

Almost all that buzzing is coming from the power transformers inside the appliances. The transformers have to be coated with a varnish (or in some cases, potting compound) to keep the vibrations to a minimum.

The point being here guys, the source of the problem is not noisy dimmers. Its some poorly constructed component inside the H30. I would not let Optoma get by with this. Sure, you might be able to live with it by removing half or all the dimmers in your house. But that won't take away the fact that Optoma has a quality issue that they have to take care of.

Let me put it this way. If it is due to one or more poorly constructed components within the H30, over time a few of you might get lucky and the mechanics will change so that the noise will get less. Heh, but that's not how mother nature normally works. We all know, over time, squeaks turn into grinds, and grinds turn into BILLS!!!

I would not let the fact that you can control the loudness of the buzzing via a dimmer steer your thinking into believing its not Optoma's responsibility. There are already people here who are complaining about buzzing with no dimmers in the house. The noisy dimmers are only exposing the inherent defect within the unit.

Chuck ,

--- Firstly , thank you for your Electrical experience/input :D .

--- I have the same opinion on the matter but since I do not have a buzzing unit I cannot force the issue with Optoma [ almost wish that I could since I am about to move onto a 3rd unit ] . Regardless of how great the image is with the H30 there are some serious build quality issues that need to be taken care of before I will suggest this PJ to any of my friends or relatives [ several of which are considering front projection ] . The excuse that lower quality parts are used in the H30 [ vs. higher end units ] which is supposed to make these issues acceptable does not fly with me either . We all have to hold companies accountable for what they sell to us consumers , if we don't then we will continue to get products that seem great on the outside but are lacking on the inside [ I know I stated this same thing about a month ago in this thread ] .

--- I mean how great is an obviously very well designed PJ if it is built poorly !

--- I know I am more skeptical than most H30 owners here but after all the issues that I have had with the H30 I think I am being very considerate [ even though I do not hold back from stating my opinion and I bring up new problems frequently - this has to be done IMO ] .

------- Jason

Hey Chuck,

Thanks for the response.
You are right. I'll return the unit, how are they going to fix issues like this if customers do not send them back? My only problem is that whatever replacement unit they send me may or may not have the buzz. I hope if they do determine it is a QA issue with their projectors, and eventually address the issue, that people with these buzzing units can get a trade in. So far it seems its only a handful of units that have this problem.

Ok Guys,

I just called Optoma RMA center and spoke with David. He said they were aware of the problem and looking into it, but had not been able to reproduce it yet. I told him about my dimmer plug from HD and he said they would pick up a couple and see if they could reproduce it. I didn't get an RMA yet, but told him I could send my unit in with my dimmer plug if they were unable to reproduce the behavior.
He told me not to worry about the warranty period or anything, if they are able to reproduce it and fix it they will give me a replacement. Said it may take a couple months for them to figure this one out, but they were working on it.
He said Wing was aware of the issue and they were looking into it.
Anyhow, thats the story.
I don't think they want to send me out a replacement which may or may not buzz, and honestly, I don't want one for the same reason. I just hope they can reproduce and fix this problem and then hook me up with a non-buzzing PJ.
How many buzzing units have been reported in the thread 3? me Valk and Flea?

well i just talked to my guy down here and he said that the new optoma h57 and 77 will have 7 or 8 segment color wheel ;) and the price range will be really good " supposedly cheaper than the pj"s in there class :)



he says September but might be a little earlier



and i will try to see i there is going to be another h3? something comming ?

I went back and read allot of this thread. There's been a couple of bad bulbs (Mike's first), a couple of orange lights on start up that didn't repeat, a few with the buzzing sound.

Seems to me this isn't an out of control breakout of major problems. There's a mass majority of people with no problems and very happy, me included.

There's bound to be some flaws in a few machines for all the lines. Look at the crazing color wheel on the HT1000's. Here's a picture of a shadow problem I had on my HT1000 amoung having my first three have dead pixels. :( I'd say the NEC had a worst track record and it's considered one of the best companys.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/necprob3.jpg

Jason does your shadow look like this. Nec had to replace the light chamber on that HT1000.

Originally posted by new teq joe
well i just talked to my guy down here and he said that the new optoma h57 and 77 will have 7 or 8 segment color wheel ;) and the price range will be really good " supposedly cheaper than the pj"s in there class :)



he says September but might be a little earlier



and i will try to see i there is going to be another h3? something comming ?


There's a H77 thread in the 3.5up area. Show a mits re-badge with stat info.

hey tom i don't think it is going to be rebageged pj and there is a guy that states the the h30 is a terrible pj :confused: that was funny check the board you will find it :)

I see you over there, too funny.

Said enough on that review thread. How about the blind shot? :) I never saw Leeloo look so good.

tom he just replied to you again ;)

Got him! actually I needed a good chuckle. His review was worth something.

I guess we should play nice now. ;)

tom the h57 is in my bulls eye i think this pj will be mine soon ?


and that will be my last upgrade for a wile ,;)


man i am turning in to you tom :eek: i need deeper pockets :D

I do like 4.3 machines and always said the HT1000 hands down was the very best HT/xga4.3 proejctor. Looks like the projector world will have a new King.

Just to say my new h30 is working great and glad to report no problems at 44 hours and am very happy..no buzz only fan and I have two dimmers in room...

By the way that other review guy is out of his mind thinking this projector is only worth $1000 hahaha. He must be living on Mars. Everyone that sees this projector is shocked to find out how little I paid for it...

yeh he is funny he called me "tequito joe" what is that :confused: ,at least if he made a mistake on my name he could of called me "tequila joe " that would of been cool :p

If someone doesn't want to believe the contributors to this thread, I would just point to the reviews of the H30 from other sources, which so far have been unanimously very positive. Like I said way back, when I saw the H30 at CES, I wasn't that impressed, but the projector wasn't set up properly IMO and that may be the case here as well.

BTW, I'm on the final stretch of setting up the H30 in it's own room and hope to have some pictures this weekend. It's been pretty much inactive for a couple of weeks now, so I'm really getting anxious to watch some DVDs. :D

BTW, I'm on the final stretch of setting up the H30 in it's own room and hope to have some pictures this weekend. It's been pretty much inactive for a couple of weeks now, so I'm really getting anxious to watch some DVDs.



should be nice when complete ;)

[QUOTE]This may have riled up people, but it's not really my purpose. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. Nor will I sugar-coat my honest opinions.
I don't think I'm better. I merely expressed my dissatisfaction with the projector. Well, whether you like it or not, many people are blind. I can see why though, the minute someone like me disagrees, I nearly get stoned. Ok, bad analogy. But I've spent more time defending myself than actually reviewing the product. Watch what you want, but thus far my opinion of the H30 stands. It is merely a slightly above average product that has been tauted as a vastly superior one.
I'll have more in depth in the upcoming days.


just to show you that this guy is a^%^T he always slips in a smart comment so thank god the people here and even on the 4805 thread are mature about things but this guy is , ohhhhhhh well :)


but at least the new guys that started here are now more in tuned with stuff and believe me i do notice a big change in a lot you guys , it almost makes me cry ,seriously great folks here and want to learn the facts not bull sh^%^,


but different strokes for different folks




well this is his thread if you are in the mood for a chuckle
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=404121&perpage=20&pagenumber=2

Just want to say that I've also been working with David and he's been super helpful and responsive. I've sent him all the info as to how my setup was and it sounds like the techs at Optoma are really trying to nail down the reasons for the buzzing problem. i, for one, never thought the buzzing was so bad and would have lived with it if my unit hadn't died. :(

But i hope for a new unit now without the buzzing on the off chance that it was somehow related to my pj's sudden death. Anyway, the guys at Optoma were super helpful and talking to them was more like talking to someone at a neighborhood store than a multinational. it's the kind of thing that makes you buy from a company again.

g

Hey Shatten,

Well Shatten, you are 4 on the buzz list, sorry I forgot you. Let me know if your new unit fixes the problem. I know Flea's new unit did the trick, but Valk ended up with another buzzer. If you get a new unit that doesn't buzz then I may push for an RMA. I could live with my buzzing if I had to, but if the new units fix the problem, then I'd rather get one that doesn't buzz. I got enough quirks with my screen that I already have to live with, don't need one with my projector as well...
I second that David was very helpful and ready to assist. Sounded like they are very concerned and plan to troubleshoot this thoroughly. I work in Tech Support myself so I just do what I can to help and hope for the best. So far I have no reason to doubt this company or their product.

Optoma really needs to give a special thanks to Tom, Mike, and Jason though. Considering how long I have had the PJ and this is my first call into support about any issue. I have been getting 100% support straight from this site, and I have to say it is the BEST support I have ever had for any product.
Major thanks to you 3, and everyone else who contributes to this thread. All of you really have been extremely helpful with all the issues we have discussed about this PJ. Thanks!

Originally posted by new teq joe
[QUOTE]This may have riled up people, but it's not really my purpose. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. Nor will I sugar-coat my honest opinions.
I don't think I'm better. I merely expressed my dissatisfaction with the projector. Well, whether you like it or not, many people are blind. I can see why though, the minute someone like me disagrees, I nearly get stoned. Ok, bad analogy. But I've spent more time defending myself than actually reviewing the product. Watch what you want, but thus far my opinion of the H30 stands. It is merely a slightly above average product that has been tauted as a vastly superior one.
I'll have more in depth in the upcoming days.


just to show you that this guy is a^%^T he always slips in a smart comment so thank god the people here and even on the 4805 thread are mature about things but this guy is , ohhhhhhh well :)


but at least the new guys that started here are now more in tuned with stuff and believe me i do notice a big change in a lot you guys , it almost makes me cry ,seriously great folks here and want to learn the facts not bull sh^%^,


but different strokes for different folks




well this is his thread if you are in the mood for a chuckle
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=404121&perpage=20&pagenumber=2

Teq,

Why are you quoting behind my back and ALSO out of context? That's a little bit cheap, don't you think? Why do you find humor in what I write? If I disagree then I either:

a. Have it setup incorrectly
b. trying to be funny.
c. don't know any better.
d. flaming

This is the general reaction I've been receiving. I think it's pretty immature myself. Just please lay off of it already. No need to pseudo-curse either.

peace out.

do i dare ask?

For those that have seen both a 'properly' setup X1 and h30, is the price difference worth going for the h30?

Originally posted by Hawkson
For those that have seen both a 'properly' setup X1 and h30, is the price difference worth going for the h30?

I saw a LOT more rainbows (actually, primary color flashes) on the X1 whenever I wasn't looking straight at it--for example, when I turned my head to look at something else. I see none of that on the H30 except when the Apple DVD player frame is on the screen. So, I'd say yes if you're prone to seeing rainbows. Other than that, I remember the X1's picture as pretty good.

What sold me on the H30 was Tom's comment that it was performed well compared to the HT1000, which was the standout amongst the other two I was looking at that day, namely the X1 and the Panny 300.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

Well Shatten, you are 4 on the buzz list,

hikarate:
This make's me number 5 :( , and I think I am the only one with both the Buzz and the Green Bar.
I now have 120hr and I have no dimmers at all - I am going for a new Unit.

Ariel

Originally posted by arieldr
hikarate:
This make's me number 5 :( , and I think I am the only one with both the Buzz and the Green Bar.
I now have 120hr and I have no dimmers at all - I am going for a new Unit.

Ariel

And since Valk ended up with a 2nd buzzer doesn't that make 6? Just trying to keep count since if you go by the number of posts it sometimes seems like DOZENS of bad PJ's but it only looks that way.

I can put up with green bars because this can probably be fixed with a simple firmware update. But the buzz still has me very concerned. Even if the majority of people are ok now, I wonder how many will turn into buzzers over the next year or two?

So we stand at 6 buzzers? Or maybe 6.5 because Tom's originally had a buzz but it went away ;-)

miss quoted :confused: you wrote it and it is not behind no buddies back as you can see it on the thread :rolleyes: , so i am done with this little game , now it is time to get into our regular program :) . and change the channel .

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
I wonder how many will turn into buzzers over the next year or two?


Maybe Chuck can comment on the likelyhood of that happening. I would guess it is not likely, but maybe he has more info.

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
I wonder how many will turn into buzzers over the next year or two?


:) I think it's time UnknownShadow stops worrying and jumps aboard with his H30 purchase. You're not getting any younger and I see ulcers in you're future if you keep on this way. ;)
For you the 4805 is now out now so take a chance, you got a good warranty and supplies may run out again.

Pls post up a review once received.

Way to put the umph on him there Optoma sales and marketing engine! :D

Of course- I jest (and agree) :)

Originally posted by guitarman
:) I think it's time UnknownShadow stops worrying and jumps aboard with his H30 purchase. You're not getting any younger and I see ulcers in you're future if you keep on this way. ;)
For you the 4805 is now out now so take a chance, you got a good warranty and supplies may run out again.

Pls post up a review once received.

I'm pretty close Tom!
Must.... reach..... for phone..... must... place..... order...

I am just one of those guys who has NO luck when it comes to electronics. If there is 1 in a million bad units, I'll get the bad unit. LOL!

In any case, if/when I get an H30 I'll definitely post a review. Thanks to everyone here for putting up with me "worrying outloud"!

Again on a side note, what is everyones opinion on protecting the H30 with a UPS or Voltage Regulator. I started a new thread on that topic so head on over there if you have feedback. Seems like a voltage regulator would be more beneficial to keep the H30's bulb fed with a clean signal. A few people have mentioned cheap UPS's often *ADD* line noise!

Yeah I say you go ahead and get an H30 Shadow, you have about the coolest name in the forum so you are a welcome addition to our thread here :) As soon as I get my cabling issue resolved I will have some screens up guys.

Can someone with Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone get some screenshots of the opening scene.
With the Owl sitting on the sign. I get a lot of dithering with the fog in this scene, up to the point where Dumbledore puts out all the lights. Its a foggy night scene. Just looking for any suggestions to minimize this effect. Kras posted here a while back and mentioned this is a shortcoming of DLP, Also, in all the H30 reviews I read online it says it doesn't dither much compared to other models.

My main problem is I have no point of reference to compare how bad these things are, since this is my first pj and I am upgrading from the directview CRT. Anyhow, if any of you guys could check that scene out and see if you have dithering in the fog I would appreciate it. Also, when Dumbledore walks out of the woods he looks pretty 2d. I think this is also caused by the dithering effect. This scene stands out moreso than others I have viewed mainly because the DVD looks very good most of the way through, and its just this beginning scene that comes out with subpar performance. Hopefully I'll have some screnes of this next week. Anyhow, thanks again guys.

I am just one of those guys who has NO luck when it comes to electronics. If there is 1 in a million bad units, I'll get the bad unit. LOL!

This is the story of my life, and I all ready got / bought the defective unit so you are safe. :)

Ariel

Shadow, I tried my projector with both a 500VA UPS and currently with a Nady 1800W line conditioner. In both cases, my units (both of them) still produced the "buzzing" sound.

I'm still hoping to get a third unit locally to compare to. After hearing everyone say the projector is just "whisper quiet," I can't help but think I'm just really unlucky and got two bad units. :) Mine's more like "nest of hornets quiet," but it still looks fantastic, especially once I got the projector to read the VGA cable appropriately as a YPrPB signal rather than the RGB off my scaler.

Originally posted by arieldr
This is the story of my life, and I all ready got / bought the defective unit so you are safe. :)

Ariel

LOL! Ok I feel better now ;-)

Ok then, time to get serious and start measuring for my H30 ;-)

Forgive me if these numbers are wrong but in a previous post someone mentioned (I think it was you Tom) their H30 offset was something like this...

Ceiling to middle of lens = 6"
Ceiling to top of screen = 38.5"
Lens to screen = 173"

I'm not sure how to properly calculate offset but I'm assuming it would be something like...
38.5 - 6 equals a 32.5" drop over 173 inches.
32.5 / 173 equals 0.1878" drop for every inch your pj is from the screen

In my case, I'd be projecting at about 11' and the screen would be 72x40.5
Adding 2" around for a black border would make the screen 76x44.5

So assuming my lens was also 6" down from the ceiling then I'd be looking at the following drop for the top of my screen...
132" x 0.1878 = 24.79" drop from center of lens
add the 6" means top of my screen is roughly 31" down from my ceiling.

My ceilings are 92" high so 92 - 31 - 44.5 means the bottom of my screen would only be 16.5 inches off the floor??? Is that why some people have said the H30 offset is too extreme for them to use in their room? Assuming I have those numbers correct then what type of artifacts will I get by using tilt/keystone?

Tom, you also mentioned you could set the DVD player to 4.3 Letterbox to help with offset...
- - -
"About you guys wanting a better offset, you can set your dvd player to 4.3 Letterbox and get the better offset with the image in the middle of the frame. I did several a/b's to try to see a difference. The difference is hardly noticable if not at all. So if you have a low ceiling this type setup would be very beneficial."
- - -

But someone else mentioned you then loose resolution? What is the recommended setting for a DVD player when using the H30? Should the DVD player be set to 4.3 or 16.9? How do you loose resolution when using 4.3?

And if you have time left over, please explain the meaning of life ;-)

Huh- I just read the hybridtheory review... didn't know what you guys were talking about until now. He's entitled to his opinion- I have no problem with that. He could lighten up a bit with his opinions of the subjectiveness of H30 owners though.

Which.... brings me to my theory :D

We have not heard from our favorite love/hate (most often with the emphasis on hate) relationship with FP's guy Ryan (rsmith4321) in awhile. His last post indicated he wasn't real happy with the brightness of his replacement H30. Methinks he returned it and now wants to spurn the unit.

Sound feasible? Of course- I think everything is a conspiracy. :)

My apologies in advance if it's not you Ryan :) Just havin a little Friday fun.

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
Ok then, time to get serious and start measuring for my H30 ;-)

My ceilings are 92" high so 92 - 31 - 44.5 means the bottom of my screen would only be 16.5 inches off the floor???
I had to many beers after softball last night to really follow your calculations there Shadow :) I cannot envision your screen being that low though. I have the following:

*86" ceiling
*lens center exactly 6" below ceiling on Panavise
*9'9" throw
*bottom of 4:3 screen (that doesn't matter for this discussion) is 29" from the floor.
*no keystone used, very slight upward tilt to the projector.

I would have a tough time believing that extra 1'3" of throw is going to drop your image that far, especially when your ceilings are 6" higher than mine.

Grab.... .... phone ..... .. .. . place.......order......... :)

I've been lurking here for quite sometime. I've been researching for my first FP for almost a year. I decided on the H30 and just received it from Dell yesterday. The only trouble I had with setting it up last night was the component input (no signal detected). But I finally got that ok. I think it was the VGA-RCA adapter was not seated quite right.

Watched "Finding Nemo" and was just blown away! The image was 3D like, rich colors (my dvd player is a Panasonic RA-60, interlaced component). I didn't get a chance to play with the settings yet (my daughter was anxious for me to get it going). But I saw it was mostly already set to what I would have started out with anyway. I did see some SDE but not too bad. The H30 is on a table about 14 or 15' feet back, image about 7' wide on a semi gloss white wall and I was sitting about 12' feet away. No measurements, just set it up and let 'er rip. So I'm assuming that I'll make some improvements once I get a chance to play with the settings. For the foreseeable future I'll be just using this as a portable, between a couple of different rooms. I do have a room that I'll make into a dedicated home theater but that's a few years off. But I wanted to have a FP now, and (hopefully) the H30 should do nicely.

But the bad news is that mine is buzzing. I didn't find it extremely distracting but it is there. I'm not too worried because of the warranty. And I don't want to send it back until Optoma has found a definitive answer for this buzzing. I figure to exchange it now would be just a crap shoot. I'll see how it goes this weekend and then give Optoma a call next week, at least just to notify them of the buzzing issue.

The hardest part is going to be deciding what I'm going to watch tonight...

thanks to all here!
Jeff

Hey I got mine through Dell as well and it was a buzzer. Wonder how many others got theirs through Dell that buzzes.

The unit I got from Dell had a very slight buzz the first few hours, but it is nice and quiet now... (still have < 10 hours on it..)
I think it was initial color-wheel buzz that has worked itself out... It's definitely quieter than my ae100, which is rated at 30db. The tone is also less irritating...

gotta, that's strange. Tom's numbers and you're numbers don't seem to jive. Are you running your DVD player in 4.3 or 16.9 mode? Maybe the difference has to do with the 16.9 image using the bottom of the chip vs the middle of the chip, depending on what mode your DVD player is in?

Am I correct in assuming the H30 will drop the top of your screen 0.1878" from the ceiling for every 1" you move the pj back from the screen? Regardless of aspect ration. Can some other users calculate their numbers?

oh yeah, and Jeff's buzzer brings the total to 7 right?

Guys, make sure you ALL report your buzzing issues to Optoma so they can get to the bottom of this. I'm very surprised they say they have not been able to reproduce it!

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
Ok then, time to get serious and start measuring for my H30 ;-)


Use the chart that's in the new H30 manuals. It was posted here previously by fallenturtle. Here's the link:

http://www.fallenturtledesign.com/random/h30_throwangle.gif

UnknownShadow, i wrote a long post explaing stuff but then when i clicked submit i lost it so here is a summary ;p.

Optoma puts the 16:9 image at the bottom of the h30's 4:3 chip because it is supposed to have the best picture at bottom and top of chip, i see no noticible difference, (think about it when watching 4:3 video you don't see any difference in clarity between the middle of the image and top)

(note your calculation was wrong in that you are using the 16:9 screen height (40.5") instead of the 4:3 screen height (54") .. because the h30 puts 16:9 at the bottom of the 4:3 chip (or center if you set your dvd player to 4:3 or use a htpc))

Using gottahavapj calculations and adjusting them your image should appear at 29+6+6.75-2 = 39.75" ... 29 inches from gottahavepj, 6 because your ceiling is 6 inches higher, 6.75 if you use the center of the chip (moves the image up (54-40.5)/2 , 2 inches because your are projecting 1.5 ft farther.

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
gotta, that's strange. Tom's numbers and you're numbers don't seem to jive. Are you running your DVD player in 4.3 or 16.9 mode?

**I always leave my DVD changer in 16:9 mode, I want the biggest picture possible for my limited throw distance.

Maybe the difference has to do with the 16.9 image using the bottom of the chip vs the middle of the chip, depending on what mode your DVD player is in?

Am I correct in assuming the H30 will drop the top of your screen 0.1878" from the ceiling for every 1" you move the pj back from the screen? Regardless of aspect ration. Can some other users calculate their numbers?

**I have a 4:3 screen so I don't think this would apply for me.

My original one was from Dell, it was a buzzer. The RMA unit I got back from Optoma was a buzzer as well.

Originally posted by hikarate
Optoma really needs to give a special thanks to Tom, Mike, and Jason though. Considering how long I have had the PJ and this is my first call into support about any issue. I have been getting 100% support straight from this site, and I have to say it is the BEST support I have ever had for any product.
Major thanks to you 3, and everyone else who contributes to this thread. All of you really have been extremely helpful with all the issues we have discussed about this PJ. Thanks!

i second that. and without AVS, i'd probably still be staring at a 27" sony wega.

thanks guys

geoff

I'll third that AVS. If it wasn't for the Projectors forum I would hv never learned about Colorfacts or be Lucky enough to find a deal on one. Using that program taught me what a true 6500k can look like. To a point where from memory you can summon up an image similar to this.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h30lee14.3.jpg

An absolute thing of beauty, or is what's her name a beauty? :)

Ok-
so I got my new H30 and so far...

NO BUZZING! And, I just installed a really cheap external dimmer, so go figure.

I hope everyone gets their problems worked out and I hope that the buzzing isn't something that develops...


back to movie watching.

g

Well I just got done watching LOTR:ROTK on the H30 and I must say that movies like this make me want to keep the H30 ;) . The image was simply stunning with this dvd IMO [ not the best dvd that I have ever seen but an excellent transfer - cannot wait for the Ext.Ed. :) ] .

-- I was able to get my retail ROTK a bit early as I know somebody that works in the Video Rental industry :D .

--------- Jason

She sure is a beauty, Tom... -and thanks for the nice screenshots.

Now, as I come from planet PAL contemplating my first projector purchase, I'm a bit worried about the low resolution of the H30. I thought I could tell from Fabbas' screenshots in posts #178 through #180 that the image from the H30 looked a bit softer than the other two. However, I later learned that the DT200 is a 800x600px projector as well. So the (IMO) lesser focus of the H30 screenshot is not related to the resolution. Having seen the Infocus 4800 and 5700 today, I consider rainbows from the 4800 to be a bigger problem for me than the lower resolution. (I could rarely and barely see RBE on the 5700) So my choice between the H30 and the BenQ 6200 should be an easy one, right?

Boye

"So my choice between the H30 and the BenQ 6200 should be an easy one"

Right, The H30

Wow Jason got ROTK, no fair!
I was going to suggest to anyone exchanging to wait until after next Tuesday so they could at least view this movie.
Jason, How's that uniformity problem. Got a screen shot? You know just twisting the focus ring around might clear it up, maybe

About ROTK, I'm up for that movie, haven't seen it yet. I'll have to throw my wife out of the house on Tuesday night. Don't want any freakouts about the house rumbling do to subwoofers at THX levels. Can't wait

Originally posted by shatten22
Ok-
so I got my new H30 and so far...

NO BUZZING! And, I just installed a really cheap external dimmer, so go figure.

I hope everyone gets their problems worked out and I hope that the buzzing isn't something that develops...


back to movie watching.

g

Hey small miracles can happen. good news

Tom ,
--- the image is just dimmer up in the right corner , there is no line at which it gets dimmer [ it is just a gradual dimming to-wards the corner ] . I have re-adjusted the focus a couple times already and it remains exactly the same . I do not think a screen-shot could capture it well enough to show , it is not a huge difference but still detectable [ at least by me as my eyes are too well trained ] .


--- Yes , Yes ... ROTK is a real treat on the H30 , the color and details look as good as my 21" trinitron monitor [ which I am watching parts of it on right now as I type :D ] .


------- Jason

off topic-

but didn't you think that LOTR: ROTK was a bit long?

like an hour too long?

And I don't seem to remember that hobbit-bedroom-orgy in the book...

(something for you to look forward to Tom.) :)

-geoff

Oh no, I didn't like the Pagen Sex dance in Matrix Reloaded or the lovey dovey Neo & Trinity. What do you mean Hobbit Orgy? Damn pervs lol

What do you mean Hobbit Orgy? Damn pervs lol


oh no and i was going to get the movie for my mom because she love l.o.t.r. oh man i think i will have to label the box " xxx" marked in purple :eek:

btw, larry wachowski is in the process of having a sex change to become LINDA wachowski. now you know what's up with all the s&m in the matrix...

g

btw, larry wachowski is in the process of having a sex change to become LINDA wachowski. now you know what's up with all the s&m in the matrix...



mmm really :eek: see the guys here on the thread get-the dirt to "cool"

Whats all this talk about ROTK coming out?
Don't you guys know Bubba-Hotep is out on Tuesday!?!?

I got my H30 for almost 2 weeks now, 37hrs on the bulb. I have noticed the following problems.

I currently have my xbox connected to H30. Still waiting for proper VGA cable to connect my computer to H30. Anyway, when having my xbox connected via hdtv (ntsc/480i) i have strange vertical lines from top to bottom on the screen. They seem to flicker and move a bit. When i have the xbox connected via composite cable these lines are not here. I have shot a picture...

<not allowed to paste urls>

Please note, this is not mpeg4 compression or whatsoever. I see these lines in every occasion. (when the background is black)
They also appear to be visible in 576i mode, but less. But maybe this was just the occasion... because in 480i mode they seem to random disappear and come back again.

2nd. I notice the brightness of the picture is fluctuating often! Very annoying. Its changing from bright to dark from time to time???
(i have also noticed this when connected to composite and when turning the h30 on (standby screen))

I wonder if i should send the h30 back or if these 2 problems are related to something else.

.

-

Annoying, wasn't allowed to paste an url before a total of 3 posts:

http://malaguena.fiberworld.nl/zzz/IMG_8296.JPG

Originally posted by Maboroshi Daikon
I see this as well, though I had assumed it was because I was using the keystoning feature. Perhaps I was mistaken...

Also, you'll probably want to set your output to 800x600 @ 60Hz. I noticed a lot of "tearing" when watching DVDs when I had my HTPC set to 75Hz.

-MD


Daikon, Saturn_AD,DaGamePimp, thanks for responding. I'll try 800x600 @60Hz insteads of @75Hz.

But any idea why this happens (the unused pixel border around the vertical sides) for 480i also?

BTW, I played Far Cry, Homeworld and Halo on this thing and simply loved it. Now my friends want to come over for gaming at my place :-))))

I am about 2 weeks out for my basement to be finished and I'm so confused about my projector decision. I love the H30 but with the problems they seem to be having I am hesitant to order one. On the other hand I really like the H56 but it's more than twice the price of the H30. And finally, the H57's will be released near the end of the year. My gut feeling tells me to go ahead with the H30 despite a "potential" problem. The price/performance ratio is just too tempting.

Another thing is that the HT1000 is well below the H56 in terms of price. I found about $800.00 difference between the two, based on the lowest price's I could find on the Internet.

P.S. Has anyone dealt with Cole Projectors?

-Dave

P.S. Has anyone dealt with Cole Projectors?

Dave,

I bought my projector from them.
Great to deal with very reliable and very flexible and BEST prices.
The guy I spoke with was Jason, he is the oner, I couldn't recommend more. He is the best dealer I ever dealt with.
There are at least 2 guys more on this Thread that has bought from Them.
So you can't go wrong with them.

P.S
I just put some pictures at my pictures gallery.

Ariel

nevar, regarding your 2nd notice:

I had also lots of brightness changes when using bad quality cable.

After changing to better cables, I see occasionally brightness changes in corners, see my previous post regarding that. It's now very minor though.

I also have PAL H30, and live in Europe.
I still assume these now quite rare brightness changes of my H30 could be related to cable/signal issues as well, unless we receive any new information.

Before sending your H30 for repair, try with better cables.

Hi guys

Used my H30 last night with UK Cable TV connected via the SCART adapter (Cable box set to RGB).
Noticed that the coulours looked washed out and had a greenish/blueish tinge to them - I had my 40" RPTV on at the same to to compare.
Skin tones on the TV looked great but everyone looked pale on the H30. I've not noticed this with DVD's and suspect something's already been covered within this post but any tips appreciated.

One other thing I noticed that's very odd is thet there appears to be a very small (MS) delay between when video is displayed on the H30 compared to the TV. I's started to suspect that the audio was fractionally out of sync when watching DVD's etc on the H30 but thought it was my imagination, but when watching a DVD on the H30 and TV at the same time the H30 does lay very, very slightly behind the TV. The delay is so slight that you'd never normally notice it and it's only really apparent when a scene goes dark/black. To be honest the delay is so small that it doesn't bother me at all but I'd be interested to see if this is something to do with my setup or the H30 - Anyone else confirm?

Nevar: I can't see any problems from your screenshot. Rolling credits photographed with a slow shutter? -Or is my TFT monitor not good enough to show what you are trying to tell?

Nevar and Vierimaa: Have you compared the H30 to higher resolution projectors with PAL DVDs? And would you consider it a small trade-off compared to the advantages of the H30?

http://malaguena.fiberworld.nl/zzz/new.jpg

Here's the same picture, but with raised brightness (done via photoshop)
Do you see the hazy lines/stripes from top to bottom ?
(don't look at the rolling credits)

@Vierimaa

I currently use a Xbox HDTV pack and the Xbox composite cable. I'm waiting for my 60 euro vga cable to arrive, (which should be high quality) so i will check out if i still have brightness changes when i have that cable connected.

Much better now. My guess (based on similar posts) would be that it could be caused by noise from the mains supply. - From an electronic light dimmer - a freezer running, or something like that

Hey Nevar,

I believe there are test patterns on Avia that will show those lines very clearly. I had them with my 50' S-video cable. When I switched over to the 50' Component with Ferrites they went away. I think good quality cables might fix that for you. What cables are you currently running and whats the total length?
I'm currently trying to switch over to a 25' VGA and 12' Component, but currently running 50'VGA and 3' Component.

I have to say that the 50+3 combo looks fine. I really don't have any complaints on the image, but just got the 25' to see if there is a difference.

Nevar, let us know if better quality cable helps.
My VGA cable costed only 16 euros, 5m length, and it already did the trick. I got a good deal though. If price has anything to do with quality your cable should be much better. :)

I used some 3rd party RGB cables with PS2 and only fourth one worked fine. Others changed brightness constantly. By the way, I haven't spotted any brightness changes tonight, just enjoyed the marvellous picture. :)

i think people here were asking about a "hush box " for there pj well i got this from my buddy Chris Collins site on how to build one and how much quieter the pj is with the hush box :) , happy tweaking ;)



http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/projectormount.html

This is an explanation of my choice of the line conditioner (since wave) vs. UPS (stepped wave)

The good:
Most power supplies do fine with stepwave. From this point of view sinewave is not crucial.

The bad:
One important parameter to keep in mind in power quality issues is the THD or total harmonic distortion. Usually this is expresed as a percentage, and, in a very simplified way, means how bad the wave looks. Well, the stepwave is a sinewave that looks very very bad! Every electrical wave is an addition of component waves (all sinewaves) of the same (fundamental harmonic) and higher (higher harmonics) frequency. A stepwave is an addition of a fundamental 60 Hertz sinewave and a lot (and I mean A LOT!) of harmonic waves. This is called DISTORTION.

I use these products http://www.tripplite.com/products/conditioners/index.cfm



Originally posted by UnknownShadow
I'm pretty close Tom!
Again on a side note, what is everyones opinion on protecting the H30 with a UPS or Voltage Regulator. I started a new thread on that topic so head on over there if you have feedback. Seems like a voltage regulator would be more beneficial to keep the H30's bulb fed with a clean signal. A few people have mentioned cheap UPS's often *ADD* line noise!

Problem with border around image persists.

I still have the unused pixel border around the image. I tried 800x600 @60Hz vga out from PC, I still get the 7-8 pixel wide border all around the image.

I let the optoma run without an i/p(nothing connected), and to my surprise I found the border still existed(looking at the 'No signal' screen.

I also see a grreen vertical line (1-2 pixels) on the right edge of the picture!!!

Is it time to call optoma?? :-((( Nothing else seems to be wrogn with the pj, just need to figure out what is causing the unused border.

Is there something in the service menu to fix this?? Thanks.

Originally posted by ac2003
Problem with border around image persists. I still have the unused pixel border around the image. I tried 800x600 @60Hz vga out from PC, I still get the 7-8 pixel wide border all around the image.


I see this as well. I would expect it's normal.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

Originally posted by ac2003
Problem with border around image persists.

I still have the unused pixel border around the image. I tried 800x600 @60Hz vga out from PC, I still get the 7-8 pixel wide border all around the image.

I let the optoma run without an i/p(nothing connected), and to my surprise I found the border still existed(looking at the 'No signal' screen.

I also see a grreen vertical line (1-2 pixels) on the right edge of the picture!!!

Is it time to call optoma?? :-((( Nothing else seems to be wrogn with the pj, just need to figure out what is causing the unused border.

Is there something in the service menu to fix this?? Thanks.

Must be the PC hookup. You can get a perfect picture with a DVD player I assume? Guess you tried it but helping signals from a PC can be done with th signal adjustments in the image menu, maybe the phase area.

I have no problem what so ever with the DVD players I've used and with both projectors.

Hey Guys,

I swapped out the 50'VGA for a 25 and couldn't tell a difference. Probably a difference if I swapped it out for with a 6' or 12', but at least between the 25 and 50 everything looked the same.

So I'm sticking with the 50' and 3' AV cables. I tried 2 different 12' component cables and didn't notice any improvement, the 3' av cables actually had less noise. Anyhow i'll have some screenshots up later so you guys can get an idea of what it looks like, but I am happy with the image.

Originally posted by arieldr
Dave,

I bought my projector from them.
Great to deal with very reliable and very flexible and BEST prices.
The guy I spoke with was Jason, he is the oner, I couldn't recommend more. He is the best dealer I ever dealt with.
There are at least 2 guys more on this Thread that has bought from Them.
So you can't go wrong with them.

P.S
I just put some pictures at my pictures gallery.

Ariel

You must have very high ceilings or are using you DVD setup in 4.3 letterbox? Your 16.9 screen seems very high up from the floor and the PJ
is dead level. What's up?

Room looks good, funny how we all like movie pictures hangin around the theater room. My wife looked at me like I was nuts when I put up posters of The Two Towers and Harry Potter.

Tom, I get the border even when driving the pj with a 480i signal from a dvd player. I played around with the signal menu, but nothing I did would 'expand ' the image to cover the unused pixel border.

Even with no input conected to the pj, I see the border all around. It's as if the pj is not using those pixels at all.

Is there anything I could try? I'll try getting another dvd player and check it out.

Thanks!!!

With a 4.3 screen you should be able to run any dvd player at 16.9 and setup a 4.3 movie with native 4.3 on the projector, then zoom the zoom ring and angle the projector for a perfect match. Same thing with a 16.9 screen but you use 16.9 scaled and shoot a 1.85 video first, zoom and align.

You can't do this without border problems? That green line thing sounds like a problem just for your computer hook up.

For you guys watching High Def programming, what are you using to switch between your DVD player and your High Def Tuners? Are you just manually switching out your component cables from your DVD player to the Tuner? I Just got a high def tuner and was wondering what the hell to do. Man I wish it just came with a DVI connecetion.:cool:

You must have very high ceilings or are using you DVD setup in 4.3 letterbox? Your 16.9 screen seems very high up from the floor and the PJ is dead level. What's up?
Room looks good, funny how we all like movie pictures hangin around the theater room. My wife looked at me like I was nuts when I put up posters of The Two Towers and Harry Potter.


Thanks tom :) , actually this is my working room that I use for HT. and yes I have very high ceiling it's about 10ft.
As for the posers it's hard to decide which to hang because their are so many of them and not that much space :D my wife only want crazy when she heard how much I spent on buying them... never tell the truth if you want to sleep in bed ;)

Ariel

Originally posted by guitarman
With a 4.3 screen you should be able to run any dvd player at 16.9 and setup a 4.3 movie with native 4.3 on the projector, then zoom the zoom ring and angle the projector for a perfect match. Same thing with a 16.9 screen but you use 16.9 scaled and shoot a 1.85 video first, zoom and align.

You can't do this without border problems? That green line thing sounds like a problem just for your computer hook up.

Thanks Tom, I'll try setting up the way you said.

Well, I guess my H30 is going back. I've had it for a month & approx 200 hours of use and the lamp won't fire. I've tried reseating it as well, I just get a blinking lamp failure light. I'll call them on Monday for a RMA. Bummer....

Are these the ones you got from RAM?



Originally posted by hikarate
Hey Guys,

I swapped out the 50'VGA for a 25 and couldn't tell a difference. Probably a difference if I swapped it out for with a 6' or 12', but at least between the 25 and 50 everything looked the same.

So I'm sticking with the 50' and 3' AV cables. I tried 2 different 12' component cables and didn't notice any improvement, the 3' av cables actually had less noise. Anyhow i'll have some screenshots up later so you guys can get an idea of what it looks like, but I am happy with the image.

Originally posted by guitarman
You can't do this without border problems?

The border he's talking about is barely noticeable, and is about an inch wide on my 72" screen. It's very hard to see unless you project onto a translucent surface and look at it from behind (white vinyl coated marine cloth is translucent. :)) It doesn't seem to have any actual pixel structure to me, though.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

Hey Guys!!

This is my first post, so please excuse my ignorance.

I've been lurking around here reading, and learning for several weeks now, and I appreciate all your collective knowledge.

I'm doing research on the lower priced projectors while working on digging up the funds.

This is a bit off the current subject, but it IS a question about the H30.
(I'm currently looking at the H30, SP4805, and the X1)

In the H30 PDF manual, there's a warning that says: Warning: Turn on the Projector First and Then Select the Signal Source.

In the "Powering ON/Off the Projector" Section it has a note that says: Turn on the Projector First followed by the signal sources.

I understand the terms and I get the idea, but I don't undersrtand why this is important enough to warrant a warning.

Do they mean that if my projector is off and my HD Cable box is on, and I turn on the projector, that something bad will happen?

I mean, I don't want to have to worry about exactly what order I turn things on every time I wanna watch something on the projector.

Please shed some light on this for me, because I don't see any warning like this in the X1 Manual, and this could be a factor in my buying decision.

Thanks in Advance for your help.

Hey Clam,

No I tried some 12' accoustic research, and some $14 ones I got off the net. Also got the 25' cable there, but I will use that for my PC so no loss there. Going to take the AR ones back if I can find the receipt!
Anyhow I am currently using a 3ft AV cable from Radio Shack that has Ferrites on it. It looks way better than either of the 12', and really can't find anything to complain about as far as the image other than the blacks being a bit noisy and dithering, but I don't think changing cables will fix that. Anyhow, the 3ft AV cables seem to be doing the trick for now. Couldn't see any difference between 25' and 50' though. I didn't do a thorough check with Avia or anything, just looking to see if I noticed anything different. I believe Gotta got his cables through RAM though, might have me confused with him, we share a lot of the same configuration.
Anyhow, will work on getting some screenshots this week, have a 4MP camera, so hopefully can get some good ones, but might take me a couple weeks to figure out how to do that.

On the Buzzing issue. Still buzzes.
It seems we are 2 for 3 on returns fixing the problem. I think I am going to call Optoma tomorrow and see if they can check the unit to make sure it doesn't buzz before they send it to me and see about getting a replacement unit while I still can. I can't imagine them not being able to reproduce the buzzing with my unit, I sure can't figure a way to make it stop. Took it over my friends house and it still buzzed.

anyone know why the buy.com price is so low? it seems i paid that much with tons of rebate from dell...

g

Originally posted by entropy
The border he's talking about is barely noticeable, and is about an inch wide on my 72" screen. It's very hard to see unless you project onto a translucent surface and look at it from behind (white vinyl coated marine cloth is translucent. :)) It doesn't seem to have any actual pixel structure to me, though.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

Thanks Kiran, what a relief!!! Someone else sees it too. ;-)
I was going crazy thinking this was unique to my h30.

Im projecting on a white wall, and its not very noticeable except in dark scenes. I'm ok if this is 'normal'.

I thought the 800x600 would be corner to corner for the image the h30 throws. But I wonder how come no one else sees it, at least we know Tom does not see it.

Tom, sure I can live with it. Everytime I watch a movie I'm amazed at what I bought. Thanks to you and others on this thread, your enthusiasm has this first time pj user hooked on.

I should get a seat belt, I almost jump out of my seat every now and then at some eye popping scenes the h30 throws.

Thanks!!!

buy.com does seem to have pretty decent prices on some random products. I have also heard of horror stories of their customer service. However, all of mine, spanning several years, have been positive.


Originally posted by shatten22
anyone know why the buy.com price is so low? it seems i paid that much with tons of rebate from dell...

g

Originally posted by DaToolMan

Do they mean that if my projector is off and my HD Cable box is on, and I turn on the projector, that something bad will happen?


No, but it might take a few tries to sync with the cable box which causes the H30 to "reboot" itself. Turning the signal source on after the projector results in a cleaner start up, which is probably better for the projector in the long run.

Originally posted by ac2003
Thanks Kiran, what a relief!!! Someone else sees it too. ;-)
I was going crazy thinking this was unique to my h30.

Im projecting on a white wall, and its not very noticeable except in dark scenes. I'm ok if this is 'normal'.

I thought the 800x600 would be corner to corner for the image the h30 throws. But I wonder how come no one else sees it, at least we know Tom does not see it.

Tom, sure I can live with it. Everytime I watch a movie I'm amazed at what I bought. Thanks to you and others on this thread, your enthusiasm has this first time pj user hooked on.

I should get a seat belt, I almost jump out of my seat every now and then at some eye popping scenes the h30 throws.

Thanks!!!

It sounds like you're talking about the picture border. Allot of projectors have a picture border so when you use a wall there's like a frame. With some this frame is pretty bright, like with the NEC HT1000 and Sharp Z90, the NEC LT150 and Seleco HT200 had it. I think this is a standard thing.

Lol I just this second put my screen up and took a look. Yep that's the standard border line. Usefull for users that use a wall for a screen.

Originally posted by Dillinger
Well, I guess my H30 is going back. I've had it for a month & approx 200 hours of use and the lamp won't fire. I've tried reseating it as well, I just get a blinking lamp failure light. I'll call them on Monday for a RMA. Bummer....

A man after my own heart. Just one month and fired up 200hrs, sri to hear about the bulb. You think they could just swap you a bulb but I think they like to examine the machine thoroughly.
Let us know what kind of service you get.

I now have about 150 hours on my current H30 but with the many issues this unit has had over the past couple months it is being sent back to Optoma tomorrow for a NEW replacement . I was actually considering keeping this unit since the start-up issue seems to happen rarely and it does not buzz but the current uniformity problem is not something that I can deal with after only 150 hours of use .

--- I just spoke with Robert at Optoma and they do currently have H30 stock [ if anybody else is considering an RMA at this point ] .

--- So I will be without an H30 for a solid week but expect a full review on the NEW unit once I have it here ;) .


--------- Jason

"--- So I will be without an H30 for a solid week"

I feel your pain brudda, a week. ouch

Everybody remember to get ROTK tomorrow. You know this movie's going to look great on the H30. Contrast and blacks will kill.

Pimp,

Glad you are not leaving the fold. I hope your next one is a keeper so you stay with this thread. Did you ever get any screenshots of the uniformity problem or is it something that the camera wouldn't be able to pick up too well? Also was this something that happened over time or did you notice it from the start? For some reason I don't remember you having this problem specifically. Probably got drowned out with the buzz complaints. I look back through and see if that answers my questions.
Best of luck man, they will thoroughly test this one before they send it to you if they know whats good for them.

So every now and then I notice a high-pitched buzz from the H30. It only happens occasionally, but it does happen. Did I read something about a simple quick fix for this minor issue? I though someone found a way to fix it in this forum.

Anyhoo, grayscale is getting more difficult to do by eye. It must be changing as the projector continues to burn. I have about 20 hours on it now. What kind of changes should I expect as more hours add up as far as grayscale? Anyone?

AND... what about an inexpensive ceiling mount? My ceiling is very low in the movie room, so it may need to be adjustable. What do we have out there?

Thanks,

Ryan

Hey Ryan,

Pimp first mentioned the panavise mount. If you search this thread for panavise you can find all our tips concerning that mount.
Just make sure you get the 6" Allen wrench version, and not the one with the thumbscrews. Thumbscrews are glued on and lousy. You can get the 9" if you must, but it is a bit harder to work with, thats what me and Gotta have.

hi guys,i think i got the first one with dead pixels.i have 7-8 pixels inside a
square inch area thats light gray instead of white.local dealer here in Greece told me that he don't think that optoma will accept this as deffect
but he will send it to U.K. for repair.im sure it's not cable coz i tried all connections and it's still there.how does a dead pixel look like in a white backround?.thanks

dead pixels are covered under the 2 year warranty. Even 1 dead pixel is too many. Send it in, they will fix it for you.

Tom ,

-- Yep it will be a tough long week indeed .
-- ROTK certainly delivers on the eye candy !
_____________________________________

hikarate ,

-- I don't think my 2.1mp camera can pick up the uniformity issue that I am having , I took a couple of more recent shots and you cannot tell it is even there in the pics . Nobody else notices it unless I point it out but it drives me nuts .
-- I requested to have the NEW unit checked before it ships [ NO Buzzing ] ;) . I hope 3rd time does it for this unit or I will be headed to the 4805 camp .

__________________________

Ryan ,

--- No known fix for the Buzz issue .
--- Expect colors to settle down a bit , especially red after about 100 hours . Also expect the lamp to dim just a lil' bit after 100 hours .
--- Least expensive mount option for the H30 has to be the Panavise [ see my www link above for pics and a Link to the mount ] .


--------------------- Jason

hikarate,
the thing is im not sure if these pixels are dead coz they are a bit darker than what they should be.i thought dead pixels are black

the thing is im not sure if these pixels are dead coz they are a bit darker than what they should be.i thought dead pixels are black



no dead pixels are usually colors say Green,blue """""""'


and the dead pixel policy is zero dead pixels so get a new one cheers ;)

Totoybato,

If you have Avia throw in some test patterns, thats probably the best thing to show off the problem. You should try a different source, to make sure it is the PJ thats at fault here, but other than that, if it happens on 2 different DVDs then send it in, they would have to look at something like that, or a technician may know what it is, but that hasn't been reported before.

A dead pixel will usually have a red,blue,green color, but since we are using a color wheel here I don't think that applies. I think a dead pixel will look the same color as the screen, as it will not be projecting anything. See if the pixel matches the color of the screen, if thats the case then its dead and you need to send it in. Either way, if the problem matches the dimensions of one of the pixels, then it should be covered under the dead pixel policy.

If it shows up different colors it may just be a trick your eye is playing on you because of the different colors that surround it, thats where a test pattern would come in handy.

I know they had a DLP RPTV at Bestbuy with a dead pixel and it didn't have any color.

Technically I think its a stuck mirror. Someone smarter elaborate :)

Technically I think its a stuck mirror. Someone smarter elaborate



hey hikarate
i liked the synopsis ;) but a stuck mirror acts like a dead pixel :D just make sure you zone in on what color it is :) but if it is black then there might be something like a partical of something there . who knows would have to see it to tell


;)

but hikarate
has the right idea on how to get this problem figured out

Originally posted by guitarman
It sounds like you're talking about the picture border. Allot of projectors have a picture border so when you use a wall there's like a frame. With some this frame is pretty bright, like with the NEC HT1000 and Sharp Z90, the NEC LT150 and Seleco HT200 had it. I think this is a standard thing.

Lol I just this second put my screen up and took a look. Yep that's the standard border line. Usefull for users that use a wall for a screen.

That does it, now I can stop fiddling around with settings on my PC and the h30.

At one point of time, I was actually thinking of counting the pixels on the image to see if the displayed part was 800x600!!! Not one of my bright ideas I guess and thank god I didnt do it. :-)

For you guys watching High Def programming, what are you using to switch between your DVD player and your High Def Tuners? Are you just manually switching out your component cables from your DVD player to the Tuner? I Just got a high def tuner and was wondering what the hell to do. Man I wish it just came with a DVI connecetion.

DLP's = stuck/dead mirrors .
LCD's = dead pixels/panels .

__________________________

jigrillo ,

--- I use a manual VGA switch-box for switching from HiDef / HTPC / Xbox / etc. and it works just great [ as long as the cables remain fairly short and are of good quality ] .


--------------------------- Jason

Originally posted by jigrillo
For you guys watching High Def programming, what are you using to switch between your DVD player and your High Def Tuners? Are you just manually switching out your component cables from your DVD player to the Tuner? I Just got a high def tuner and was wondering what the hell to do. Man I wish it just came with a DVI connecetion.

If you want to go the component to VGA route. Allot use an analog switch box from Radio Shack. It's not meant for component colors, you just transpose. Instead of yellow/red/white you apply Red/green/blue. Works great and I never see signal loss. You can hook up four items to it.

Originally posted by totoybato
hikarate,
the thing is im not sure if these pixels are dead coz they are a bit darker than what they should be.i thought dead pixels are black

I definitely have a bad pixel (stuck mirror) in the middle of my 16X9 display. If I project a solid color, especially white, I can actually see the mirror is not working properly. I assume it is stuck and it does not move between full on and full off. I am projecting on a 110" diagonal 16:9 and when standing next to the screen I can clearly see that this pixel mirror is not in the same orientaion as the surrounding pixels.

Your problem sounds more like dust or a smudge on the lens.

This bad pixel is not very apparent when surrounding image is dynamic, it is very apparent when there is a static image of one color.

I love the image the H30 throws, I have no buzz, no start up problems. I'll eventually return it for warranty repair/ replacement. But I would hate to get a replacement that has more issues.

Regarding the stuck mirror issue, if it's stuck "On", you should see a white (light) pixel if you throw up a black field. If it's stuck "Off", it should show up as black (or grey) in any color field.

I got my first buzzer yesterday. I was checking out an H30 for a customer and after about an hour it started buzzing. However, after I turned it off and later checked it again, it wouldn't buzz anymore. I'm going to run it for awhile today and if it starts again I'll see if I can find the source.

Off to get LOTR: ROTK now! :D

I think it's great Optoma has a no dead pixel policy. This is a sticky subject for many other models. MO is a bad pixels make for a lower resale value. You should opt for new one every time. This is a very super policy because pixel problems could occur at any time.

ROTK tonight right after American Idol. I made a deal with my wife and daughter that they could watch the final 2hr Swan last night on the 120" big screen, if I get no complaints tonight about sound levels of ROTK. :)

Mike, I'm glad to hear you at least heard the buzz. Now, you won't think we're crazy. :)

ROTK tonight right after American Idol. I made a deal with my wife and daughter that they could watch the final 2hr Swan last night on the 120" big screen, if I get no complaints tonight about sound levels of ROTK.



dealt with like a true business man ;) at a boy tom :)


and i just picked up my copy of LOTR: ROTK will watch over the week end ...


oh seeing that we have a remote "guru" in mike they had all in one remote at sams club for 68$ and something (Canadian ) if interested .

don't know much about remotes thou ;)


oh it is the 8 in1 lcd remote

Originally posted by valkyrie
Mike, I'm glad to hear you at least heard the buzz. Now, you won't think we're crazy. :)

Never did. ;)

Also, it was plugged in the same outlet that my H30 and all the other non-buzzers I've tested were plugged in, so it has nothing to do with an outside influence IMO.

Originally posted by new teq joe
they had all in one remote at sams club for 68$ and something (Canadian ) if interested.

Which model?

ROTK tonight right after American Idol.

I'll have to watch it before then. Got "24" right after AI. :)

Yes!
I got ROTK.
Was like Christmas today, also picked up
Bubba-Hotep
Buffy Season 6
Tori Amos Concert DVD
Almost got the new Underworld release with the 23 minutes, but think I will wait for the price to drop on that one. Its like a dollar a minute if you already own the original...

Concerning noisy blacks:

[EDIT] I did some more research and found that dithering is the same as low-level noise.
So the term I meant that I notice, but very rarely is actually called posterization.
It seems from what I have read that low-level noise is related to DLP, so the shorter cables will probably not help, but I will give it a try anyways and post back here, sorry for any confusion!]
[END EDIT]

I see slight [posterization], its not bad at all and I have to look for it. (So thats not what I am talking about here)

The noise I am referring to looks like static from a channel on the TV that isn't broadcasting. Its just not nearly as bad or visible as that. From the viewing position the noise is not very visible, but if you know its there you can see it, and on particular scenes it shows up pretty clearly.

I can reproduce this by pulling up a black screen and playing with the contrast and brightness settings. If I turn contrast down or brightness up enough, all the noise disappears. If I get it very black, the noise is very easy to see. (When standing a couple feet from the screne)

Is this something that is universal or possibly introduced by my cables? Just wonder if everyone has this or just a couple of us.
Can anybody else try this out and see if they see the same thing? I think it was Valk who originally brought it up.
I think I will pull the H30 down this week and try it will just the 3ft cable and the adapter and see if that cleans up the image a lot. If it does, I'll probably be moving my DVD player to the back of the room.
Thanks!

Which model?


mike the 8 and 1 with macros i think it was the KAMELEON or something ,it was silver with the blue display


it is this one http://www.remotecentral.com/urc9960/index4.htm

Not to flood the thread with my posts, but just wanted to point out that the replacement deal Optoma has under warranty is for 90 days. If you have a buzzer, don't wait over 90 day to return it, otherwise they are only obligated to fix your unit, instead of replacing it with a new one.
Also the 90 warranty only covers the unit itself, so you won't get a new remote or lense cap, have to return it before 30 days to get the whole package replaced.
At least thats what is in writing, and thats what is important.

When I called Optoma support they said it would probably be another 8 weeks or so before they had the buzzing figured out, obviously just a guess on their part, so I am going to give them to the end of my 90 days then return it for a new one and hope they don't send me another buzzer.

Bubba-Hotep!

By my count we are now up to 10 buzzing units within the last couple dozen pages of this thread. Just in case anyone else is trying to keep track.

I wonder why Optoma says it will take 8 weeks to figure out? You would think if someone sent in their buzzing unit it would only be a matter of hours before a technician found where the buzz was coming from.

Originally posted by new teq joe
mike the 8 and 1 with macros i think it was the KAMELEON or something ,it was silver with the blue display


Yes, that's the Kameleon. It's cool looking, but you can't change how anything's displayed and it goes through batteries pretty fast. BTW, if you turn up the backlight, you get get a nice buzzing sound with one. :D
I'd go for one of the normal button OFA remotes (like the 8910) first. Of course, I'd move up to a Home Theater Master or Harmony remote myself. :)

Check the "Remotes" forum for more info.

thanks mike ;)

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
By my count we are now up to 10 buzzing units within the last couple dozen pages of this thread. Just in case anyone else is trying to keep track.

I wonder why Optoma says it will take 8 weeks to figure out? You would think if someone sent in their buzzing unit it would only be a matter of hours before a technician found where the buzz was coming from.

Yeah I think its safe to say that there are a batch of units with power supplies that buzz. Pretty much what Valk and Flea reported early on, but now there is plenty of info to back it up. The good news is that the buzzing is not that distracting in most cases, and Optoma is looking into the issue. The 8 week thing was probably just a shot in the dark on their side, and my guess is the guy that needs to look at this, won't be available to for a while. Either way I wouldn't let this problem keep anyone from buying this PJ. Its not something you will get stuck with. The good news is there are plenty of units that don't buzz at all, so they got it right on most of them.

Okay, here's an update on the buzzing, at least with the unit I have here. I let it run for about an hour and the buzzing started again. Removing the cover (actually just removing the screws and starting to remove the cover) stopped the buzzing. It's definitely a vibration from something (most likely the back fan) touching the case. I'm continuing to run it now with the top off and cannot make the buzzing return thus far. I'll keep you posted.

Very interesting. Last time I talked to Wing about the buzz he said it might be a combination of the Colorwheel or Fan. Keep digging. A couple of other members said it stopped by just picking up the projector. Sounds like an easy fix is coming.

Maybe the old smack method, just kidding/not good for the bulb.

Originally posted by guitarman
Maybe the old smack method, just kidding/not good for the bulb.

I sure thought about it. :D

Put the cover back on, but without putting the screws back in. No buzzing so far. Now that I know where all the moving parts are (two fans and the colorwheel), if it starts buzzing again I can push down on the top over each component to see if that affects the sound.

Yes that would be a big relief if it was a simple vibration problem. It would also explain why Optoma said they couldn't reproduce it on a couple of units that were returned for buzzing. Maybe the "bouncing around" during shipping moved something just enough to stop the buzzing.

I have seen very similar situations in computers cases. Fans that cause the entire case to vibrate and cause a buzz. Often times just picking up the case or putting your hand on it will make it go away. I have permanently solved some problems with computer cases by mounting the fans with velcro or rubber screws. This stops the vibration from travelling.

Hopefully this will all be worked out soon and I'll feel comfortable enough to finally buy my H30!

Haven't had a chance to read the last few pages of this thread yet, been very busy with other things regarding life (or whatever you want to call it):rolleyes:

Anyways, last I posted was that my old H30 stopped buzzing just as I got my new (hot swap) non-buzzing H30 home. Well, the new news is that my old one started buzzing again (not as loud as usual, but still there), so I took it down and installed the new H30 on my ceiling and enjoyed some movies sans H30 buzzings.

Then, the next day or so, after 6 hrs on the lamp, the buzzing started! Yup, on the new H30 that was quite in the beginning, now started buzzing, just like my other H30, same type of buzz, almost as loud....Argh:mad:

The good news (?) is that after 9 hrs the buzz went almost all away, but I'm doubting it will be gone forever.

I haven't called Optoma yet as it seems they still haven't fixed the problem but I will let them know, just so the case #'s of buzzers becomes more apparent of a problem for them to deal with.

I hope to sit down and read the last few days of this thread to see if there is anything new that might help me (not sure if I want to take the covers off to stop the buzzing).

Fleaman

Ok, so total buzzers now equals 11.

This *HAS* to be some sort of vibration problem. My guess is either the fan or color wheel is causing vibrations which leads to this buzzing.

Flea, can you make the buzz go away by pushing on the case slightly? Can you take the PJ down off the ceiling and try it on a chair/desk for a while to see if it buzzes then?

UnknownShadow-

Well, I'll mess with that a little...maybe tonight, if I have some time. But as a note, the buzzing has come and gone during viewing times, when nothing was touched on the unit.

I still think this is more of an internal buzz...like a pwr supply issue. Remember that so far none of the early H30 units buzzed and when optoma 'fixed' the pwr up issues, buzzing units started to appear.

Fleaman

Mike, I'm not near my projector, so I can't see, but is the cover hard to remove? Can you given instructions? I'd like to try it on mine to see if it makes a difference. This could be part of the problem, in that my returned unit got jostled enough in shipping to be free of the defect once it reached Optoma (either that, or they immediately removed the cover, then tested it). VERY interesting...keep us posted on what you find, I'll do the same.

Cheers, Valk.

The fix could be as simple as putting Teflon washers under the case. Or according to where the fan is maybe a buffer (small piece of dense foam) between the case and the fan.

I don't want to recommend that anyone remove the cover for possible safety, as well as warranty issues. Rather than remove the cover, you might try just removing the screws, then pulling up slightly on the cover to see if that stops the buzzing. There are four screws, two on each side, that hold the cream-colored top to the bottom of the unit. The top is also connected with a ribbon cable from the control buttons to the unit.

So far, since I've screwed the top back on there's been no buzzing.

Ok , so now that Mike has started digging deeper [ Nice work thus far Mike :D ] we should see if maybe there is a bad batch or two that the buzzing is most common with [ this could possibly help Optoma track down the problem faster ... ??? ] .


*** Those with Buzzers please post your Q/A date [ this is on the side of the Optoma Box ] . ***


--- This is the one thing (buzz) that has me the most worried about getting another H30 [ although with the current issues I am having I really do not have a choice ] .


------- Jason

Can someone please tell me exactly which breakout cable would work with my H30 from my component out from Marantz receiver to the input on the H30 eliminating the adapter? I was looking at a 25 foot run. Maybe someone can post a link to better cables correct item. Thanks.

here is the image of the cable you would want [ if you buy from bettercables.com ] :

http://bettercables.com/lib/bettercablesdotcom/vga5rca.jpg




------- Jason

Well add me to the list of buzzers. Mines is on and off and two differents tones. The first one is slighlty louder than the normal fan whine. The Second of the two buzzes is ridiculously loud. They do come and go like i stated before but they are definitely present.
I've had it for a little more 2 weeks and have about 94 hours on the bulb. Still hoping 100 hours is the magic cure.:D Still aint complaining about the beautiful picture and as mike helped me with before, the reds are looking nice.(Thanks mike.) The Zenith DVb 318 is a wonderful dvd player and the upscaling through components is ideal for us H30 users.:D Also got comcast HD and have been enjoying some boring shows.(HD quality is wooooo.)
Thanks again to all the help from everyone on this forum. Peace.

Ok,

Mike you are my hero.
Thanks for taking the case off and looking into this thing.
Thank God you got a buzzer, I feel better about you looking at it than Optoma.
Thank you a hundred times.
Nobody else take the case off, it voids your Warranty.

Nobody else take the case off, it voids your Warranty.

Is there some way to TELL if I take my case off, or is this just a precaution. I'm still curious as to whether this is a vibration issue of some sort, and I like Mike's idea of loosening (or removing) the screws and playing with the top a bit. Is there a warranty VOID sticker that will get torn if I do this?

Originally posted by HenrysTheater
Well add me to the list of buzzers. Mines is on and off and two differents tones. The first one is slighlty louder than the normal fan whine. The Second of the two buzzes is ridiculously loud. They do come and go like i stated before but they are definitely present.


Total buzzers now = 12

Three hours now without buzzing since I removed the cover and put it back on. I also powered down and let it sit for 45 minutes before powering up again. I'm looking for a way now to actually get it buzzing again so I can try and see where it's coming from.

An even dozen :) I'd expect to hear about allot of fixed buzzers in the next day or two.

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
*** Those with Buzzers please post your Q/A date [ this is on the side of the Optoma Box ] . ***
------- Jason

My Buzzing Army:

1st H30:
April 8, 2004

2nd H30:
May 6, 2004

Fleaman

Mike, how about some pictures of the inside? Didn't you once say the colorwheel has a glass shield, so no colorwheel crazing for the H30?

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
*** Those with Buzzers please post your Q/A date [ this is on the side of the Optoma Box ] . ***

Why not make a list of the non-buzzers vs buzzers, that way we can determine if the Q/A date can be ruled out as a variable?

FWIW - Mine still hasn't displayed any of the undesirable symptoms (...knock, knock, knock...). I'll post all my pertinent PJ info once I get home and dig out the box.

Just a thought to most effectively eliminate variables. See all those years at an engineering college were good for something, trouble shooting PJs :D

Okay, I got it to buzz again, but finding the source is a bear. Pushing down anywhere on the top of the unit reduces the buzzing, as does partially removing it. I'm really leaning toward it being a vibration from the fan that's behind the bulb being in contact with the top. I can't get it to buzz at all if the top's removed. I'm going to try some foam or something on top of the fan and see if that helps.

Regarding the QA date, none of the pre-firmware upgrade units have this issue to my knowledge and every unit I've seen since then had a QA date of April 8 (or the newest ones now apparently have a May 6th date). I really think it comes down to you having a chance at a buzzer with a QA date of April 8 or later.

Tom, I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow. You can't see the color wheel without removing the bulb though.

It's random because my first H30 from day one had the buzz.

" I'm going to try some foam or something on top of the fan and see if that helps."

Hmmm, now where ever did you get that idea. ;)

Bet it works and becomes the universal fix. Let us know asap.
thx Mike

Well, I removed the top, and it didn't help my buzz. (Bummer). I do acknowledge the buzz is "less" than what it was when I first got my unit (or the one I sent back), though it still sounds like an electrical buzz...not a mechanical one. I'm curious to see what others find out. Good work, Mike, keep us posted.

Val, can't you pinpoint where the buzz comes from? Try pressing the fan.

Don't know if you counted me in already but my H30 buzzes on & off during a movie (I posted this many many posts back!).

It comes and goes most times lasting not more than a couple of minutes. I don't think I can loosen the screws withut voiding my warranty cause I note that my supplier has put a little sticker on one of the case screws .... :-P

Am following this thread sarted my Mike with interest needless to say!

Originally posted by valkyrie
Well, I removed the top, and it didn't help my buzz.

Did you run it with the top off? If so, do you still get a buzz? Mine only buzzes if the top's on.

Hmmm, now where ever did you get that idea.

I don't know. It just sort of popped into my head ;)

It's strange how intermittant this is though. It seems that it has to be at a certain temperature for the buzzing to start.

Sounds like some progress gents!

One rather irrelevant piece of trivia here- we are approching post #5000 very quickly- probably yet tonight. I think it would be very fitting if the master himself posted that number :)

Cheers!

Originally posted by guitarman
A man after my own heart. Just one month and fired up 200hrs, sri to hear about the bulb. You think they could just swap you a bulb but I think they like to examine the machine thoroughly.
Let us know what kind of service you get.

David at Optoma was all over it. Emailed me my RMA form (Monday) to fill out electronically, which I did promptly on Monday. They sent a UPS call tag and UPS picked it up today (Tuesday). They will be replacing it with a brand new unit since it was within 30 days. So far I've been very happy with the service and response. So, it's back to my "little" 55 inch Mits RPTV for a few days.

Don

I wonder if Mike's buzzing issue is the same as mine, and possibly others. Maybe his is like what Tom had. I just can't see how turning my dimmers on would change the pitch of my buzz if it had something loose or rattling. Of course I don't understand why it happens at all, so there definitely could be a reason. It just seems to me that mine will buzz no matter what is done, seems to be electrical. I'm not taking the cover off though, I have enough problems already.
Glad you are looking into this though Mike, its just good to know the problem is being addressed on some level, I am sure Valk appreciates this the most since he was the first to report it, and nobody likes bad news.

Off topic I know, but please could anyone offer some advice - Would a Progressive scan DVD player improve the image on a UK Optoma H30?.
I only watch PAL DVD's and the H30 is connected to the DVD using the SCART>Component - would a progressive DVD player be worth investing in?

Originally posted by fleaman

Anyways, last I posted was that my old H30 stopped buzzing just as I got my new (hot swap) non-buzzing H30 home. Well, the new news is that my old one started buzzing again (not as loud as usual, but still there), so I took it down and installed the new H30 on my ceiling and enjoyed some movies sans H30 buzzings.

Then, the next day or so, after 6 hrs on the lamp, the buzzing started! Yup, on the new H30 that was quite in the beginning, now started buzzing, just like my other H30, same type of buzz, almost as loud....Argh:mad:

The good news (?) is that after 9 hrs the buzz went almost all away, but I'm doubting it will be gone forever.

Fleaman

Turned on the H30 (newer one) 20 minutes ago to warm up and see how the buzz issues are going...and it was a very loud familiar buzz at startup, just as loud as my other H30. But after 20 minutes it has just about faded all away and is quite now (I have to get my ear within 1 to 2 ft to hear any kind of buzz).

Gonna see how Scarface looks on the projector for a few minutes, then go to sleep....

Fleaman

I can hear the buzz on my unit at 5ft. 6ft it is just about silent. Unfortunately my main seating is right under the PJ, about 4ft away.
If the dimmers are on I can hear it in another room. 15+ feet away.

Help!!! :confused: I accidentally reset my projector (using the reset function in the user menu). Now my picture looks like crap. Out of the box it was absolutly gorgeous .....now it's grainy and really washed out. I can mess with the settings, and make it look a little better, but nothing compared to what it was.

Can anyone explain to me the proper way to begin getting it back to that gorgeous picture? I am a complete newb when it comes to calibrating ... I don't know much about this stuff (so be gentle!!). Which mode (film, cinema, etc...) is the best to use? I am only using this for DVD viewing ...



Also .... I was going to get a panasonic XP30 dvd player, but they are pretty tough to find. Anyone want to recommend a really stellar player that can be had for ~$100 - $150 (don't mind refurb's if a really GREAT can be had). And are there any players that do DVI / VGA out that are great?


Thanks everyone in the forum.....this is such an awesome projector!!! (got about 40 hours, no buzzing, problems, etc.. etc.. me keeps fingers crossed :D)

Originally posted by MikeSRC

Regarding the QA date, none of the pre-firmware upgrade units have this issue to my knowledge and every unit I've seen since then had a QA date of April 8 (or the newest ones now apparently have a May 6th date). I really think it comes down to you having a chance at a buzzer with a QA date of April 8 or later.

I have QA date of Dec 24 2003, and I have buzzing. I haven't gotten the firmware upgrade and have 179 hours on it. The buzzing started in the first couple weeks, and has never really changed. You can only hear it from about 6 ft away, and is only annoying from about 4 ft away.

I have tried to move the unit, pick it up, and put pressure on different points on the case. It doesn't change. The sound seems to come from the back where the power plug is. Thankfully, I don't think it is nearly as bad as some others have, and I am willing to live with it. It is bearable given the other great redeeming qualities of the projector. I don't expect Runco quality at this price level.

My projectors' (both of them) buzzed within about 10 feet, minimum. I'm pretty convinced I hear the buzz over the fan anywhere in the room. I watched "Paycheck" last night (dumb movie, decent bass during explosions). and noticed it pretty much throughout the movie, which was disappointing. I'm really hoping my local Fry's gets one in soon, so I can at least try one more.

Mike, were you able to isolate your noise at all? (Mine's on the ceiling, by the way, so taking the cover off AND pressing on the fan was a bit of a trick, I wasn't about to try - I'll take it down this weeekend and see what i find).

Apparently the QA date doesn't matter since there's been buzzers from the beginning. I just hadn't heard anything about them until the April 8 ones rolled out.

Val - I still can't isolate the noise because as soon as I remove the top, it stops. I'm going to try again today and see if I can find the source.

xyz -

You need to get a copy of Avia or Digital Video Essentials if you don't already have one, then go through and set contrast, brightness and color. There are a number of recommendations that Tom's made throughout this thread that you can find with a search as well.

There are some XP30s still showing up on Ebay, but you might also look for a refurb Philips Q50 there. There was an almost new Q50 that sold yesterday for $86.

tommy where are you :confused: :confused: ,you have to post #5000 ,come here tom ,come post please , hurry up tom :D :D :p :p


form a saying from a song


where oh where has my little tom gone oh where oh where can he be?

Originally posted by PJresearcher
Thankfully, I don't think it is nearly as bad as some others have, and I am willing to live with it. It is bearable given the other great redeeming qualities of the projector. I don't expect Runco quality at this price level.

I believe this may be the case with a lot of H30's out there. I have a funny feeling that a lot of them buzz but not everyone notices it or is bothered by it.

Some people may have noisier rooms that others. Or larger rooms with the PJ mounted further away. Maybe they live by a busy street and the background traffic noise (which they are now used to) distracts from the H30 buzz? There could be endless reasons for someone not to notice it.

But I live on a very quiet street, with a virtually silent HT room (unit the movie starts!) and my PJ will be mounted 4 feet above my head. So I am following this buzzing issue very carefully because I will not tolerate ANY buzzing noises in my environment. The woosh of the fan noise I can put up with but not buzzing.

I have also seen several people use the "price point" as an excuse for this buzzing. I totally disagree with that. Sure, we are buying a cheaper PJ so we get things like less resolution, lower lumens, few inputs etc. But BUILD QUALITY should never be compromised on "low end" units. You should only loose features when you buy low end, not quality!

Luckily Optoma does seem to be working with customers to get to the bottom of this issue. They are obviously concerned with quality even on their entry level units. And they should be! That's the main reason I'm still interested in the H30. If Optoma were still saying "There is no problem" then I'd have bought a cheap X1 by now ;-)

Here's hoping they fix this soon...

Oh crap!!! Post 5000 DEFINITELY should have been reserved for Tom, he's helped out so many people here.

Sorry about that Tom, didn't realize we were so close to 5k.