It would allow the use of an upconverting DVD player without being VERY limited in choice and needing to use hacks for the component output. It also makes it a little more future proof.

There is an advantage if you are watching Blu Ray or HD-DVD, but as long as you are using similar quality machines, I still strongly suspect that a non-upconverting player over component would actually produce a better picture than an upconverting player over DVI would.

I originally used a 84" 4:3 pull down screen and switched to a 92" 19:9 electric screen. The XR-10X works PERFECT on both. I prefer 16:9 because most of what I watch on the PJ is widescreen. I use a 50" 4:3 CRT for SD TV viewing.

I also noticed the XR-30 at Sam's. I didn't have much time and didn't notice the other inputs (DVI, HDMI) but that does interest me. It would allow the use of an upconverting DVD player without being VERY limited in choice and needing to use hacks for the component output. It also makes it a little more future proof.

FWIW, I found a link to the datasheet for the XR-30X.

Sharp XR-30X Datasheet (http://catalogs.infocommiq.com/AVCAT/images/documents/pdfs/XR-40X-30X-30S%20Datasheet.pdf)


The datasheet only says it has a 1 year warranty though, with 90 days on the bulb.

Most impressive is the size of the unit. Exactly what I'm looking for. Now only if my local Sams had it in stock.

Now only if my local Sams had it in stock.

Just be patient...I suspect they will. Ours has tons of them (more than I ever saw of any other PJ). Part of this could be because of the smaller size, but still, it was pretty many units (guessing at least 15-20).

Considering this thing was JUST released this month, I'm guessing there's a bit of proliferation time needed. Since I'm in the chain's home state, I wouldn't be surprised if we were among the first.

I just reread this thread from beginning to end for no apparant reason other than I've been using my home theater a lot more lately for various reasons, and I've felt like singing the praises (and hearing others sing them) of this fine little budget projector. I just remounted my XR-10X a couple of feet farther back on the ceiling (using a "universal" mount I got at Lowe's last year), and now I'm able to project a 100" 4:3 image from the middle portion of my zoom range. I also installed an inexpensive manual pulldown screen that's 80" x 60", and I intend to leave it down all the time so as not to introduce any wrinkles since I don't have any now. It's a matte white surface, and the screen is made by Elite. I am happy with it in conjunction with my ND2 filter.

Previously, I projected onto sheetrock painted flat white. The screen was about 92" diagonally (4:3) or maybe even a little less, and masked off with black framing, and the rest of the screen wall and all of the ceiling is black. The painted screen was working fine, but I wanted to go to 100" and didn't feel like re-painting the wall. So I hung the Elite on top. As mentioned, I didn't go with a gray screen because I also project 16mm movie film from a Bell & Howell projector with dim light output as compared to the video projector. But I am completely happy with black levels, etc., especially as compared to my previous LCD projector.

I am expecting delivery of an Oppo 970 DVD player, and I will install the hacked firmware to enable upconverting over component. Other sources include a Samsung Bluray player and a DirecTV high-def TiVo, and they look great on the Sharp as I reported. I've even tweaked the composite input settings to get a decent picture out of my laserdisc player.

I don't know that I am really adding anything to this thread now, but I wanted to update the screen change and report my results. I had been thinking I would upgrade this projector in a year or two, but I don't know if I will really want to give up the big, big 4:3 display for the old movies. I am more than satisfied with 16:9 material projected onto the center of my 4:3 screen, especially now that my screen is bigger. And, truly, it can get no bigger in my setting.

So, is the XR10 still the low-cost, high-quality deal of the day, or has it been supplanted in the year since I bought the projector at Sam's? I haven't been keeping up, but I won't be changing projectors anytime soon.

The replacement that Sam's will be carrying looks like it has virtually the same specifications as the 10X, which leads me to believe it's still a great projector.

I am expecting delivery of an Oppo 970 DVD player, and I will install the hacked firmware to enable upconverting over component. Other sources include a Samsung Bluray player and a DirecTV high-def TiVo, and they look great on the Sharp as I reported. I've even tweaked the composite input settings to get a decent picture out of my laserdisc player.

I've considered getting a 970 to use with my XR10 but wondered how much improvement I would see (because of upscaling, then downscaling). Please post your results as well as a comparison to 480P.

I've considered getting a 970 to use with my XR10 but wondered how much improvement I would see (because of upscaling, then downscaling). Please post your results as well as a comparison to 480P.

Will do. If the upscaling gives me no improvement on standard DVDs, I will still benefit because the Oppo can be made to play PAL discs and DVDs from other regions. My old, old Apex player that would do these things died a year or so ago.

Jawhn, been watching movies with the Oppo DVD player and with my Samsung Blu-ray player since Friday evening. I'd say, yes, the Oppo 970 upconverting via component to the Sharp projector results in an improved picture, even though the xr10 must do its own downcoversion from 1080i or 720p to 1024x576 (or whatever 16:9 is on this projector). That said, it's not a huge difference -- nowhere near as huge as playing high-def material via Blu-Ray or my DirecTV HD DVR.

I compared The Searchers on Blu-ray with The Searchers on DVD (upconverted and not). I synched up the discs and switched inputs as I watched the movie. Regular DVD to Blu-ray seemed a bigger jump than upconverted DVD to Blu-ray. I had a hard time comparing DVD to upconverted DVD quickly because it took time to change settings, so there was always a few seconds between my switching. Between Blu-ray and DVD it was quick to switch sources. Also watched Breach on DVD and was generally pleased, though I noted some annoying edge enhancement here and there. Perhaps I can fuss with some settings here or there to improve that.

Anyway, the improvement of upconversion to my eyes is not huge with this setup, but I think it's there. The bigger advantage to me is the Oppo can be made to play other regions and can do OK with PAL. To get the upconversion over component, of course, requires a hacked firmware upgrade, which I found via a link from AVS.

Also watched a couple of old 4:3 DVD titles, and I found it best to run those on 480p with the display set to 4:3 mode so all my screen real estate could be used to its max. Looked good as always. When upconverting a 4:3 disc, the projector goes into 16:9 mode with the image being a narrow rectangle inside the wide rectangle. That's what you'll want with a 16:9 screen, but this worries me when it comes to old Academy ratio movies when they show up on Blu-ray. Don't think I'll be able to fill up my 4:3 screen with those in high-def, unless I'm mistaken.

I wonder how much longer beyond the xr10 lifespan 4:3 projectors will be available. Do y'all (a Southerner here) think business/presentation projectors will continue to use 4:3 for some time, or will that AR become extinct? My previous posts explain why I want this and that I don't mind looking at 16:9 material in letterboxed format (always OAR in my width-challenged screening room).

Appreciate all the recent and informative posts keeping this thread active, Mike!

I think it's time for an Hours-used check-in! Last I checked, my XR-10 is at 479 hours. I've had it since April 2006, about 15 months. That's almost 32 hours a month, so a little more than 1 hour a day.

My usage probably spikes in the fall, during college football season, and then dips in the summer when we're only watching 2-3 movies a week, max.

Mike

You bring up some interesting points as to the future of 4:3. And what will happen if and when the classic movies get ported to HD.

I don’t think you will find 4:3 going away in projectors or desktop computer monitors for a while. There are still a lot of people wanting the bigger squarer monitors for doing applications like CAD etc.

Lately I have been finding more and more of the academy framed old movies available on DVD and many with superb transfers and selling very reasonably priced. I find watching them at 1024x768 is more than HD enough for my tastes.

There are higher resolution 4:3 projectors out there but the costs are high and sales of them are low.

Like you if I was forced at this point to upgrade given my room size and ceiling height and desire to watch mixed AR content I’m not sure what I would upgrade to.

I watched the Alfred Hitchcock movie (Lifeboat) a couple weeks ago in its original academy 4:3 AR full screen on my 120” screen and the experience wouldn’t have compared if it was cropped out of the center of a 110” 16:9 screen. I also just got 4 new IMAX movies and if anyone wants to see how good a std DVD transfer can be I would suggest taking a look at some of these. (Amazon) in 4:3 is really incredible.

I haven’t posted any screen shots to this thread in a while I’ll try and get a couple IMAXed ones and put them up.

Appreciate all the recent and informative posts keeping this thread active, Mike!

I think it's time for an Hours-used check-in! Last I checked, my XR-10 is at 479 hours. I've had it since April 2006, about 15 months. That's almost 32 hours a month, so a little more than 1 hour a day.

My usage probably spikes in the fall, during college football season, and then dips in the summer when we're only watching 2-3 movies a week, max.

Irmo

I think we have had ours around the same length of time and mine is at about 800 hours. It gets turned on once or twice during the weekdays but hit harder on the weekends.

I have discovered a new hobby I never thought I would have but some friends talked me into doing a UFC fight night where they supply the drinks and food and all chip in for the pay per view and I supply the room and projector. So the projector is paying for itself now…. :D

The big draw is the weekend get invited to Bud’s place to watch a new release movie. They usually get started with a concert DVD (Jimmy Buffet) has been popular this summer followed by a movie pop corn and all the trimmings. Then a late movie for the hanger-on-ers. (Classic or Horror or Science Fiction) those parties can add 6 or 7 hours fast. And when I run the aux fan the most.

After doing several unofficial polls close to 100% prefer this to going to the theater. But with my cheep family and friends the data could be skewed based on cost and not totally PQ….. :eek:

Bud - We haven't done the UFC fight nights (a good idea though) but we did PPV the De La Hoya fight a few months ago. That logged some football-like hours because the fight didn't start until almost midnight.

My usage is probably something like:

60% movies (DVD and HDTV movies recorded on the DVR)
20% sports (mostly college football and basketball...a little college baseball and other stuff)
20% misc (Gaming, HDTV and SDTV)

We do the vast majority of our "regular" TV watching in our upstairs living room (HT is in the basement) on a 57" Toshiba CRT HDTV, so that keeps the hours down on my XR-10, I'd suspect.

Hi people, this is my first post on this forum. I've read and learned a lot from this thread and some of the others. I was looking at an xr-10x, then an xr-10xl, now it's either an xr-30x or a mitsubishi hd1000u. Good lord, I'm torn.

It's funny, the reason I got into the idea of a projector over a plasma is an article over at Tom's Hardware. Oops, I guess I can't post the link yet, this being my first post. You can search for "wall sized 3d displays" and find it on there. Pretty interesting stuff. It's all about 3d gaming with a huge projected image and how immersive it can be. But only certain projectors seem to be able to do it. The xr-10x can and that's what led me here. I had no idea projectors had come so far. Has anyone tried 3d gaming with their projector? XR-10X or otherwise?

Also, Bud what happened to the info in your signature?

Sams Club has Sharp XR-30 with DVI-HDCP port now for $700.

Thanks to the sage advice and experience of Bud and a host of others on this forum, I picked up an XR-10XL last week. This is my first projector and I am pleased to report that even my wife who previously was doubtful about a home theater was impressed. Then two days after I got it, the XR-30X came available at the same price from the same vendor (CC). Since I had gotten manager approval to return the XR-10XL without a restocking fee, I went ahead and bought the XR-30X so I could compare the two. It should be in later today so I will do a side-by-side comparison and report back on my findings.

One thing that may bother some is the shorter warranty - 1 year instead of three. But if you use the proper credit card, you are automatically extended for the second year. I opted for the 4-year extended warranty for $125. It includes one lamp replacement and I figure that if I only have 1800 hours on the PJ in my third year, I might just have a movie marathon to make sure I get my replacement.

Thank you Southsound, I was hoping somebody might have experience with both so we could see how they compare. If the xr-30x is as good as the xr-10x, I'll jump right on it. Excited to hear the results of the shoot-out!

I received the XR-30X this afternoon and had a chance to make some quick observations. Please bear in mind that I am new to projectors, I don't have a light meter to measure output, my home theater is still under construction so I was using a painted wall (flat white) and most important, YMMV.

All that said, the pictures on both were awesome. I tried a Wallace and Gromet DVD and two others that were shot with real people. Lots of scenery with one, some great indoor shots with the other. I had my wife compare the pictures with me so I could get some confirmation of what I was observing. I had to use the S-Video output as my DVD player with component out was not available for the test. Note that the component cable does not come with the XR-30 but a 10' cable is included with the XR-10. (25' D-Sub to Component cables from MonoPrice are less than $10.)

Both projectors were almost the same fan noise level using econo-quiet mode. It seemed like the XR-30X fan did some speed changes as it was operating, but both were acceptably quiet.

The lenses of the two projectors are different. At a set distance from the screen, the picture from the XR-30 is a little smaller than that from the XR-10. Maybe about 10%. Not a problem unless you are replacing an XR-10 and have a fixed ceiling mount.

The pictures from both PJ's had good clarity and uniformity. It seemed like I was able to obtain a little finer focus on the XR-30, but from normal viewing distance, both images were sharp. At the same size image, the XR-30 was a tad brighter, as expected. Not so much that it required resetting the levels, but it was noticable. Probably the biggest difference was that the blacks on the XR-30 image were considerably blacker. It made the images pop compared to the XR-10.

Like I said, not too scientific, but a comparison none the less. Other observations: the XR-30 is nearly two pounds lighter and about an inch smaller in each dimension. I personally like the new shape, but the XR-10 is more rounded looking. The zoom and focus controls on the XR-30 are easier to adjust.

So tomorrow the XR-10XL goes back and the XR-30X goes to the shelf until the theater is complete. The new PG will serve as a real incentive to complete the wiring, contract out the insulation and sheet rock, and install the new laminate floor. By then the Lava Lamps for on top of the JBL 15" front speakers will be here. (I find lighted sconces so 1960ish.) I am also using a Pioneer VSX-816 because it has preamp outs and a 1400 watt Mackie for the fronts. I bought a Bic America V1520 for the theater and my wife liked it so well she made me buy another for the living room. :D

Gleepglop
I removed the information in my signature at the request of a member in the DIY screen forum. He felt such a signature was inappropriate. But there have been many more requests for me to put it back in. So its back by popular request…..

Huey
The DVI port should make many happy.

Southsound
Great review…… and thanks for reading….
With the lumens available if you are getting good blacks off the white wall you are really going to be in for a treat if you do a neutral gray screen.
Keep posting your thoughts when you get your theater completed.

If you are reading this “Sharp”. Throw the two cables in the 30X box like you did with the 10X. IMHO that was a very nice marketing tool and made Sharp look a notch above the competition.

Southsound,

I know you mentioned the picture sizes were different, how about the offset? If they're the same (and prices continue to drop), then maybe I will get into the PJ game sooner than I thought.

I received the XR-30X this afternoon and had a chance to make some quick observations...So tomorrow the XR-10XL goes back and the XR-30X goes to the shelf until the theater is complete. :D

Uh oh. Looks like my fav budget PJ gets upended. Bargains should abound now.

ORPhD
The offset is different. For a 100" screen, the XR-10 is about 6.5 inches from lens center to the bottom of the screen. For the XR-3- it is about 2.5 inches. I will be using a custom floor support (read: particle board box with laminate covering) so when I am not watching the PJ I can store the screen, PJ, and box in a new closet off the theatre room. We are doing a 28' x 20' addition to the house where the theatre/exercise (right)/music room/library will be 19.5' x 19.5 and the closet will be 7' x 19.5. Lots of room to hide my Mackie 1400i and Crown XLS402 amps, plus music gear. Since it is all new, the offset will not be a problem.

All
Please don't misunderstand my mini-review. I still think I would be estatic to use the XR-10XL. It is an awesome PJ with a proven track record. Certainly a 34 page thread with almost no negatives will attest to that! If I had not seen the XR-30 I would have been more than satisfied. We still have no idea if the XR-30 will have the longevity and trouble-free service that comes with the XR-10XL. If the price had been $50 different, I would keep the XR-10 and send the XR-30 back. The difference is something you would only notice side by side, and I am thinking that with proper adjustment by a person who knew what they were doing would make the differences even less obvious. If CRMA is correct about bargains abounding for the XR-10XL, it will make the choice even more difficult.

Thanks again to all on this forum who have helped me understand what I needed to make the HT a positive experience. I'll keep the forum up to date as I progress through making my own screen (thanks, Bud, pb_maxxx, for some great research and implementation) and finishing up the HT project.

Just thought Id say hi :) . the past 2 days I have been doing alot of searching in here looking for info on projectors. I started out wanting to buy a simple IN24+ from best buy on sale for my garage to do movies with the neighbors and kids. After lurking here a couple days and talking with a few people, I ended up with the XR10XL :D . My wife isnt too happy with the extra $$ spent but she will get over it(I hope).


For now, I'm getting back to lurking looking for more info and will probably pop up to ask the typical newb question now and then. But I do have to thank bud16415 and others for all the info you guys have already layed out. good stuff!

Yeah, $700 for DVI, 2300 lumens XGA DLP with 2300:1 CR is awesome value.

Well I just ordered an XR-30X from Circuit City. Your review put me over the edge, Southsound. So now I am part of the Sharp Home Theater family. Yesh! Maybe someday I'll mount it, but until then I will move it around the house and take it to other people's to show off.

I know I said earlier that 3d gaming was my initial motive for choosing a projector. Movies are what I will be using it for 85% of the time, though. I can't wait to watch something like "The Incredibles" on it. The wife and kids will be slack-jawed with amazement.

Bud, thanks for putting the sig info back up. That's the most helpful info I've seen on the AVSF.

Cheers! :D ,

gleepglop

Well I just ordered an XR-30X from Circuit City. Your review put me over the edge, Southsound. So now I am part of the Sharp Home Theater family. Yesh! Maybe someday I'll mount it, but until then I will move it around the house and take it to other people's to show off.

I know I said earlier that 3d gaming was my initial motive for choosing a projector. Movies are what I will be using it for 85% of the time, though. I can't wait to watch something like "The Incredibles" on it. The wife and kids will be slack-jawed with amazement.

Bud, thanks for putting the sig info back up. That's the most helpful info I've seen on the AVSF.

Cheers! :D ,

gleepglop

Excellent choice. I have an X10 and it is terrific. I use it for all my Xbox360 gaming and it looks fantastic when displaying HD material.

Hello guys. Hope this is the right spot to ask this. Im very new to the home theater world. I recently moved into a new house that has a home theater system in the basement (my room :)) I went and picked up a new receiver today because the previous owner took the one they were using but left the XR10 and some speakers.


Anyways I got everything working today but the picture is VERY green. I mean in the picture the sky looks green. Like a lime green almost. The Bulb looks new about 30 hours I think it said. I really cant figure out how to fix it. Ive gone through all the settings I can find but I got nothing :( I thought you experts over here could give me a hand.


Thanks !!!

Hello guys. Hope this is the right spot to ask this. Im very new to the home theater world. I recently moved into a new house that has a home theater system in the basement (my room :)) I went and picked up a new receiver today because the previous owner took the one they were using but left the XR10 and some speakers.


Anyways I got everything working today but the picture is VERY green. I mean in the picture the sky looks green. Like a lime green almost. The Bulb looks new about 30 hours I think it said. I really cant figure out how to fix it. Ive gone through all the settings I can find but I got nothing :( I thought you experts over here could give me a hand.

Thanks !!!

Make sure your component cables are plugged into the correct plug.
B-B G-G R-R

edit....figured it out with a little more searching :)

I received my xr10x a couple of days ago and have been absolutely blown away. In fact, everyone who has seen it in action has been amazed. A friend of mine has a 50inch 1080p plasma and he could not believe the picture quality and size of the screen i can project (100 inch). His jaw dropped to the floor when i told him it cost a 10th of what he paid for his.

I can't wait till 1080p projectors become more reasonably priced but until then i am more than happy.

I don't even have a 'proper' screen yet...just a white wall without any borders :D

I received my xr10x a couple of days ago and have been absolutely blown away. In fact, everyone who has seen it in action has been amazed. A friend of mine has a 50inch 1080p plasma and he could not believe the picture quality and size of the screen i can project (100 inch). His jaw dropped to the floor when i told him it cost a 10th of what he paid for his.

I can't wait till 1080p projectors become more reasonably priced but until then i am more than happy.

I don't even have a 'proper' screen yet...just a white wall without any borders :D

Did someone forget to send anavrintobin the secrecy memo. :rolleyes:

This is the type of first post that could single handed ruin the plasma TV market…. :D

Honestly I share your joy and welcome to AVS… just wait till you go over to the DIY screen forum and for 50 bucks paint that wall and invite your plasma buddy back. Just make sure he’s seated before you fire up the 10X….:eek:

Good luck and don’t be afraid to stick around and post and your mailing containing instructions on the secret handshake will be soon coming…:)

This is the type of first post that could single handed ruin the plasma TV market…. :D

Uh, maybe :)

It's hard to believe but, I have already chalked up about 2 months with a plasma and am LOVING it. For me, it has been far superior to everything about the projector experience. The main factor is just being able to watch what I want when I want, instead of having to only watch things in 2-4 hour blocks to avoid hurting the bulb. Not just that, but the overall PQ is so far superior on the plasma there really isn't even a comparison (despite the fact it's not even a very good plasma). With that said, there certainly is still a place in my viewing for a PJ, but it will have to wait until a very cost effective solution occurs (which will likely require a solution to the whole bulb issue). Both have definite strengths and definite weaknesses, and therefore places in the marketplace. Unfortunately, the PJ weaknesses were just too much in my particular situation (two girls <= 3 years old means few 2-4 blocks). As a matter of fact, I am looking at potentially not having a plasma for two months and I can't imagine what I'm going to do without it. With the PJ, I would go 2 months fairly frequently due to lack of opportunity.

BTW, I'm not trying to argue Bud's point...I know he was kidding (largely ;) ). I just have been very surprised with the results of my switch to the dark side, and thought I'd share.

Uh, maybe :)

BTW, I'm not trying to argue Bud's point...I know he was kidding (largely ;) ). I just have been very surprised with the results of my switch to the dark side, and thought I'd share.


Dave

My statement was 99% tongue in cheek. But I couldn’t help commenting on the first time exuberance of spending 700 bucks and feeling like you are Howard Hughes in your own personal screening theater. I know I felt it and I think we all did in the beginning and to be honest I still do most nights when firing up the now several generations old machine.

Just about any technology you can think of has a range of attributes that make one method preferred by one person but not another. For example what’s the best method of getting from point A to point B. Select only one: Hummer, Corvette, Jeep, Minivan, or a Harley. I actually know people that have one of each because they cant make up their mind. Likewise in my little man cave I have the 10X, an old 25”tube TV and a 21” LCD TV that doubles as my computer monitor. Everything is feed from the same tower of equipment and each carry a part of the viewing load.

Projectors do suit a certain lifestyle better than others. I have often wondered how my usage would differ if I had it set up in the main living area in the house. My guess is it wouldn’t have worked out for us. I view my projector like my friend views his Corvette up here by the Great lakes if you factor in the 6 months of winter and the 50% of the remaining days it rains there is no logical way anyone can justify owning a sports car. That’s a big investment in comparison also. But the idea is it’s there when you can. That’s how I view the projector also. During the summer my 10X doesn’t see 4 hours a week but it’s worth knowing it will be there for the 20 + hours a week all winter.

To get back on topic projectors like the 10X are really tempting to newcomers to this because of price. And after reading this forum and the screen forums for over a year I have found the lower the cost projector the more tempted people are to want to use them as a mainstay TV. People buying 6k projectors are putting them in 60k rooms. People buying $600 projectors are using white painted living room walls for screens. I have no idea what group of people are enjoying their setups more. But a lot of the stuff I have posted had to do with things people could do on a budget to get the most out of their investment.

Even with improved projector lamps there will always be room environmental issues that will make one type of viewing preferred to another.

But all that said there is nothing that will cost justify a XR10X projector better than the look on your plasma buddies face the first time they come for movie night, or better yet the look on his wife’s face when your wife tells her and we only paid 700 bucks for it….:D

To get back on topic projectors like the 10X are really tempting to newcomers to this because of price. And after reading this forum and the screen forums for over a year I have found the lower the cost projector the more tempted people are to want to use them as a mainstay TV. People buying 6k projectors are putting them in 60k rooms. People buying $600 projectors are using white painted living room walls for screens. I have no idea what group of people are enjoying their setups more. But a lot of the stuff I have posted had to do with things people could do on a budget to get the most out of their investment.



I bought the 10XL and I am shooting it on some BOC in my garage. Have some old JBL G400 speakers hung up on the wall and some yamahas in the back. I set it all up a few weeks ago and almost every friday/saturday night we have a full garage between neighbors and friends hanging out for movie night. We average 25-35 people each time. my daughter jsut turned 16 and Id rather have her and her friends hang out around our house and goof off than somewhere possibly getting into trouble.


My setup is not fancy or nothin to be real proud of. Just alot of fun to get people together...plus in the garage we can spill, have popcorn fights and get roudy and the wife doesnt get mad:D


cliff notes....bought the 10xl and its proly the best 700.00 we have spent in a while

I bought the 10XL and I am shooting it on some BOC in my garage. Have some old JBL G400 speakers hung up on the wall and some yamahas in the back. I set it all up a few weeks ago and almost every friday/saturday night we have a full garage between neighbors and friends hanging out for movie night. We average 25-35 people each time. my daughter jsut turned 16 and Id rather have her and her friends hang out around our house and goof off than somewhere possibly getting into trouble.


My setup is not fancy or nothin to be real proud of. Just alot of fun to get people together...plus in the garage we can spill, have popcorn fights and get roudy and the wife doesnt get mad:D


cliff notes....bought the 10xl and its proly the best 700.00 we have spent in a while


That is almost exactly what I did also, only in the basement. I told the wife when she wanted to spend more money on the project that no this is going to be a feet on the coffee table room. Every thing in the room was old stuff that was still comfortable but no one worries about rings on the table or some spilled food on the old sectional.

Like yours my sound system started with 4 old speakers and a stereo amp playing both A and B outputs for a poor mans surround sound. And an old carver amp driving a sub. Over time I updated things a little but I still have under $2500 in the whole room. And for my needs it rocks.

I got talked into hosting a UFC fight night about 6 months ago and now 6 events later they wont let me stop. I have actually got hooked on the crazy sport. It don’t get much more blue collar than that. :D

If I had to pick a projector I would call the (Working Mans Projector) I would have to say the 10X fit the bill. :)

That is almost exactly what I did also, only in the basement. I told the wife when she wanted to spend more money on the project that no this is going to be a feet on the coffee table room. Every thing in the room was old stuff that was still comfortable but no one worries about rings on the table or some spilled food on the old sectional.

we took our couches out of the basement and put them in the garage :D set up a few folding tables and scavaged every lawn chair we could get our hands on .



Like yours my sound system started with 4 old speakers and a stereo amp playing both A and B outputs for a poor mans surround sound. And an old carver amp driving a sub. Over time I updated things a little but I still have under $2500 in the whole room. And for my needs it rocks.

LOL...same 'surround' system here. Im currently running with an older sony that the surround speakers arent equal to the fronts...so I just run them a+b and go. Watching '300' is amazing even if it is faux sound:)

Im researching new recievers and will probably end up with a 7.1 system in there soon. altho in a garage, not sure if a sub will do any good.




I got talked into hosting a UFC fight night about 6 months ago and now 6 events later they wont let me stop. I have actually got hooked on the crazy sport. It don’t get much more blue collar than that. :D



half the neighborhood, my brothers and co workers have pegged my house for superbowl. Im sure glad my garage is heated!!!!

Im researching new recievers and will probably end up with a 7.1 system in there soon. altho in a garage, not sure if a sub will do any good.


Below is what I ended up with for surround speakers I’m calling it 4.2 surround. 4 of the mains and 2 of the 12”subs. With only a 8’ wide screen who has room for a center….phantom center is what I personally like.. too much stereo as a kid I guess…:)

And yes you would feel the subs in the garage. :D

IMO the 10X needs a big screen and bigger sound to complete the effect. Now when about 600 DVD’s came off the shelves during the locomotive pulling into town part of polar express I knew I had the subs just about right… :eek:

http://inlinethumb54.webshots.com/13941/2930463190068493142S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2930463190068493142Ewpktx)

http://inlinethumb03.webshots.com/3138/2908712780068493142S600x600Q85.jpg (http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2908712780068493142mPrZaC)

IMO the 10X needs a big screen and bigger sound to complete the effect. Now when about 600 DVD’s came off the shelves during the locomotive pulling into town part of polar express I knew I had the subs just about right… :eek:


:D


nice lookin setup! I love the Fosgates! Those boxes factory? They look huge for the 12's, but I spose they do move quite a bit of air tho;)

I know you posted this before but what size screen is that and how far back is your PJ?

Mine I had about 45 minutes to frame up a screen before first showing. 4 2x4s and some BOC later...117" diag (only 1/4 inch out of square:D) i think 8'3'' X 5foot something.

I havent ceiling mounted the PJ yet so not sure what the distance will be.

I'll post pics later

:D


nice lookin setup! I love the Fosgates! Those boxes factory? They look huge for the 12's, but I spose they do move quite a bit of air tho;)

I know you posted this before but what size screen is that and how far back is your PJ?




My screen is 6’x8’ 72x96 canvas and painted. And the projector is ceiling mounted a little over 14’ back. One of the little talked about features of the 10X is its super short in fact negative drop height. My basement was built around 1870 from field stone and was a coal bunker for most of its life. Being hand dug the ceiling being only ¼ thick peg board ended up at 6’4” and I wanted a 6’ screen. Call me a little strange. Thus the name my friends coined “The Hobbit IMAX”

Almost no other projector would have worked in my application without doing a lot of lens shifting and or keystone. The 10X went in spot on with about a 6” drop below the ceiling. Below is a picture of the screen and the projector in my homemade mount. When you go to mounting yours it might give you some ideas.

IMAX is cool

http://inlinethumb62.webshots.com/1213/2023686520068493142S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2023686520068493142AFlhsv)

DIY mount

http://inlinethumb61.webshots.com/3900/2038536310068493142S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2038536310068493142IvzoBg)

The speakers were built for me by a small company down my way called jagaudio they do lots of very nice high end stuff and I talked them into building me just some bare bones enclosures based around the two Fosgates I just happened to have. They take the drivers and put them in test boxes and measure the actual response of every one and then design the box based around the real numbers. Of course the size of the box helps them play down low so I told them the max I could handle and they then tune the ports to the volume. And boy do they pound.

A funny side note about the mains I have them at ear level when seated and the ports are in the center as you can see. I also have them toed in just a little and there are two seats in my theater that the ports point straight at your head. I always never say anything to people in those seats but at least a few times during a movie they will hit the right frequency to throw what I call an air ball the 14’ back to the seat. The only way I can explain it is its like getting hit with a fluffy dry snowball. Some people scream some look around and try and figure it out and others totally ignore it until the movie is over and then go “I have to ask you something”. :D

One of the little talked about features of the 10X is its super short in fact negative drop height.

I read up on that fact after I bought the 10XL:( My screen is tight to the ceiling(10 foot ceilings but I have a sink on that wall that I have to stay above) and I have to come down about 20" from the ceiling with the PJ...a little keystoning will be in my future. its either down 20" or off center 12":eek: proly shooting from the same 14'


Below is a picture of the screen and the projector in my homemade mount. When you go to mounting yours it might give you some ideas.
that screenshot is awesome! Did you tweak your settings or leave it stock?

I picked up a cheap mount from mountdirect. with the drop I need it was the easiest solution for me. Plus it has the quick disconnect that I need. Did u connect your PJ with S-cable or component connections?



The speakers were built for me by a small company down my way called jagaudio they do lots of very nice high end stuff and I talked them into building me just some bare bones enclosures based around the two Fosgates I just happened to have. They take the drivers and put them in test boxes and measure the actual response of every one and then design the box based around the real numbers. Of course the size of the box helps them play down low so I told them the max I could handle and they then tune the ports to the volume. And boy do they pound.

Looks like they do great work!

Bud,

Is it just me, or do you build a new mount every couple of months? :)

What's the motivation?

well..here is my humble garage setup:D notice the flipdown screen lol
the next screen will be going all the way down to the sink and another foot or 2 wider.

its a rough start but I'll be polishing it up as I go...........


http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g118/clubstogie/Picture2-1.jpg

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g118/clubstogie/Picture3.jpg

Bud,

Is it just me, or do you build a new mount every couple of months? :)

What's the motivation?

Doesn’t everyone belong to the “Mount of the month club” :rolleyes:

Actually they were throwing out a couple of Chief mounts at work and I latched onto them. They have far more adjustment than my first DIY but it had its own special charm. Something the 10X doesn’t have is any side to side offsets and I had been wanting to do a Tee slot deal for a while. So that’s it in the picture. I started a thread about it but no one was interested. A couple of the highlights of doing something like this it gives the guy that cant get into the ceiling a way to bridge two ceiling joists and not mess the ceiling up beyond the 4 tiny drywall screw holes. It also allows the projector that last axis of adjustment needed to do the setup right. You get all the tilts and swivels and tips out of the chief mount and now you wouldn’t have to figure your lens being dead on center. Most people move the image right and left by turning the drop pipe. But if you think about it that’s what causes bowing and out of focus edges. The third plus of this mount is I can have the exact same Tee base out in the garage or the back porch and have projector will travel by just slipping it in place.

In the man room I wasn’t too fussy about looks but I thought someone might make a nice tricked out one for a fancy room. :)

As to what motivates me that’s a tough one. Two things I guess I like to try new ideas rather than just think about them and when I find something I think people might like I get a kick out of sharing on here.;)

Backwoods

First off nice set up and you work like me get something done fast and dirty and learn from the experience and keep going. The flip down is very cool and I’ll bet the sound system gets used for more than movies. It would if I was lucky enough to have a garage that big. :D

As to my settings. I run in eco mode with the fan set to high, I also added a small aux muffin fan I can turn on for long projector runs. The little bulb you see hanging down is a temp probe and I keep an eye on the exit air temp. (just another experiment I’m doing)
When I built the screen I was doing a lot of experimenting and research into neutral gray screens trying to get the 10X to give high PQ while maintaining some light in the room. The gray helps with better blacks at the cost of some lumens. Something the 10X has lots of. In blending the paints I found I liked the results with a gray that was neutral at about 7500k light source and therefore I have it set to 7500 in the menu. The rest of the settings never needed to be changed from factory so they sit there all zeros including keystone. The paint I used for the screen has a little angular gain ability also that let me turn down the brightness. I liked the idea of starting out with room to adjust as the bulb dims and each time I calibrate I bump that a little. That last hurrah will be going off the eco setting if the bulb makes it that long.

Ok cables are homemade component cables and I used the VGA cable that came with the 10X at the end. The component cables I made I used 3 25’ lengths of coax just like the kind the cable guy makes up. They have an F connector (threaded coax thing) and at radio shack etc you can buy an F to RCA converter 3 males 3 females. Worked out great.

The projector is feed from a DVD player / burner and that’s my video hub. Everything goes into its inputs and it is output as 480p the 10X takes over then and does the rest. I found inputting 480p gave me the best results. I’m still not in the HD world here in Erie. So its regular DVD and SD cable I watch on the 10X and some old VHS. The burner is also what I play DVD on and I use it a lot to record also. So I switch audio thru the Onkyo and video thru the burner.

I see you made a 16:9 screen one feature you might have missed on the 10X is when its in 16:9 mode you have vertical image shift. All them unused pixels (black bars) will let you move the image up and down. from what you said about when you get a bigger screen needing to use keystone might not be so for you. Just do the image shift. On mine 72x96 screen in 16:9 mode I can move the picture up and down 18”. That’s very handy when I have a large group (back row) or when I’m in the mood to tilt the recliner back I just run the image up to the ceiling. I’ll post a picture of the image full up and from the projector mount picture you will see how close to the ceiling both are. With no keystone.

It also points out how much the black ceiling in front of the screen helped with light spill.

http://inlinethumb21.webshots.com/20/2021147720068493142S600x600Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2021147720068493142OBVzGy)

:)

Backwoods

First off nice set up and you work like me get something done fast and dirty and learn from the experience and keep going.
ya..my wife loves that about me:rolleyes: lol

The flip down is very cool and I’ll bet the sound system gets used for more than movies. It would if I was lucky enough to have a garage that big. :D
I needed to keep access to the faucet so the flip was necessary..but I like having the screen up and not at the hands of kids or risking getting dirty.



As to my settings. I run in eco mode with the fan set to high, I also added a small aux muffin fan I can turn on for long projector runs. The little bulb you see hanging down is a temp probe and I keep an eye on the exit air temp. (just another experiment I’m doing)

Ill have to follow your posts on that....


Ok cables are homemade component cables and I used the VGA cable that came with the 10X at the end. The component cables I made I used 3 25’ lengths of coax just like the kind the cable guy makes up. They have an F connector (threaded coax thing) and at radio shack etc you can buy an F to RCA converter 3 males 3 females. Worked out great. I think Im going to try a 50 footer of s-cable first and see how that goes...right now I am using a couple rca cables coupled together from a car stereo system :(

I see you made a 16:9 screen one feature you might have missed on the 10X is when its in 16:9 mode you have vertical image shift. All them unused pixels (black bars) will let you move the image up and down. from what you said about when you get a bigger screen needing to use keystone might not be so for you. Just do the image shift. On mine 72x96 screen in 16:9 mode I can move the picture up and down 18”.

I hope to be able to have time soon to mess with all the buttons on this thing..the whole 16:9/4:3/1:1 world is new to me. I just wish Joanne fabrics had BOC wide enough for me not to have a split in the middle of my screen...even though I cant see the split during movies...but I am a cheap bastage(read..wife wont let me spend much more):D



thanks for your info, reading your posts sold me on the 10xl in the first place!(your screen shots helped too)

I hope to be able to have time soon to mess with all the buttons on this thing..the whole 16:9/4:3/1:1 world is new to me. I just wish Joanne fabrics had BOC wide enough for me not to have a split in the middle of my screen...even though I cant see the split during movies...but I am a cheap bastage(read..wife wont let me spend much more):D


If you like the idea of a cloth screen and you don’t mind painting canvas can be had up to 144” wide in nice flat rolled material. Bleached canvas works fairly well without being painted but there is a good 20% PQ to be had with a simple paint job.

Take 15 minutes and play around with them menu buttons. The image shift you are going to find quite nice. It works when the projector is selected 16:9 when in 4:3 mode it is grayed out of the menu. Took me a little while to figure out how that worked. :o

Jawhn, been watching movies with the Oppo DVD player and with my Samsung Blu-ray player since Friday evening. I'd say, yes, the Oppo 970 upconverting via component to the Sharp projector results in an improved picture, even though the xr10 must do its own downcoversion from 1080i or 720p to 1024x576 (or whatever 16:9 is on this projector). That said, it's not a huge difference -- nowhere near as huge as playing high-def material via Blu-Ray or my DirecTV HD DVR.


Mike,
So is there any value in buying the DV-970HD if upconverting does not result in a vastly improved picture (since original content is still 480i on the disc) ?

I was impressed by the Lord of the Rings movie shown over Cable on TNT HD channel and was trying to get a DVd player that can show something comparable to it.

Any feedback on bulb life on the XR10X?

Our second bulb just went out last night with only 200 some hours on it. The first one lasted around 800 or so.

Our living room doesn't allow for anything other than a PJ and I purchased the Sharp based on performance to cost ratio. However, having to drop $300 on a bulb that lasted 3 months is not in the cards.

The Sharp is mounted from the ceiling with no obstructions around it. We normally watch it 14-15 hours per week. edit: We are using the eco-mode.

Any feedback would be appreciated? Do I have bad luck? Are we using our PJ more than others?

Thanks very much.

Hi all. Long time, no post for me...but I do lurk quite often. ;)

The x10x is still working wonders for me, and as it's our main TV and gaming display, the following problem is a pain in the butt.
Last night, in the middle of using it, the remote stopped working. I've tried multiple replacement batteries, so it's not that.
Right now, I have to climb up to the PJ to turn it on and off and change the active input.
Anyone know if it's possible to program another remote to talk to the xr10x?
Or a source for a replacement remote? (all places I've looked are out of stock)
Thanks for any help you can give.

edit: I do see the remote at Sharp's website for $30 plus $9 shipping. I would love to be able to program my receiver or DVR remote to work the PJ though...

I lurk here also.:)

I'm still loving my XR10X immensely myself, although I'll freely admit that there are certainly "better values" to be had in the PJ arena today, compared to what there was when I got the XR10X. I do miss not having a HDCP input, but not enough to upgrade, yet. On the other hand, I love the Sharp's open ventilation layout w/ the sealed light engine...in my cold basement the bulb stays nice and cool.

Dreamcat, to answer your question I have the Sharp programmed into a universal remote and it works great...however I needed to use the "learning" function of my universal (Sony RM-AV3100) to get the XR10X's functions in. I could find no pre-programmed codes. This means that you'll probably need the original remote at some point, I'm afraid...

$39 for a replacement isn't too unreasonable, at least compared to what other companies charge for their spare parts, but it's still frustrating.

Let me know if I can be of any help.

I used to be a huge fan of the Sharp XR10X, until my first bulb died after only 1,000 hours in low mode usage only. My second bulb only lasted 20 hours!!!!!!!! I am so mad at Sharp that I can't even think straight. Bulbs aren't cheap! I refuse to put another penny in that projector. I am thinking the entire line of Sharp XR10X's have a design flaw at get go which is what necessitated a design change to a different bulb, but essentially same projector.

My "back-up" projector is still going strong and just won't quit! That is the trusty Infocus X1! I am now looking into upgrading either to a Sanyo Z5 or a Sony AW15. Both are priced within $30 of each other where I live. I bought the Sharp at Sam's club, but they are giving me a really hard time of it.

What is really neat about this time is that the wife is saying, "You better go and get another projector, because we should always have a "back-up projector!" To think I went through "heck" and back trying to convince her to get the first one!

FoP,
My bulb went out at about 200 hours too. My impression when from reading a bunch of different when it happened was that it was a fairly common occurrence. In fact, I view Sharp's changing of the bulb for the XR-10XL as an implicit acknowledgment that something wasn't right with the design.

Dreamcat,
When I returned my unit, I accidentally forgot to return the remote. I think I have it sitting around, but I'm not sure where. Obviously, I have no way to verify it's working, but if I can find it, I'll shoot you a PM.

Thanks for that ORPhD. I wouldn't want to take your backup remote though. What if your remote stops working? Or do you not have a xr10x at all anymore?

I did get it at Sam's, and have actually returned it twice when the bulb went, as they swore to me that was covered when I bought it, and they've held to that promise so far.
Both times they exchanged it for a new one with no hassle.
Not sure what'll happen next time I have to take it back, as they only carry the xr20x in the notevision line now.

My projector is off to the express service by Sharp. I am hoping everything goes fine and they "fix" whatever is causing the lamps to die prematurely.

My projector is off to the express service by Sharp. I am hoping everything goes fine and they "fix" whatever is causing the lamps to die prematurely.

Keep us posted on what they do. I am really curious if they have a fix.

I have a question for those that have used the 30x model.

I am currently using the 10x model and it is by far the best projector under $3000 to do stereo 3d at 85hz. There is almost no flicker and I use the edimensional shutter glasses with games and the Nvidia stereo drivers for the video card.

Does anyone know if the new projector will also do stereo 3d? I see the specs for vertical synch are the same 45-85hz range and the color wheel appears the same speed so I am hoping it does. The thing is, most projectors that can hit 85hz have issues with their being enough of a time offset that you can't synch the shutter glasses correctly. There is a good white paper on this, just do a google search for time sequestial stereoscopic visualisation to see the pdf file.

For those that haven't tried 3d on the xr-10x, you really should if you have an Nvidia card in your computer...it is truly amaizing.

It turns out that the ballast went bad. They did not need to replace my 1 month old brand new light bulb. They replaced the ballast, cleaned the insides, gave it a firmware upgrade and something about the fans (either replaced the fans with a new fan part or something like that) and sent it back. The express service really wan't bad at all. The worst part was making the the projector was properly packed before Federal Express picked it up. Good thing I had the original box. I then had Kinko's "double-box it" to prevent theft and safer transportation.

What's the firmware # and do you know what the differences are? Do you notice any difference in the fan noise? Did Sharp do anything about the bulbs you had to replace?

The first bulb lasted a little over a year and a half so no rebate there. The second bulb actually didn't go out, but couldn't fire up due to the faulty ballast so they didn't need to replace it. I don't notice any difference between the old firmware and the new one. (like additional features etc.) The fan might be slightly louder. It is hard to tell without doing an a/b test.

The bright picture really makes the picture look like a large plasma with HD. Glad I went through the trouble of getting it fixed instead of junking it for an upgrade.

I have been reading this thread for some time now and I have been loving it. I finally registered so I could post. I absolutely love this pj and although some haters refer to it as not "true HD" I am contstantly amazed by the pq. I can't imagine 720p being that great of an increase. The pq really pics up the slack and for movies and xbox 360, split about 50/50, I am fully pleased. I have about 400 hours on the bulb and I have it in "eco-mode" with High fan. I also don't have it mounted so I can easily place a box fan on low near it to help with cooling. With the sealed optics maintenance is a snap and although there have been some bulb-life issues, I think it has to do with adequate cooling personally, I have had no problems so far, whether or not this has anything to do with my added cooling is to be seen but I know that BUD16415 has an extra fan on his as well. I hope the thread keeps going b/c I really like the info and camaraderie of people discussing a great pj. Any news or praise or ideas please post and keep this going!

Kain1111
Welcome to AVS and jumping in and posting. Discussion of the 10X has died down some with each new generation of projector emerging. But I still think it’s mainly because everyone is busy watching movies and playing games on this workhorse.

Granted most that come to my house to view it are not front projection experts but I still get quizzed about the HD PQ thing. It still has the wow factor to me and that’s saying a lot for the older technology. Brightness allows some ambient light viewing while maintaining some decent CR, and that trumps the lack of resolution IMO. And my seating is fairly close to the screen.

For a “business” projector it still does one heck of a job.

I'm still chugging along and enjoying my projector...

Keeping fingers crossed that I don't run into any of the problems posted here though.

It has been great for me and this thread specifically has been like an extended user's guide. The added cooling I used before I read about BUD's but that was only b/c I use added cooling on my 360 as well which I'm sure anyone with any knowledge on it has heard about. My maintenance for both is:

XR11-xc Box fan on low and vacuum once a month, Also b/c it's not ceiling mounted (Just my preference) I plug it directly into the outlet. I have read some issues with, frankly, any appliance that can run hot with having power drain when using an extension cord or power strip (probably only cheap ones though).

xbox 360- I use a laptop cooler under it and I have one of those $9 coolers attached to the side to give it a little more airflow. Since there have been some issues with drawing power to run the fan and it is powered through USB I connect it to an Apple
iPod charger that's plugged into the wall so no power drain on the 360. I also added little rubber feet to the power brick (which is off the carpet) so there's more airflow underneath.

I have had no problems with either. These are just things I have found to work for me and maybe someone else if they want to try. Thanks

I got ahold of a Sharp XR-30x this weekend and WOW!

I went to Ultimate Electronics today and looked at there PJs and all there Plasma's, etc.

This 30x projected a better image than almost anything I saw there. The only big screen that had a better image was a nice Sony xwga or something like that.

This thing is bright, lowest settings. I mean bright!!
It looks like Plasma, deep blacks, color pops.
Using component to VGA.

DVI connection for digital cable not as colorful as vga. Need more testing. Dvi SDdvd for HTPC looks great.

Component is the way to go for this projector, SDTV looked like DVD quality or better. Now that the cable box upconverting it to 1080i.

I cant believe more people dont jump on these.

Only complaint is that its not native 16:9.

I see DT500 is but not sure on quality of that one.

Wow. beats my pb6100

I got ahold of a Sharp XR-30x this weekend and WOW!

Only complaint is that its not native 16:9.

I see DT500 is but not sure on quality of that one.

Wow. beats my pb6100

DT500 is like 10x on steroids, plus it gets the REDS right.

To bad DT500 is short throw or I would order it.

I need long throw. There is always something that is not correct!

I CANT FIND THE PERFECT PJ !!! It does not exist !!

I saw the that Reds were a little off when playing dvd, computer was able to make the adjust for the most part under dvd player options on HTPC.

I have a Question?

When playing HDTV the image Fills the whole screen. What is HDTV broadcasting or image size to make it fill like that? SDTV like HBO etc does not fill the screen. Hmmm.

When playing HDTV the image Fills the whole screen. What is HDTV broadcasting or image size to make it fill like that? SDTV like HBO etc does not fill the screen. Hmmm.

HDTV is being broadcast in 16:9 ratio. You can make some adjustments on your cable box for the aspect ratios.

Deewan- Yeah I do see that you can access aspect ratio on cable box, not sure how good it will look but I will check it out.

Sill gotta XR-10XL. Running same as always. Only have around 450 hours on it. My average is constant around 40 hours per month of viewing. Not too bad, 'cept I gotta watch more if I want to finish the bulb off before the warranty expires in 3 years.

I figure I've got another year on this project before I upgrade to a 16:9. I'll keep the XR-10XL for 4:3 and get something else for 16:9.

Question:
On the 30x connected through component to vga I saw some blocking only happens when viewing Happy Feet during very fast action, like when they are all swimming fast in circles. I have watched 45 hours on this and thats the only time i saw this. Other action scenes in all other movies dont show this.

anybody see that on the 10x or xl?

Sproket - What's your source? I watched Happy Feet on TWC cable on a CRT RP HDTV and there was lots of macroblocking there too. In my case, I figured it was the source material and not the TV.

Source was digital cable. I saw it on Std movie channel and it did it on HD channel to. Im thinking that Happy Feet just requires alot of bandwidth being animated computer film. I dont see macroblocking with any other material with cable box. Guess I will get the Happy Feet dvd test one day. That should tell the truth.

Looooove my Sharp 10xl. Only have about 150hrs on mine. Love it for my 360 etc, my screen is an 8 footer Doable. No problems.

I only wish it had a HDMI input!! I have a HDMI reciever but I can only use component. Luckily I found a DVD player that would upscale over component.

Our sharp is up to about 1900 hours, still going strong on the original bulb. Had it for a little over a year now, and still loving it. Shooting it on a 8'x6' homemade screen consisting of a black frame made of 1x4s with the screen just being the drywall. I skinned the drywall with a very smooth skin of drywall mud, and put 1 coat of primer, 2 coats of the Glidden ultra pure white, and then 2 more coats of bud's special paint blend. Using an Onkyo 6.1 HTIB system and an xbox 360 for a dvd player. Have well under $2000 in the whole setup, and the overall experience blows away people who spent double that on a plasma...

Our sharp is up to about 1900 hours, still going strong on the original bulb. ..

Owning a Sharp, that's music to my ears!

great projector! Had mine about a year now. Can't wait to go HD.

Well CMRA, then you'll like to hear that I am at 1926 hours. First bulb of this projector. (knocks on wood)

We watch a lot of 4x3 formatted video. Content we have stored on 2 networked ReplayTV's and from our standard DishNetork receivers. I wanted to find a quality native 4x3 projector with the thought that someday in the future I would add a 1080 PJ - if they came down enough in price and I really felt the need.

Back in August, after reading a lot of messages on this thread and getting some great advice from bud16415, I made the plunge into the PJ world and bought an XR-10X and a day later, an XR-30X. After a few days of side-by-side comparison to the XR-30X (at the same price) I returned the XR-10X and kept it's newer brother. The XR-30X has some awesome specs - 2300 ANSI lumens and 2200:1 CR. We played with it in a spare bedroom with a 60" image for a couple of days - no complete movies - and then put it back in the box until the new home theater was complete.

On Monday of this week, the insulators had finished their job and I thought we would hang a temporary screen and have our first "movie night". The screen is an older 100" Da-Lite Model B that was used in a bar for 10 years - so although it may have been white once, it is now a light tan. That made it a perfect test for our future FG Wilsonart that will be the same size. We had a double feature - Shrek on VHS and Shrek 2 on DVD. We only hooked up the front speakers (15" JBL with horns) and our sub (BIC 1520) and the room was acoustically dead because of the open insulation. But the experience even in those less than perfect conditions was outstanding. Wife Appeal is now at about 15 on a scale of 10.

We built a 20' x 28' addition to house the theater (20' x 20') and a large closet (20' x 7') for equipment and random storage. Even though we are acting as General Contractors for the project, I was a little shocked with the current cost of construction in our area. But after watching those two videos I know that we will be more than happy we made the investment. The only thing I missed was the inconsiderate chatter from the people behind us, the sticky floors, and the Milk Duds. I can happily live without the first two, but the 'Duds are already on our shopping list. Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread - and the forum. They have made my first experience in home theater a great one!

Does the XR30x have an HDMI input? If it did id be all set just to replace my 10x with that.

Well, not exactly. The XR-30X has a DVI-D connection and the instruction manual says there is an HDMI to DVI-D cable available commercially. But there is also a note that says, "Depending on specifications of video equipment or HDMI to DVI digital cable, the signal transmission may not work properly. (The HDMI specification does not support all connections to video equipment that has HDMI digital output terminal using HDMI to DVI digital cable)". Maybe someone has tried this and had success - but if so I would be careful to purchase the same cables, etc. they used.

Well, not exactly. The XR-30X has a DVI-D connection and the instruction manual says there is an HDMI to DVI-D cable available commercially. But there is also a note that says, "Depending on specifications of video equipment or HDMI to DVI digital cable, the signal transmission may not work properly. (The HDMI specification does not support all connections to video equipment that has HDMI digital output terminal using HDMI to DVI digital cable)". Maybe someone has tried this and had success - but if so I would be careful to purchase the same cables, etc. they used.

This is a dumb question, but isn't an HDMI cable simply a modified VGA cable anyway, in a sense? In other words, don't you just get the same level of signal from both cables? I would think that the VGA cable would be the better alternative since it's native on most projectors, and you can very easily convert from component and other outputs. Plus, it's native for most HTPC.

Am I crazy?

I would love to hear that someone tried this and got it to work, as I haven't had any luck with getting an upscaling DVD player that works over component. The HD models (HD and BluRay) only upscale over HDMI as well, so this is the only drawback I've come across with my XR10 thus far.

I'm sure most know this by now but the 360 upscales over VGA. I have it connected to the 11xc by VGA. I use the optical connection so the Red and White audio just dangle. I took a much simpler approach to Buds mod (if you haven't seen this just check his sig.) I place a box fan next to it (Mines just on a table against the back wall.) and I've gone from having acquired this with 280 hours with now over 500 in about 3 months and it's running great. I'm not sure but with the short bulb life due to overheating, this is my safety net. I would suggest everyone to provide some sort of additional cooling on this pj. I recently had a friend over and he thought this was "Full Hi-Def" {He's not one to be on a fourm like this :)}. The pic IMO is impeccable. To know that it's not even 720p and still get this picture is beyond me how they do it. I'm loving this for gaming. Once you play on an 8x8 screen there's no going back!

Back in August, after reading a lot of messages on this thread and getting some great advice from bud16415, I made the plunge into the PJ world and bought an XR-10X and a day later, an XR-30X. After a few days of side-by-side comparison to the XR-30X (at the same price) I returned the XR-10X and kept it's newer brother.

It’s great to hear the Sharp worked out for you and also that the 30X is becoming the new 4:3 XGA projector of choice. And you can’t ever forget the milk duds.

I haven’t been to the Sharp web page in a while so I stopped in this morning. I see the 10X series of projectors are no longer listed and it has been replaced by the 30X.

I also was at my BIG box store this week and I see they no longer are showing the 10X-L that was dust covered for the last year and in its place is a shiny new 30X display that is just as hard to find and lackluster in nature as the old 10X display. I did lay my hands on the projector and it was mounted solid to the display board and the back board of the display was so close to the back of the projector I couldn’t see the plugs. What I did notice is, (How small this projector looked!) in comparison to the old clunker I’m used to. I know size and weight don’t equate to quality and like most electronics smaller and lighter is the trend and what sells but WOW it’s smaller. And I played with the focus zoom rings a little to get a feel for that and they felt likewise a little bit more “plastic” for lack of a better word. And I know the 10X is plastic also.
The air venting in and out is located quite different than the 10x and I have grew to like the side intake and discharge because it let me back the unit up close to the wall and also some light always leaks out the air vents. I couldn’t tell how many fans the 30X has and keep in mind I haven’t seen one in action yet.
When comparing the specs I see the total watts in both bright and eco mode are about 60 watts lower for the 30X and it also has the higher lumen rating so they have improved something there. It would be interesting if I could get my hands on one to test to measure the exhaust air temp and see how it looks compared to 10X.
Last night I ran the 10X for a couple hours without the aux fan on (forgot to turn on) and in my basement the winter temp is a little warmer than summer temp and lower humidity also and when I was going to shut it down I saw I was running about 8 degrees warmer than normal. So the fan does help and in my case more so in the winter than the summer as strange as that sounds. Plus moving the warm air around on a cold winter day makes the whole room more comfortable.


So if you go to your big box store and see 40 people gathered around the 12 plasma sets by the entrance grinning from ear to ear at the images and wishing they had the 3 grand to get one, go back to where they have a row of non powered computer monitors and check out the 30X.:confused: there wont be anyone around to bug you. :p

And remember Southsound’s review, and that one of these 800 buck babies properly displayed would wipe all those plasma lovers grins away. :D

Maybe I better get one to test soon. :eek:

It's funny you mention that Bud but I notice that "side benefit" of the 10X too...that being a room heater. :)

I have my basement on a seperate zone but rarely have it conditioned (or I set the thermostat either way high or way low depending on the season) unless I know we'll be in there or have company. The XR10 definitely provides some heating effect to the basement when on for a significant period of time. I'm sure an auxillary fan like Bud has would disperse that heat more readily though.

It's nice in the winter of course, but my AC struggles against it in the heat of the SC summer, especially if we have 20+ people in the room as well.

I know a few of you are doing HD with the 10X / 30X etc. and even a few are doing HTPC setups. And a lot of this is old news, but I thought I would fill you in on what I did Saturday.

Another AVS member got a hold of me and he lives in the same town I do and he wanted advice on a DIY screen for his new 1080p Optoma HD80 and I invited him over to test it on my screen and some other samples. I was afraid I would be so blown away by the 1080p that I would hate watching the 10X, but I invited him anyway. His projector was still in the box and he brought his high end up scaling DVD player also. I think he is pretty new to FPHT and I suggested as a baseline we watch some 10X first. we ended up watching a good hours worth of clips from several movies and I think he was quite impressed seeing a lot more PQ than he thought he would. We did some lights on testing also. Then we set up the Optoma and played the same clips again. This HD80 is a very nice projector and I was surprised at ho well it lit up the neutral gray screen. my 10X now has 1000 hours on the bulb but the HD80 was equal IMO in echo mode. The calibration out of the box was pretty good also and we tweaked it in some and we also had to do a image shift and some keystone and full zoom to get it on my screen with my low ceilings. But when we were done the PQ was excellent and sitting at 14’ my back row the image wasn’t really a lot different to my eyes than the 10X. we moved up to 10’ my closest seating and where SDE is sometimes noticeable and the HD80 was still pulling strong, with no SDE, I had to get within 3’ and put on my reading glasses to view SDE, the pixels are that small. So as impressed as I was I was also very impressed at how good the old XGA workhorse did, and in my room I didn’t get the feeling I was missing a super lot in not upgrading. Now in all honesty we didn’t have a HD feed to send it and I’m sure that would have tipped the scale big time. But then again I wasn’t coming down from HD to the 10X. When he left I think he had as many new questions as he had questions answered.

As he was walking out the door my nephew was coming up the steps, he told me “we need to see what HTPC is all about” and he had it all loaded on his pc. So after 10 trips to the basement with computers and equipment and connecting to the internet and running coax thru the house and out a window to a OTA HD antenna we completed the connections using the 10’ VGA cable that came with the 10X into the second input on the back and a digital audio cable to my surround. My room looked like Tesla’s workshop.
PC surfing the net etc. was pretty nice at 120” screen size and I could actually see doing that from time to time. We spent a lot of time trying to get OTA HD but the best we could do is digital TV. We tested a bunch of programs that help people manage their HTPC stuff and they worked good. And then I remembered I had an IMAX movie that came as a dual disc DVD and “Windows Media High Definition Video (WMV HD)” the movie was The Amazon.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/HDVideo.aspx

No HDMI just that 10’ VGA cable. The WMV HD brings it up and asks you to select 720p or 1080p and we selected 1080 p knowing the projector might say no. It actually played a while and gave us a message the pc was having trouble. So we switched to 720p and low and behold I was looking at the most amazing PQ I have seen to date. This image was almost unbelievable it was coming off a XGA projector and I was really glad the HD80 guy had just left because this would have shocked him.

So it leaves me asking the question’s. What’s up with HDDVD and BluRay and all this HDMI stuff? When you can play these WMV HD discs thru a cheep pc and output HD like this over VGA cable.

And how come in Europe they are releasing movies in this format but not here?

http://www.mavromatic.com/archives/000420

Sorry for the long post, I got happy fingers…..:D

Hey Bud,

You might also want to try just sending the 10X the XGA res instead. The 10X is really funny though with syncing, so you may need to hit the Resync button on the remote to get it dialed in crystal clear at that res. It was always what worked best for me.

I know a few of you are doing HD with the 10X / 30X etc. and even a few are doing HTPC setups. And a lot of this is old news, but I thought I would fill you in on what I did Saturday.

Another AVS member got a hold of me and he lives in the same town I do and he wanted advice on a DIY screen for his new 1080p Optoma HD80 and I invited him over to test it on my screen and some other samples. I was afraid I would be so blown away by the 1080p that I would hate watching the 10X, but I invited him anyway. His projector was still in the box and he brought his high end up scaling DVD player also. I think he is pretty new to FPHT and I suggested as a baseline we watch some 10X first. we ended up watching a good hours worth of clips from several movies and I think he was quite impressed seeing a lot more PQ than he thought he would. We did some lights on testing also. Then we set up the Optoma and played the same clips again. This HD80 is a very nice projector and I was surprised at ho well it lit up the neutral gray screen. my 10X now has 1000 hours on the bulb but the HD80 was equal IMO in echo mode. The calibration out of the box was pretty good also and we tweaked it in some and we also had to do a image shift and some keystone and full zoom to get it on my screen with my low ceilings. But when we were done the PQ was excellent and sitting at 14’ my back row the image wasn’t really a lot different to my eyes than the 10X. we moved up to 10’ my closest seating and where SDE is sometimes noticeable and the HD80 was still pulling strong, with no SDE, I had to get within 3’ and put on my reading glasses to view SDE, the pixels are that small. So as impressed as I was I was also very impressed at how good the old XGA workhorse did, and in my room I didn’t get the feeling I was missing a super lot in not upgrading. Now in all honesty we didn’t have a HD feed to send it and I’m sure that would have tipped the scale big time. But then again I wasn’t coming down from HD to the 10X. When he left I think he had as many new questions as he had questions answered.

As he was walking out the door my nephew was coming up the steps, he told me “we need to see what HTPC is all about” and he had it all loaded on his pc. So after 10 trips to the basement with computers and equipment and connecting to the internet and running coax thru the house and out a window to a OTA HD antenna we completed the connections using the 10’ VGA cable that came with the 10X into the second input on the back and a digital audio cable to my surround. My room looked like Tesla’s workshop.
PC surfing the net etc. was pretty nice at 120” screen size and I could actually see doing that from time to time. We spent a lot of time trying to get OTA HD but the best we could do is digital TV. We tested a bunch of programs that help people manage their HTPC stuff and they worked good. And then I remembered I had an IMAX movie that came as a dual disc DVD and “Windows Media High Definition Video (WMV HD)” the movie was The Amazon.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/HDVideo.aspx

No HDMI just that 10’ VGA cable. The WMV HD brings it up and asks you to select 720p or 1080p and we selected 1080 p knowing the projector might say no. It actually played a while and gave us a message the pc was having trouble. So we switched to 720p and low and behold I was looking at the most amazing PQ I have seen to date. This image was almost unbelievable it was coming off a XGA projector and I was really glad the HD80 guy had just left because this would have shocked him.

So it leaves me asking the question’s. What’s up with HDDVD and BluRay and all this HDMI stuff? When you can play these WMV HD discs thru a cheep pc and output HD like this over VGA cable.

And how come in Europe they are releasing movies in this format but not here?

http://www.mavromatic.com/archives/000420

Sorry for the long post, I got happy fingers…..:D I always love seeing your posts Bud your write incredibly well! Yeah I've been to HD with this with the 360. I download their HD content and I recently got Ninja Turtles and played it on the 11xc and it looked incredible. As much as I could through memory I compared to the same movie being played in BB on a 1080p Panny and obviously the Panny looks great but not in my mind for the extra $ required for 1080p. Right now I have some HD movies, HD TV through the cable box and HD gaming with the 360 and I couldn't be happier.

So, are you guys saying we could get an HDMI to XGA (or VGA) cable and run an upconverting DVD player off that for upconverted HD?

And, I agree with Kain above, I always enjoy reading Bud's posts. Bud - You're a real asset to us XR10ers! :)

So I'm getting ready to purchase a used XR-10X with 120" screen and ceiling mount for under $300 the unit is under 1 year old according to the owner. The only problem is it needs a new bulb. From what I'm reading this seems to be a great projector and for $300 I dont think I can go wrong. Your thoughts and oppions. The unit is under a year old so worse case I send it back to Sharp and have it fixed under warrenty. Anyone know where I can get a bulb? I've found them online for $263-300 does that seem reasonable?

The only draw back to this projector from some of the reviews are that the bulb doesnt last anywhere near the 3000hour mark in economy mode but other than that it's great bang for the buck and in many cases has better picture quality than pj's costing much more. Any suggestions or thoughts regarding buying a used XR-10X used? How reliable are these?

A couple of questions:
1) I hear DLP projectors have a tendency to go a little crazy when subjected to vibrations. My concern is I have two PSB SubSonic 3i's 15" enclosed Sub's which put out 800watts. Yes it does shake the entire house. Is this going to be an issue?
2) Has sharp done anthing about all the complaints on shorter than expected bulb life.

So I'm getting ready to purchase a used XR-10X with 120" screen and ceiling mount for under $300 the unit is under 1 year old according to the owner. The only problem is it needs a new bulb. From what I'm reading this seems to be a great projector and for $300 I dont think I can go wrong. Your thoughts and oppions. The unit is under a year old so worse case I send it back to Sharp and have it fixed under warrenty. Anyone know where I can get a bulb? I've found them online for $263-300 does that seem reasonable?

The only draw back to this projector from some of the reviews are that the bulb doesnt last anywhere near the 3000hour mark in economy mode but other than that it's great bang for the buck and in many cases has better picture quality than pj's costing much more. Any suggestions or thoughts regarding buying a used XR-10X used? How reliable are these?

A couple of questions:
1) I hear DLP projectors have a tendency to go a little crazy when subjected to vibrations. My concern is I have two PSB SubSonic 3i's 15" enclosed Sub's which put out 800watts. Yes it does shake the entire house. Is this going to be an issue?
2) Has sharp done anthing about all the complaints on shorter than expected bulb life.

If you are getting the projector, the mount, and screen all for under $300, that does seem like a pretty good deal. One thing to be weary of, I believe (I could be wrong) that the warranty is only good for first hand buyers. Meaning if you purchase a used projector, Sharp may not honor the remaining warranty. However, since you know the guy you are buying the unit from, you could have him return it if anything goes wrong and Sharp would be none the wiser.

My opinion on your questions:
1) I have dual subs as well. I don't have 15 inch 800 watts subs, but I have two 12 inch 450 watt Velodyne subs. I've had my theater turned up to the point I thought I was going to damage the foundation of the house, and I experienced no "craziness" from the projector. But if you are really concerned about it, one thing you might want to try is putting some sort of isolator (rubber washers) between the drywall ceiling and the mount. That way any vibrations coming from the ceiling are eliminated.
2) I've read some stuff about a firmware update, but nothing that has specifically stated prolonged bulb life.

So I'm getting ready to purchase a used XR-10X with 120" screen and ceiling mount for under $300 the unit is under 1 year old according to the owner. The only problem is it needs a new bulb. From what I'm reading this seems to be a great projector and for $300 I dont think I can go wrong. Your thoughts and oppions. The unit is under a year old so worse case I send it back to Sharp and have it fixed under warrenty. Anyone know where I can get a bulb? I've found them online for $263-300 does that seem reasonable?

The only draw back to this projector from some of the reviews are that the bulb doesnt last anywhere near the 3000hour mark in economy mode but other than that it's great bang for the buck and in many cases has better picture quality than pj's costing much more. Any suggestions or thoughts regarding buying a used XR-10X used? How reliable are these?

A couple of questions:
1) I hear DLP projectors have a tendency to go a little crazy when subjected to vibrations. My concern is I have two PSB SubSonic 3i's 15" enclosed Sub's which put out 800watts. Yes it does shake the entire house. Is this going to be an issue?
2) Has sharp done anthing about all the complaints on shorter than expected bulb life.
Bud and I both have been using external cooling for our Sharps and I have put on about 250 hours in probably 3 months and I use eco-mode and have the brightness at 0. I have no problems but keeping fingers crossed. I have nothing to back up this idea other than my experience. With all of the cooling problems the 360 has had I pretty much provide anything that gets hot with some kind of extra airflow. I do remember reading in this thread I think about another Sharp that was brought out specifically b/c of the cooling/bulb life issue that had extra cooling. This may be a solution to the bulb life problem.

So I went ahead and purchased a used XR10-X based on all of your oppinions and positive remarks. The bulb was burnt out and I called Sharp they said ithe projector was still covered under the Express Extended Warrenty and I should send it in apperantly for those that are having issues with lower than expected bulb life there is some sort of firmware upgrade that must only be serviced by sending it in. So while I'm waiting to hear back on the results I'm in the process of getting speaker cable and cleaning out the unsued room that's going to be a dedicated HT room. I do have a couple of questions for you.

What kind of connectors are you using to hook up your HD equipment.
Here is the equipment I have and or planning on using with my XR10.



1) XBOX360 (Comes with component video) Not VGA. I belive someone mentioned that MS makes a VGA connector adapter? Can somone confirm or advise please.

2) PC my video card has 2 VGA inputs so I'm good there. I'll just have to buy a 10' + VGA cable to hook up for some highly anticipated online gaming.

3) HD-DVD (HDMI) - Component video.

Anyone know if Frey's carries VGA to component video adapter?

What are you guys doing? I would rather not use the S-Video but the VGA connectors. Are you going through a reciver? I have an old Pioneer Elite VS-TS36 it's got some compnent video but know HDMI. Just wondering how you guys are setting up your HD equipment on this projecdtor. Thanks in advance.

What are you guys doing? I would rather not use the S-Video but the VGA connectors. Are you going through a reciver? I have an old Pioneer Elite VS-TS36 it's got some compnent video but know HDMI. Just wondering how you guys are setting up your HD equipment on this projecdtor. Thanks in advance.

I have all my video equipment running through my Denon 2807 via component cables. I purchased a 25 foot component to VGA cable from an online store and ran the component output from my Denon to the VGA input on the projector. I use my Denon as the video switcher for my PS3, HD-DVD player, and HD cable box. I have one of my MediaCenter PC's running VGA to the second VGA input on the projector. Everything looks and works great!

So I went ahead and purchased a used XR10-X based on all of your oppinions and positive remarks. The bulb was burnt out and I called Sharp they said ithe projector was still covered under the Express Extended Warrenty and I should send it in apperantly for those that are having issues with lower than expected bulb life there is some sort of firmware upgrade that must only be serviced by sending it in. So while I'm waiting to hear back on the results I'm in the process of getting speaker cable and cleaning out the unsued room that's going to be a dedicated HT room. I do have a couple of questions for you.

What kind of connectors are you using to hook up your HD equipment.
Here is the equipment I have and or planning on using with my XR10.



1) XBOX360 (Comes with component video) Not VGA. I belive someone mentioned that MS makes a VGA connector adapter? Can somone confirm or advise please.

2) PC my video card has 2 VGA inputs so I'm good there. I'll just have to buy a 10' + VGA cable to hook up for some highly anticipated online gaming.

3) HD-DVD (HDMI) - Component video.

Anyone know if Frey's carries VGA to component video adapter?

What are you guys doing? I would rather not use the S-Video but the VGA connectors. Are you going through a reciver? I have an old Pioneer Elite VS-TS36 it's got some compnent video but know HDMI. Just wondering how you guys are setting up your HD equipment on this projecdtor. Thanks in advance.
I can speak on the Xbox. I have mine connected with the MS VGA cable. I would highly recommend to only buy 1st party on this. $40 new, I got mine for $10 used at EB. BTW it looks great! You won't be able to play on a regular-sized TV again!

I have a 4 way VGA selector box I use to one VGA out to the PJ. I send my HTPC, XBOX, and HDTV to it. HTPC is VGA direct, the other 2 go from component to VGA adapter cable. It works great, and less cables to run and buy. You can go from your 360 to vga via a separate cable (monoprice) with good results and probably cheaper than a cable from MS.

That's what I do, and I get great PQ from all components.

beartooth - Your HDTV goes via VGA as well? Your cable/dish box has VGA out?

I went to my local electronics store today and looked for what your describing but I only saw one for S-Video. Can you tell me what brand / model your using. I'll have to get one of those too.
I have a 4 way VGA selector box I use to one VGA out to the PJ. I send my HTPC, XBOX, and HDTV to it. HTPC is VGA direct, the other 2 go from component to VGA adapter cable. It works great, and less cables to run and buy. You can go from your 360 to vga via a separate cable (monoprice) with good results and probably cheaper than a cable from MS.

That's what I do, and I get great PQ from all components.

GsHTPC - That's something that you're more likely to find in a computer-specific store, or online.

Fry's Electronics has a dedicated computer section that's the size of CompUSA it's huge. If anyone could shed some light about the brand of video switch your using that would be great. A reciever would be great but mine doesnt have VGA just component video. I've got VGA video switch for my computers but it's video specific just the VGA, mouse and keyboard. I guess I could use something similar to that and just hook up the audio to my reciver is that what your talking about?
GsHTPC - That's something that you're more likely to find in a computer-specific store, or online.

Well guys, I have my first problem. I'm at about 550 hours and the bulb has dimmed severely. I had to take it off eco-mode and put it back to bright and frankly it's still pretty dim. I'll have to look into a replacement bulb at some point but I just don't have the $ right now. This is a big setback. Even at full brightness, to the point where the picture is actually degraded it's still not bright enough. Argghhh!

Well guys, I have my first problem. I'm at about 550 hours and the bulb has dimmed severely. I had to take it off eco-mode and put it back to bright and frankly it's still pretty dim. I'll have to look into a replacement bulb at some point but I just don't have the $ right now. This is a big setback. Even at full brightness, to the point where the picture is actually degraded it's still not bright enough. Argghhh!

Kain1111
Sorry to hear that.:( Like you I have been tracking the dimming on my projector also. I now have about 1000 hours and am still in eco mode about every 200 hours of usage I run the gray scale calibration test again and adjust brightness. I selected a screen paint around the fact I anticipated dimming and started off with the new bulb at –8 on the brightness around 400 hours dimming began setting in and by 500 I was setting at zero on the brightness. It didn’t change much for some time and when I ran it the other night I had to bump it to +2. If things keep going like this I have quite a ways to go before needing to go into bright mode. (Knocking on wood as I type) I did notice a flicker about 10 minutes after start up about 2 weeks ago and I though “Oh Boy here we go.” I remember reading that it’s a good idea to shift the bulb to the high setting once in a while to burn off the electrodes or something like that. So I did that and the flicker stopped, I ran in that mode for a couple hours and then went back to eco mode.

Whenever I do the brightness calibration I always run the thing all the way up to see what I have in reserve. And from +2 to the max in eco mode there is still a lot of room to go.

I’m assuming you have checked the rest of your equipment and know the problem is with the 10X and not something feeding it. I guess the test screen that fires up when you start the projector would show dimming also.

Well good luck and fill us in on if a new bulb fixes things. By the way do you have the 10X or the 10X-L?

Not sure if you guys knew but our projector has a three year warrenty. When I called and complained they told me there is an updated firmware and if they found that it's a defect in the projector they will fix it for free.

Well guys, I have my first problem. I'm at about 550 hours and the bulb has dimmed severely. I had to take it off eco-mode and put it back to bright and frankly it's still pretty dim. I'll have to look into a replacement bulb at some point but I just don't have the $ right now. This is a big setback. Even at full brightness, to the point where the picture is actually degraded it's still not bright enough. Argghhh!

Arrrgggg is right. Notable dimming usually comes around the half life of the lamp.
At least give it a reseat and see if that helps. You'd be amazed how that helps our exterior florescent lights.

I'll give that at try CMRA thanks! I'll post any results.

I have been a very happy owner of a couple of Sharp xr-10x's for a year now. I got them refurbished from Fry's for about $500 each.

I use one for watching movies/TV and have it hooked up to direcTV to watch the 100 HD channels they have. I hook it to my PC for watching HD-DVD discs. I get around the HDMI problems by having an Xbox360 HD-DVD drive (bargain at only $170!) hooked to my Windows XP computer. I use PowerDVD-HD and AnyDVD-HD software so I can backup the movies to a hard drive and watch from there. I do have to disable my anti-virus software or the movies get a little choppy.

I use the second XR-10X to play games in 3d. Using an Nvidia 7900 series card with Nvidia stereo drivers and Edimensional shutter glasses I can get the XR-10X to 85hz for 3d gaming. There is almost no flicker and the colors are perfect. Playing games like R-Factor and Flight simulator are amazing in true 3d. The xr-10x scored the best out of all projectors to do 1024X768 3d at 85hz based on a scientific study by some guy at a university.

I am one happy owner!

Well,
After reciving my unit back from Sharp for a firmware upgrade and bulb replacement. FYI I had over 3000 hours on my bulb original bulb. I now notice several large dot's on the screen. Anyone know how to address this? The dust is not on the outside of the lense I've cleaned that but I'm assuming it's on the inside. Is this a serviceable item or am I just stuck?

Hey guys... I just recieved one of these refurbished from sharp.... works great for gaming! anyways after a day it started making a loud buzzing sound I mean very loud! (color wheel?) and I cant get it to stop... it isnt the fans though... only when the bulb is on... any advice? Sharp says its not under warranty and the seller wont take it back.

I just got rid of my XR10 due to bulb issues. The bulb blew at a little over 800 hours and that's unacceptable to me.

I used it as an excuse to upgrade to the Mitsubishi HC-1500.

So, in answer to the thread question, no, I am not still happy. The edges were always blurry, the SD content didn't look that great on it, and the bulb issue just pushed me over the edge.

Question about your video card. Is it AGP or PCI-e? I've got a 6600GT agp card in my HTPC and want to do exactly the same thing. But my video card is not HDCP compatible so it wont play HD movies through my PC / Xbox360 HD drive. I went and got PowerLink HD player but cant use it because of video card issues. I need to upgrade to an AGP video card that can do HD. Any suggestions? Xbox360 looks amazing on this. I'm doing this in 4:3 takes up the whole wall.

I have been a very happy owner of a couple of Sharp xr-10x's for a year now. I got them refurbished from Fry's for about $500 each.

I use one for watching movies/TV and have it hooked up to direcTV to watch the 100 HD channels they have. I hook it to my PC for watching HD-DVD discs. I get around the HDMI problems by having an Xbox360 HD-DVD drive (bargain at only $170!) hooked to my Windows XP computer. I use PowerDVD-HD and AnyDVD-HD software so I can backup the movies to a hard drive and watch from there. I do have to disable my anti-virus software or the movies get a little choppy.

I use the second XR-10X to play games in 3d. Using an Nvidia 7900 series card with Nvidia stereo drivers and Edimensional shutter glasses I can get the XR-10X to 85hz for 3d gaming. There is almost no flicker and the colors are perfect. Playing games like R-Factor and Flight simulator are amazing in true 3d. The xr-10x scored the best out of all projectors to do 1024X768 3d at 85hz based on a scientific study by some guy at a university.

I am one happy owner!

I use an Nvidia 7900GTX card and had to get Nvidia's latest drivers to make it HDCP compliant. However, you may be able to get around the HDCP issues by ripping your HD stuff to your hard drive with AnyDVD-HD. They have a 21 free trial if you want to give that a shot. You may want to try the latest Nvidia drivers with your current card to see if it will work as-is. Playing HD stuff takes a pretty beefy CPU and probably does better with multi-core.

I want to start this by stating that I'm a lurker on all things AVS...but rarely post. I've had the XR10 since Jan. 2006, and have had an HD DVD A1 since May of 2005. Love the projector, love HD DVD and I love movies. My question is this, I'm having a heck of a time calibrating the Sharp. I bought HD DVD DVE to calibrate, but it's way over my head.

My wife helped me re-calibrate the other day using Star Wars Ep. III THX, and it looks much better. But, I've got the contrast set pretty high. In outdoor scenes, it just doesn't "pop" with the natural light I would expect. Indoor shots are much better now, richer colors and deeper blacks.

I tried to find the XR10 link for calibration on AVS, but the link didn't work. Anyone mind posting some settings for me to try out? Right now I'm using the "movie" mode. (quiet + eco mode). I've got about 65% still left on the bulb (according to the countdown meter). Thanks.

Here are my settings:
Mode - movie
contrast +20
bright +2
red and blue are set by projector
clr temp 7500K
bright boost 2
eco-quiet

I decided to go with the Sharp XR-10X back in May '06, mostly based on the great reviews in this forum. I couldn't be happier! I watch local Denver HD Sports (Nuggets and Avalanche), HDTV from Comcast, and tons of Netflix DVDs, on a 103" screen. Now I'm ready to try some console gaming on the big screen. Impulsively I grabbed a PS3 last weekend without researching connectivity, signaling, cabling, etc. 5 hours of forum research later I'm totally confused and need some advice.

Has anyone here converted the HDMI output from the PS3 to RGB on the 10X? I know the 10X can display all the various output resolutions of the PS3. I read good things about a device called the HDFury here at AVS and a couple of other forums, so I bought one (Blue version) from Divineo.com. (It was 3AM and I was drooling at the thought of playing Call of Duty 4 on a big screen.) My plan was to connect the HDFury directly to one of the VGA inputs on the 10X. Then I'd run a 12' to 15' DVI-D to HDMI cable between the HDFury and the PS3, through the cable run from my ceiling mount.

Maybe I read too much last night, or I'm over analyzing, but does anyone know if the PS3 can drive the signal 15' through the HDMI cable, to the HDFury? Would a short run like this require any kind of power boost?

This seems like an application that a lot of us 10X folks might be interested in trying, if not for the gaming, for the Blu-Ray. I'm not as technically knowledgeable as many of you so I'm certainly open to any new ideas and designs that get the high-res output from the PS3 onto my projector screen. Thanks in advance!

I can't really help you, Leo...but I'm interested in your research, with a future move to HD-M in mind...

Oh, and I'm still happy with my 10X!

Maybe I read too much last night, or I'm over analyzing, but does anyone know if the PS3 can drive the signal 15' through the HDMI cable, to the HDFury? Would a short run like this require any kind of power boost?


I have a similar setup as you are trying, only with older technology. I convert from original xbox to vga to a vga selector box, then over to the projector. Total run from xbox to projector is 35' or more. I can't imagine what you're trying to do wouldn't work the same way, although I'm not sure about the spec for distances for hdmi.

I decided to go with the Sharp XR-10X back in May '06, mostly based on the great reviews in this forum. I couldn't be happier! I watch local Denver HD Sports (Nuggets and Avalanche), HDTV from Comcast, and tons of Netflix DVDs, on a 103" screen. Now I'm ready to try some console gaming on the big screen. Impulsively I grabbed a PS3 last weekend without researching connectivity, signaling, cabling, etc. 5 hours of forum research later I'm totally confused and need some advice.

Has anyone here converted the HDMI output from the PS3 to RGB on the 10X? I know the 10X can display all the various output resolutions of the PS3. I read good things about a device called the HDFury here at AVS and a couple of other forums, so I bought one (Blue version) from Divineo.com. (It was 3AM and I was drooling at the thought of playing Call of Duty 4 on a big screen.) My plan was to connect the HDFury directly to one of the VGA inputs on the 10X. Then I'd run a 12' to 15' DVI-D to HDMI cable between the HDFury and the PS3, through the cable run from my ceiling mount.

Maybe I read too much last night, or I'm over analyzing, but does anyone know if the PS3 can drive the signal 15' through the HDMI cable, to the HDFury? Would a short run like this require any kind of power boost?

This seems like an application that a lot of us 10X folks might be interested in trying, if not for the gaming, for the Blu-Ray. I'm not as technically knowledgeable as many of you so I'm certainly open to any new ideas and designs that get the high-res output from the PS3 onto my projector screen. Thanks in advance!

am I missing something? I have a 10x and have to use Component. Id love to be able to use HDMI with it, but how?

hdfury

http://www.curtpalme.com/HDFury.shtm

hdfury

http://www.curtpalme.com/HDFury.shtm



I had bought one of these converters at Frys for like $12 in the past but it did not work. Is this one somehow different for some reason? I see its $139! :eek:

I can't really explain how HDMI signaling gets converted to RGB (XVGA) which the 10X is capable of displaying. I think I am correct in assuming its not just a matter of using the correct adapters to send the PS3 signal out of its HDMI interface, through various pin-outs, till it reaches a VGA input on the Sharp 10X. The signal needs some form of conversion. Also, HD content from the PS3's Blu-Ray DVD is protected by HDCP (High-Def Digital Content Protection) encryption and requires a handshake between the source and display device. The HDFury device somehow either filters HDCP or emulates the circuitry provided inside HDCP ready displays, like new HD LCDs and plasmas.

I thought about bringing component out of the PS3 but this also appears to require a conversion to VGA box. I saw some that were close to $200 but they didn't resolve the HDCP issues, they also got bad reviews.

So as things stand I'll be experimenting with the HDFury as soon as it arrives and reporting back to the forum. I'm not very AV techie so this will be more of a qualitative report as opposed to a quantitative report. The following is a more detailed list of my concerns and questions for you experts, before I try this setup.

Does the PS3 as a source device provide enough power to drive the HDFury if I attach the HDFury directly to the Sharp 10X?

What is the potential for damaging the PS3 (or the PJ for that matter)?

Which will deliver the best signal, connecting the HDFury directly to the 10X and run a DVI-D/HDMI cable back to the PS3 (15') or, connecting the HDFury to the PS3 with a short DVI-D/HDMI adapter and running VGA cable to the Sharp 10X? I believe I understand that the HDFury can't drive the signal very far so the long VGA cable scenario would require a secondary voltage source.

Is there another, better method, tested out there by forum members, running a PS3/Blu-Ray to a DLP PJ (like my Sharp XR-10X) at all PS3 output resolutions (1080p etc)?

PS: Just discovered Person 99 is a member of this forum and he's been quoted all over the web re: HDFury and CRT projectors. I'll try and solicit his comments to this thread.

Last week, I turned the XR10X on a Sunday afternoon (the week before the Super Bowl) and left the room for a minute and heard what sounded like a firecracker going off. I walked back in the room and looked around the only thing different was the screen was blank (no light). I checked the lights on the projector and the bulb light was lit red. I unmounted the projector and removed the bulb and it was shattered. I'm not complaining because it was down to about 10% life remaining. When I bought this projector at Circuit City, I purchased their 4 year warranty. I called the number for service on Monday and was surprised that within 5 minutes I was off the phone with a new bulb on the way. I got the bulb today from Tiger Direct and installed it. It looks like a new projector! I didn't really notice the loss of brightness during the life of the first bulb because I would tweak the levels to my satisfaction every few months. With the new bulb, I had to reset everything to what I was happy with the 1st day I set it up. This is a great projector.

I’m far from a expert on PS3 or Xbox and the XR10X but I have had a number of things connected to it and have used both the cables that came with it to great success.

If the PS3 has component out why not use or try that with the cable that does component (RGB) and has the XVGA on the other end. Its my understanding component will carry HD fine.

I extended the converting cable that came with the projector 25’ using 3 coax cables and RCA to F connectors and see no loss in signal doing that with the 10X. I’m not sending HD though and not sure how much that would change things.

I had bought one of these converters at Frys for like $12 in the past but it did not work. Is this one somehow different for some reason? I see its $139! :eek:

Very different that the one you bought.

I decided to go with the Sharp XR-10X back in May '06, mostly based on the great reviews in this forum. I couldn't be happier! I watch local Denver HD Sports (Nuggets and Avalanche), HDTV from Comcast, and tons of Netflix DVDs, on a 103" screen. Now I'm ready to try some console gaming on the big screen. Impulsively I grabbed a PS3 last weekend without researching connectivity, signaling, cabling, etc. 5 hours of forum research later I'm totally confused and need some advice.

Has anyone here converted the HDMI output from the PS3 to RGB on the 10X? I know the 10X can display all the various output resolutions of the PS3. I read good things about a device called the HDFury here at AVS and a couple of other forums, so I bought one (Blue version) from Divineo.com. (It was 3AM and I was drooling at the thought of playing Call of Duty 4 on a big screen.) My plan was to connect the HDFury directly to one of the VGA inputs on the 10X. Then I'd run a 12' to 15' DVI-D to HDMI cable between the HDFury and the PS3, through the cable run from my ceiling mount.

Maybe I read too much last night, or I'm over analyzing, but does anyone know if the PS3 can drive the signal 15' through the HDMI cable, to the HDFury? Would a short run like this require any kind of power boost?

This seems like an application that a lot of us 10X folks might be interested in trying, if not for the gaming, for the Blu-Ray. I'm not as technically knowledgeable as many of you so I'm certainly open to any new ideas and designs that get the high-res output from the PS3 onto my projector screen. Thanks in advance!

The easiest is to plug the HDFury directly into the PJ and use the optional power source on the Fury. You should be fine doing it that way.

I put the Fury by the components then have the long run be analog because long analog runs are very resilient. However, to do this, you need to plug the fury into something that can drive the cable. The best bet here is something like an extron. This may be more hassle than you want to do for what will at best be marginally better.

I had a XR10X (well, still have right now, actually) for a couple of years, until I upgraded this past fall. I was very happy with it.

To be honest, I wouldn't kill myself trying to rig it to take a HDMI source. Both the 360 and PS3 can send a HD signal over component to the XR10X, using a standard component to HD15 adapter.

(side note: it's not correct to say a VGA adapter, because you are not really converting component to VGA, it just so happens that like may similar projectors the XR10X's HD15 VGA ports will also accept a component signal. In reality component <> VGA)

The image looks great on the XR10X. The PS3 will also send bluray movies at HD resolutions over component.

The only things you need the HDMI for are HDCP decryption, and on the PS3 you also can only send 1080p over HDMI.

HDCP encryption is really only needed to send DVD movies at upscaled resolutions, since no current player will do that over component (same with the PS3/360). You'll have to determine how much that's worth to you. The XR10X cannot accept a 1080p signal, so not being able to get that over component doesn't matter.

The upgrade I went for improved a lot of things overall, the addition of HDMI for HDCP encryption was nice, but only a part of my decision. I was aware of the HD Fury, but the hoops I would have to jump through to get it to work (and there were no guarantees, results have been mixed for many) wasn't frankly worth it to me. I was able to get excellent HD signals over component from all the sources that mattered to me...games and HD media.

Just my .02.

I had a XR10X (well, still have right now, actually) for a couple of years, until I upgraded this past fall. I was very happy with it.

To be honest, I wouldn't kill myself trying to rig it to take a HDMI source. Both the 360 and PS3 can send a HD signal over component to the XR10X, using a standard component to HD15 adapter.

(side note: it's not correct to say a VGA adapter, because you are not really converting component to VGA, it just so happens that like may similar projectors the XR10X's HD15 VGA ports will also accept a component signal. In reality component <> VGA)

The image looks great on the XR10X. The PS3 will also send bluray movies at HD resolutions over component.

The only things you need the HDMI for are HDCP decryption, and on the PS3 you also can only send 1080p over HDMI.

HDCP encryption is really only needed to send DVD movies at upscaled resolutions, since no current player will do that over component (same with the PS3/360). You'll have to determine how much that's worth to you. The XR10X cannot accept a 1080p signal, so not being able to get that over component doesn't matter.

The upgrade I went for improved a lot of things overall, the addition of HDMI for HDCP encryption was nice, but only a part of my decision. I was aware of the HD Fury, but the hoops I would have to jump through to get it to work (and there were no guarantees, results have been mixed for many) wasn't frankly worth it to me. I was able to get excellent HD signals over component from all the sources that mattered to me...games and HD media.

Just my .02.

I agree that in this set up, the PJ is the limiting factor and unless you need HDMI for upscaling, I wouldn't bother with it. However, one other advantage to the HDFury is that it has an optimized and high quality analog signal path. Most recent components expect that you will use HDMI and their DACs and analog path are inferior to the Fury. So, you will more often than not get a better picture from the Fury than using YPbPr out of a source component.

On a side note, it is still possible to secure a player that will upconvert over YPbPr if one wants.

I had a XR10X (well, still have right now, actually) for a couple of years, until I upgraded this past fall. I was very happy with it.

To be honest, I wouldn't kill myself trying to rig it to take a HDMI source. Both the 360 and PS3 can send a HD signal over component to the XR10X, using a standard component to HD15 adapter.

(side note: it's not correct to say a VGA adapter, because you are not really converting component to VGA, it just so happens that like may similar projectors the XR10X's HD15 VGA ports will also accept a component signal. In reality component <> VGA)

The image looks great on the XR10X. The PS3 will also send bluray movies at HD resolutions over component.

The only things you need the HDMI for are HDCP decryption, and on the PS3 you also can only send 1080p over HDMI.

HDCP encryption is really only needed to send DVD movies at upscaled resolutions, since no current player will do that over component (same with the PS3/360). You'll have to determine how much that's worth to you. The XR10X cannot accept a 1080p signal, so not being able to get that over component doesn't matter.

The upgrade I went for improved a lot of things overall, the addition of HDMI for HDCP encryption was nice, but only a part of my decision. I was aware of the HD Fury, but the hoops I would have to jump through to get it to work (and there were no guarantees, results have been mixed for many) wasn't frankly worth it to me. I was able to get excellent HD signals over component from all the sources that mattered to me...games and HD media.

Just my .02.

Help me out here. My buddy has this projector and is going to get a PS3 for Bluray movies. I originally told him the only method was with the HDFury. I didn't realize the PS3 had component out. We just went on Tiger Direct that shows a picture of the connections, and there is no mention of Component.

Currently, he has the Component to 15Pin cable from Monoprice so he can hook up his DVD player to the XR10 via component. Where are the component connections on the PS3? Is it a proprietary connection on the PS3 that requires a different cable than what he has?

http://www.ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=58903

Tony...what Bud said. ;)

Short answer, though: the PS3 has two video ports in back, one for HDMI and one labeled as "AV Multi Out". The latter is a Sony-proprietary plug that is present on their AV cables; a composite (which comes w/ the PS3), the S-Video, and the component.

So, yeah you do need a special cable. However, if you have a PS2 hooked into component, or know someone who does, or can find PS2 accessories for cheap...the PS2 cables are 100% compatible.

Thanks to the largess of our President and Congress, I am considering buying a PS3 to replace my current garden-variety DVD player. I don't care about playing games at all, but the PS3 seems to be the best Blu-Ray player out there.
My setup:
Sharp XR10X, ceiling-mounted, with about an 11 foot component-to-VGA cable run from the DVD player.
What I think I need for the PS3, assuming I want SD upscaling - and why not, since Uncle Sugar is buying:

PS3
HDFury Gamer, built into a 6-foot HDMI-VGA male cable
6 foot VGA extension cable, female/male to VGA port on the Sharp

It seems like that would do it - anybody want to keep me honest?

btw, the answer to the question posed in the thread title - 'Definitely'

Has anyone use this projector for outdoor use? Was thinking of picking up a refurbished one for <$500, and use the Gemmy screen. Not that concerned about bulb life, since I will probably only use it 5-7 times a year, i would hope the bulb would last. :)

Has anyone use this projector for outdoor use? Was thinking of picking up a refurbished one for <$500, and use the Gemmy screen. Not that concerned about bulb life, since I will probably only use it 5-7 times a year, i would hope the bulb would last. :)

All PJs can be transported outdoors and used appropriately. Most sorta even like the fresh air. Does wonders for their filters.:eek: Go for it. (PS, turn the auto-on spriklers off first):D

All PJs can be transported outdoors and used appropriately. Most sorta even like the fresh air. Does wonders for their filters.:eek: Go for it. (PS, turn the auto-on spriklers off first):D

Thanks! Well, I won the Ebay bid, so away I go.....

Most sorta even like the fresh air. Does wonders for their filters.:eek: Go for it. (PS, turn the auto-on spriklers off first):D

CMRA
Yep make sure you keep the leaves and sticks out of the filters. That reminds me I don’t think I have found my filter yet…..:D

Mr_stuff
That sounds like a sweet setup. Can you keep us posted on how the HD-Fury setup works out for you with the 10X? I have read a lot of good things about them but haven’t tried one yet.:)

StevieJ
Some outdoor screen shots of the 10X would be awesome to see. :)

Seeing as how the XR30X is lacking a thread of its own I thought I would give it a mini review here.

Yesterday I helped mock up a setup that’s going into a local doctors media room. With all the bells and whistles and for several reasons he was drawn to a 4:3 setup some ambient light and wants a stealth screen wall (DIY neutral gray full wall with flush mounted subs and mains. Because of the stealth appearance no boarder will be used and it will be a setup that take advantage of the zoom when doing scope movies. So projector placement will be critical along with the 30X low off set.

The system is going to have every type input you can think of and the main media will be controlled with a HTPC rack mounted PC wireless mouse and keyboard to control the media, internet etc.

The room we mocked the setup in was very bright all white walls and ceiling some windows that didn’t come into play as by the time we had it all working it was dusk. The 30X comes up with the familiar start up screen of the 10X the menu works about 95% the same the remote has been redesigned from the 10X so I was a little lost there but has a few new features. Nothing that HT will be to excited about but has a highlight window you can move around and also a pointer. Would be nice for presentation stuff. We played several HD signals into it and also DVD. Movie mode was the way to go and produced a great quality picture and man is it bright. On the white wall in eco we had to take everything down low and it was still bright on a 110 screen size zoomed for 4:3 and about 140 screen (guessing) when zoomed out for scope. So for sure it will handle a nice neutral gray screen and the black levels should really kick because they were not to bad on the white. The projector is a lot smaller and really throws some heat out the front located air exhaust. I really liked how the 10X had the fans down the side and the air flowing thru the projector. Like I said we ran it in eco and it was very quiet and when we bumped it to high fan in eco it still was ok to me and about the same as the 10X. its easier to zoom and focus now IMO with the tabs sticking out to turn vs the rings. I used to bump one out when turning the other on the 10X. the mounting holes on the bottom are located in a good place I think and in line pretty much with the off set lens.

The image quality looked super when playing HD IMAX clips thru windows media player 9. SDE didn’t come into play for me till about 5 or 6 feet away at 110 screen size way closer than I would sit for sure. The image was totally messed up in presentation mode, my guess was the clear segment was coming into play. But boy it was bright. We didn’t do a full calibration just set brightness / gray scale. And like my 10X the colors didn’t look like they needed adjusting on the neutral white wall.

The guy that’s getting the setup is resistant to a dark ceiling in front of the screen. mainly because he doesn’t want anyone to know it’s a screen area until the projector comes on. He also wants to conceal the projector but not use a lift and my advice was to let it breath free and if not they need to put a lot of air past the projector in whatever box they build. I didn’t put my temp gage on the 30X but the hand test told me it’s hotter than the 10X.

It’s much smaller and lighter. We hooked it all up with both component and HD cables and I couldn’t see any difference in PQ going from one to the other. The simplest setup with the PC was just the VGA in out just like you were hooking a monitor to your PC. And the HD picture was sweet.

In short if mine died today (anything short of a bulb) and I’m still under my 4 year warranty I would have one of these hanging in it’s place in short order.

It’s much smaller and lighter. We hooked it all up with both component and HD cables and I couldn’t see any difference in PQ going from one to the other. The simplest setup with the PC was just the VGA in out just like you were hooking a monitor to your PC. And the HD picture was sweet.

In short if mine died today (anything short of a bulb) and I’m still under my 4 year warranty I would have one of these hanging in it’s place in short order.

Appreciate the feedback on the new model.

Did you run into any type of HDMI protection issues (HDCP) when connecting via the DVI-D connection?

I purchased an HD-DVD player cheap (OK stop laughing :)) and would need to utilize the DVI-D connection to support 720P/1080i up conversion.

Appreciate the feedback on the new model.

Did you run into any type of HDMI protection issues (HDCP) when connecting via the DVI-D connection?

I purchased an HD-DVD player cheap (OK stop laughing :)) and would need to utilize the DVI-D connection to support 720P/1080i up conversion.

As far as I can remember we didn’t have any connection issues at all. My nephew was stringing all the cables and the DVI worked for everything we had plugged in. Sat. box, OTA HD thru a tuner card etc. I didn’t get real involved in the hookups I was more interested in the PQ and comparing the features with the 10X. I think you should be fine with the HD-DVD player, they sure have dropped in price huh. :eek::rolleyes:

On another note it’s been a couple years almost but Bud16415 is now in the world of HD cable, Time Warner out of the goodness of their hearts offered us free HD box and a whopping 5 HD channels. But one of them was fox and I watched American Idol the other night in HD, (ya I know you guys have been doing this for years now but share in my excitement.) and the PQ on the 10X blew me away again. The last time I remember a similar feeling I was about 10 years old and I saw my first color TV broadcast. I watched a car race and two basketball games on ESPN that I wasn’t even interested in just because the picture was so fantastic. I know I was 100% satisfied before so make me 180% now. :D

Last night the trusty XR10X mid movie blew its first lamp. About 30 minutes into the movie I noticed the picture seemed a little dim and I got up and shut off a light I often keep on in the back of the room. It still didn’t seem as clear as normal but I dismissed it as the show or that I have a cold and my eyes were a little out of it.

Well let me tell you when it went I was on my feet in a half second. I would describe it as the exact same sound as a 22 fired behind you at 3 feet. Little burnt smell for just a second as I was clearing out of the room.

I guess tonight or tomorrow I’ll find out how good my $70 (4 year) plan works at the big box store.
:)

Sorry to hear it, let us know how it goes with the warranty...I'd imagine I'll be going through the same thing myself soon enough...

Bud, did you get satisfaction i.e. a replacement?

If not please let us know because a projector bulb lasting less the 2K hours is unacceptable. Especially when Sharp replaced the XR10X due to this specific problem.

If you do not get satisfaction from "the big box store" or Sharp I am sure a bunch of us will gladly send off some angry emails to the above places.

Hopefully I will be going in to see them tonight. I came down with a late winter cold the day after the lamp blew and have just been to out of it to take it down. Feeling much better now though and tonight I have some free time so wish me luck. I do plan on telling them about the 10X , 10X-L thing and see what they have to say about that issue also. who knows I might be coming home with a 30X …:eek:. Now that is wishful thinking.:D

Should have something to report tomorrow.
:)


Bud, did you get satisfaction i.e. a replacement?

If not please let us know because a projector bulb lasting less the 2K hours is unacceptable. Especially when Sharp replaced the XR10X due to this specific problem.

If you do not get satisfaction from "the big box store" or Sharp I am sure a bunch of us will gladly send off some angry emails to the above places.

I would love to swap mine out for a 30X (for HDMI) so good luck with that!

Well I wish I had better news to report but I basically have struck out on three fronts.

I took the 10X down last night and removed the mounting bracket inspected the case and found just a slight amount of surface dust and nothing really blocking any airflow points etc. I removed the lamp cover door and pulled the lamp. On inspecting the lamp there are two screen covers on ether side and the intake one was 99% free of dust just one small spot had a few flecks of dust, 100% clear on the exhaust side screen. looking into the gate opening I could see the lamps tube rolling around inside, so no question that the lamp was toast. Inside the unit was a very slight covering of debris (fine glass shards etc.) on the bottom surface of the housing.

At that point I put it back together and into the original box and headed for Mr. Walton’s Big Box Store that goes by his first name. With original receipt and copy of the 4 year extended agreement I bought at the time of purchase. Remembering what I was told and how the wording of the agreement was explained.

A quick trip to the service counter told me that I was out of the time frame they could do anything within the store and they told me to call the number for the extended plan, I pointed out on the box I should be still under Sharps warranty also and that when I bought it I was told if that was the case I bring it to the store and they take care of finding a service center. I was told no that’s not the case and I should both call the extended plan and also the Sharp center and see if anyone can help me out.

I started with the plan I paid for thru the box store and was told absolutely never is bulb replacement covered as that falls under the normal wear and tear items clause. I pointed out that both the sales guy and the manager of that area of the store had told me that wasn’t the case at the time of purchase and the woman told me how sorry she was that I was mislead at that time but there was still nothing she could do.

My next call was to Sharp 1 800 BE SHARP got connected to the 10X guy very quick and he took my information and date of purchase and said yes I was indeed still under warranty. I told him the lamp exploded and he asked the hours and I told him 1300 or less. I told him it’s been pretty widely reported on line that the 10X ran hot and the 10X-L was the fix to the problem. He said he was aware of that issue and said both are now out of production being replaced with the 30X series. So I asked what my warranty was good for and what I should do. He said if I send the projector in they would test it as far as the power supply etc and then replace the lamp if I wanted it replaced. Cost to be $299 for the lamp. I asked if there was any support because the lamp failed early and that the 10X was noted for doing this? and the answer was any lamp with over 90 hours is not covered. “ever” I asked if there was any exchange program where a 10X-L or 10X-L type lamp was put into my projector such that I could expect more than this short life span after spending the 300 bucks? He said there is no such exchanges.

Bottom line is does anyone think it’s worth the trouble having them test the unit. I’m about 99% sure nothing malfunctioned causing a power surge blowing the lamp. I always watched the air temp and always had air circulation around the projector ran reasonable time spans in a room with low ambient temps in echo mode and fan on high.

As a side note the guy I work with who bought his after mine just replaced his bulb after 800 hours. Mail ordered a lamp for $275.

I have to say I’m disappointed with Sharp at this point, it’s fairly clear they had a problem and found a solution. I would think the next step would be some positive customer service. Not sure what that should be at this point though. It’s not that if I felt with spending $300 more at this point if I had a reasonable expectation I could get 2000 hours out of the next lamp I wouldn’t hesitate. But basically I feel I’m already loosing 1000 hours from the first lamp and then if I only get 800 out of the new one, then my 300 bucks would be wiser spent on a 30X selling for around $650. that is if I stay with Sharp. :(

That is truly disappointing news, Bud.

I'm right behind you on hours so I'm sure this is forecast of what I am going to have to deal with. I was told the exact same thing about the extended warranty regarding the lamp, but at a different store (initials are CC and they compete directly with a store with initials of BB). I am sure I will get that same "I'm sorry you were mislead" line as well.

For $350 extra, I will surely opt for the 30X as well. That's a no-brainer in order to get HDMI for me.

Sorry to hear of your debacle, Bud. I can't say it surprises me, but it definitely disappoints.

Personally, I think you have a much bigger gripe with the store than with Sharp. I would fight to at least get the $70 back on the extended warranty. They acknowledged that you were misled into purchasing something that didn't do what you were promised, and they need to make that right. While I can understand why they would deny the claim for a bulb, they really have no defense for lying to you.

Sorry to hear of your debacle, Bud. I can't say it surprises me, but it definitely disappoints.

Personally, I think you have a much bigger gripe with the store than with Sharp. I would fight to at least get the $70 back on the extended warranty. They acknowledged that you were misled into purchasing something that didn't do what you were promised, and they need to make that right. While I can understand why they would deny the claim for a bulb, they really have no defense for lying to you.

Hey guys thanks for the input and you read my mind dave.

You could count on one hand with maybe 3 fingers left over the number of extended policies I have ever purchased. And all my better judgment told me not to buy this one also but I was swayed by them talking lamp replacement. You can rest assured I’ll be in their face about the 80 bucks.

One thing I find interesting is how the bigger the company is the less people they have that you can actually talk to that are in any position of authority. Anyone that actually works at the store when you have a problem such as at the service desk are quick to tell you they just work there and have to follow a simple set of rules. When you ask to speak to someone higher they say “I’ll see if I can find a coach.” And then that person repeats the mantra.

I did run across an email addy I may drop a line to though. srobwalton@wal-mart.com :eek:

Very disappointed in the store and Sharp. I would agree that the best route is to work on store and their misrepresentation of the warranty. Best case they replace the 10X with the 30X. Worst case they apply the cost of the warranty to the purchase of a new 30X.

I would send a written letter with a delivery guarantee/notification to the manager of the local store and to the store's corporate consumer advocate (try to find on Web). I would politely restate the issue and request a replacement. If that fails then ask them to credit the $70 towards a new purchase.

If all the above fails then escalate to the Better Business Bureau. Best case the situation gets resolved. Worse case you publish this shoddy service on the BBB web site.

http://welcome.bbb.org/

I was in a similar situation and my local store (same as yours) did the right thing and replaced the unit. The only difference is that the unit was under a year old. That said you have the extended warranty and promise which I did not.

After 2 years of service my 10X also had the lamp blow (there were around 1200 hrs on it. I bought it right before the SuperBowl in 2006 for my annual party at my house and it remained my home theater projector for about a year and I was quite happy with the performance. It was my first experience with front projection after owning a 65 in rear projection CRT for many years. I moved it to my restaurant after about a year when I got a new projector for home. After the lamp went (about 2 weeks before the SuperBowl this year) I called Sharp and was told to purchase a new lamp but I could not see spending 300 on a replacement for a projector that has known issues with the lamp burning out early. Then I remembered that the big box store I had bought if from used to have a no questions asked return policy for all electronics (that has since been changed to 90 days but I bought my projector before this policy changed). I brought the projector back and got a full refund with only minor scowls from the manager after he asked if I had talked to Sharp about still being under warranty. Then I bought a 30x for the restaurant and ended up spending $100 less than I had spent on the old projector and getting one that was brand new!

Wow, that's a win win situation...you basically got paid $100 to add HDMI to your projector.

I doubt I, or anybody else, will be so lucky.

As disappointed as I am the lamp went at 1300 hours and not say 2300 or 3300 hours and that I had hoped the retailer and or manufacture would have handled things a bit better, I had a moment last night to reflect on the bigger picture.

Where my thought process took me was that at say $275 for a new lamp and with 1300 hours of viewing 275/1300 = .21, it cost me in terms of light 21 cents per hour of entertainment. Now if I factor in the projector cost the first time around say $800, 800/1300 = .62 , 62 cents per hour. And sure there is the rest of the system to consider but that’s still working fine and could be factored in likewise.

I have to say based around knowing the true fun that has taken place in my little humble theater with friends and family even at the high number of .62 cents per hour, I can’t think of a better bang for the buck form of entertainment. If I calculate in the cost of popcorn, drinks and pizza, and or gas saved driving to movie theaters I’m sure I have eclipsed the projector cost ten fold. Then there is the immeasurable cost number of after two years still being the only person in my group of friends and family that have anything remotely close to this in their homes. There is something to be said for being the “go to” place for such gatherings. I have spent a lot of quality time with family and friends doing something really fun, time that I think without the focus factor of a gathering point we would have went our separate ways.

So my big question is new lamp or new projector at this point because going back to a 19 incher isn’t an option.

After 2 years and having the opportunity to view 3 projectors in my theater room in competition with the 10X, one XGA LCD, one 720p DLP and one 1080p DLP, I have to say I’m still highly satisfied with the 10X picture quality and brightness. There is improvement to be had with the 1080p unit I looked at but that difference IMHO isn’t enough to outweigh the benefits of the lumen difference and really not enough to outweigh the 4:3 resolution in my case a desired thing still.

The 30X is tempting but when we did the tests with the 30X I was hard pressed when viewing HD over HDMI or component to see any real difference in PQ.

So it’s a new lamp for me at this juncture and I’ll be a happy camper once again for the next 1300 hours hopefully. Anyone with information on a good source on line to get a replacement lamp the information I would be grateful for.


…..Now if I can get the woman that runs the concession area to stop giving away the boxes of (Good and Plenty’s) to those little kids I could get this theater running in the black again….:D

The 30X is tempting but when we did the tests with the 30X I was hard pressed when viewing HD over HDMI or component to see any real difference in PQ.


I mainly want the HDMI for the upconverting of SD-DVD. I have a substantial (for me) DVD collection that I am in no hurry to turnover with a HDM version...

I felt kind of bad taking back a 2 year old projector, but I only had 1200 hrs and about 1000 of that was in low lamp mode so there is really no reason that it should have died so quickly. I actually did not notice any picture difference between the 10X and the 30X. The 30X still runs quite hot, but it does have the DVI connection that is a plus to many ppl. I would not pay extra to upgrade to the 30X unless you need the DVI connection. They are both very good projectors for the price and I too like the 4/3 format since I watched a lot of SD content. When I had it at home I had HD cable and SD-DVD and the picture was quite good. I now have the HC 4900 1080p projector at home and the picture is noticeably better with HD content, but I was always impressed with the 10X picture on regular DVDs and SD television.

My bad, I was under the impression that the 30x had HDMI.

I've been following this thread for a long time, even before I bought my XR-10. Hadn't checked in for a while since everything was going great with my projector. Tonight, we went down to enjoy this weekends movie. Right away I noticed the picture was MUCH more dim than normal. The main PS3 menu screen appeared as it’s half lit version when it's in standby mode. But now, when the PS3 is in standby, the dialog on the screen is almost unable to be read.

Went into the menu on the Sharp and maxed everything out that I could to increase lumens. Only a little improvement. After reading the recent posts tonight, it sounds like my bulbs is about to bust. The menu says I still have 70% of my bulb life left. I know sometimes these bulbs die early, and I was really hoping to avoid that.

I write all of this to ask a question. Has anyone who has noticed the severe dimming called Sharp to report a “poor image” or “bad picture” and sent in the projector in for service before the lamp bust? I know Sharp doesn’t want to replace the bulb after it blows, but I wonder if they would do anything with a 30% used bulb that seems to be on it's last leg when I am complaining about a bad picture. Just a thought.

Oh, I cleaned my projector and it has very little to no dust in any of the filters and my projector always ran cool. Thanks as always.

It's worth a shot at being proactive at least. Sharp is supposed to be a pretty good company to deal with too, if this thread is any indication (other than the busted bulb issues).

I called Sharp and reported that the projector was VERY VERY dim. I stated it had very low hours and less than 30% of the bulb life was used. I was told to ship the projector in for service. I'll have to wait and see if once it gets there they will "fix" it, or if I will get a call telling me I need to buy a new bulb. I'll get everyone posted once I hear more from Sharp.

Great, thanks for keeping us posted.

Well, I sent my projector in for service since my picture was VERY dim. As many of you have experienced, I thought my bulb was dying but wanted to see if Sharp would step up and do something about a bulb with only 700 hours when it should last 3000 (been running on eco-mode).

I got an email today with no explanation or body text. Attached was an estimated bill for $478. Bulb replacement of $300, labor charge of $125, shipping of $40, and tax of roughly $15. So to answer any questions we might have as owners, Sharp will not budge on this even though they know there is an issue with this projector. Below is my return email.


$478 to fix the projector? This model now sells for $500 in the store. Also, according to online reviews and forums, there is a known bulb issue causing the bulbs in this Sharp model to die well before half of the bulb life is used. I understand the bulb has only a 90 day warranty, but after buying the projector 2 years ago for $900 and now needing to spending another $478 to replace a bulb with only 700 hours on it. Why would I want to spend that money knowing I might have to replace it again in 700 hours or less? And $125 to replace that bulb? According to the projectors owners manual replacing the bulb consists of removing two screws and a panel. If this is how Sharp treats customers, I don't care to be one anymore.

Please return my projector. I plan on selling it for parts and using my money to buy a new non-Sharp projector.

Thanks,
Darren Wander

So, to answer this threads question, “No”, I am not happy with my Sharp XR-10X and don’t plan on buying anything Sharp any time soon.

Sorry to hear it but thanks for sharing your experience.

Well it’s been a little while. And I was partly giving myself a chance to see what life was like before FP and partly busy. But boy do I miss not having a projector. So Sunday night I ordered up an AN-XR10LP Projector Lamp for the 10X from Amazon.com $268.82 and it came yesterday in a nice new sharp box.

http://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Electronics-XR10LP-Projector-XR-10S/dp/B000B031QO

So price was ok delivery was exceptional and tonight I get out the screwdriver and switch it out after a little cleaning with the vacuum. Anyone that hasn’t had the lamp out fear not this procedure. On a handy man scale of 1 to 10 this is a 1. and wont take over 5 minutes for anyone to do. So if someone wants to charge you an arm and a leg to change the lamp, just go for it.

I’ll try and post back tomorrow after I open the box. I do plan on still running the aux fan. The results of running it are pretty inconclusive though. Would I have only got 800 hours without it instead of 1300? Who knows. I do feel even at 1300 it was money well spent per hour of entertainment.

I do have one question for anyone running this projector still. Do many of you run any type of power conditioner / back up power supply / voltage regulator / etc with your 10X? the reason I ask is I have a well pump that when it cycles draws the power down a smidgen. You never notice it in the house except in the movie room if I have the lights dimmed way down and I can then see the voltage drop in the dimmed lights. Have no idea if that could effect the projector / lamp but I’m sure it couldn’t be a good thing. Any thoughts?:confused:

Thanks to the IRS and spending a week of my time to understand the alternative minimum tax I didn’t have to break into my piggy bank labeled “lamp replacement fund” so with the piggy half full he’s getting relabeled “XR30-X replacement projector fund” (or better). Who knows what 2 years will bring. :D

So price was ok delivery was exceptional and tonight I get out the screwdriver and switch it out after a little cleaning with the vacuum. Anyone that hasn’t had the lamp out fear not this procedure. On a handy man scale of 1 to 10 this is a 1. and wont take over 5 minutes for anyone to do. So if someone wants to charge you an arm and a leg to change the lamp, just go for it.


So, the answer to the question of "how many AVS guys does it take to change a light bulb" is now determined as 1? :)

Glad to hear you're still in the club, Bud. It was our nice little community here that made you want to keep your 10x, wasn't it? ;)

The clocks ticking on my membership though. No dimming on mine yet though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Hey Bud,

Sorry to hear about your lamp. I remember you getting your XR10X just after I did. Nice little projector, "the business PJ that wasn't" ;)

I replaced mine last Fall, although I still have the PJ boxed in the storage room (haven't gotten around to selling it). Mine had 1327 hours on it, and was still going strong when I took it down, so there's some positive news for those of you sweating bullets over your lamp. Other than occasional vacuuming of the vents, I did nothing special with it, although my theater is in a cold (mid-60 degrees) finished basement.

I had a similar electrical situation, we have a sump pump that cycles frequently during heavy rain (well, it did until I finally added a check valve, but that's another story). When it's going, the lights definitely dim. My solution was a cop-out, really...when the rains started I would generally just find something other to do than using the PJ, since there was usually lightning going as well, and I as a rule avoid a whole lot of electronics on at once in a storm...call me paranoid.

Anyways, good luck with the bulb. You certainly have gotten your money's worth, and then some. Heck, we've even benefited from your experiments!:)

So, the answer to the question of "how many AVS guys does it take to change a light bulb" is now determined as 1? :)

Glad to hear you're still in the club, Bud. It was our nice little community here that made you want to keep your 10x, wasn't it? ;)

The clocks ticking on my membership though. No dimming on mine yet though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Actually the 10X users and ex users that still post are a great bunch. And now that the 10X is getting a little long in the tooth it’s a bit like belonging to an Edsel or a Corvair club.

As to the how many members to change a light bulb? The answer up until now was looking like zero. I have had a tough time adapting to the throw away society we now live in. as a kid I still remember one Sunday morning the toaster burnt out and dad getting up going to the garage and coming back with a roll of ni-chrome wire and a screwdriver and rewinding the element at the kitchen table then making toast. The card you wrapped the wire around was no doubt asbestos but that’s another story.

The real kicker for me getting the lamp is I just started into HD a couple weeks before with the 10X and after seeing how fine that was I think I could be happy for another bulbs worth…:D

I get the occasional pulse dimming of some wall sconces in my theater as well. They're on a dimmer, and it's only noticeable when they're dimmed down to a low (movie theatre) level. There's nothing else on that circuit other than the projector and equipment, so I'm now wondering what's causing the pulsing?

The real kicker for me getting the lamp is I just started into HD a couple weeks before with the 10X and after seeing how fine that was I think I could be happy for another bulbs worth…:D

Hey, Bud. LOL
But, you know, in the deeper part of your soul you really want an even 'better' Sharp. Like the rest of us.:D
Glad to hear you can carry the torch further in this digital age.

Hey, Bud. LOL
But, you know, in the deeper part of your soul you really want an even 'better' Sharp. Like the rest of us.:D
Glad to hear you can carry the torch further in this digital age.

I’m not really sure where I would go with an upgrade at this point. Right now I’m getting a 72” high image in a 76” high room with 14’ max throw distance. The zero drop height is key for me. With no keystone. My width is stuck at 96 and that’s good because my seating first row is 11’ back row is 14’ so 110” 16:9 is my limit. I don’t think I would like doing classics at only 54”tall.

I built a ship in a bottle and now I’m trapped in it….:D

So what I really need is a new room. And we all know that’s not about to happen soon….:o

As to the how many members to change a light bulb? The answer up until now was looking like zero. I have had a tough time adapting to the throw away society we now live in.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy to upgrade, but not for any old reason. My biggest concern with buying a replacement bulb for this projector is how long will that bulb last. Some people have a projector that seems to let the bulb live a full life, some do not.

I bought the Sharp XR-10X two years ago for just over $900. 700 lamp hours later, the bulb "dies". I have two choices... 1) Spend about $300 and hope the second bulb lasts longer. 2) Spend just over $900 with a business that is an AVSForum supporter and buy a new projector with hdmi input, similar specs, 3 year parts/labor warranty, and 3 year bulb warranty (bulb warranty purchased as a separate service plan).

Myself, I feel safer/better about spending $900 and be worry free for 3 years with hdmi inputs (I have Blu-Ray HD-DVD players that won’t convert without hdmi). I don’t feel safe about spending $300 with no bulb warranty and only 1 year of non-express parts/labor warranty remaining for the Sharp? But that is just me. If I felt that replacement bulb would last 2000 hours, or if my first bulb lasted over 1500 hours, I’m sure my thought process would be different.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy to upgrade, but not for any old reason. My biggest concern with buying a replacement bulb for this projector is how long will that bulb last. Some people have a projector that seems to let the bulb live a full life, some do not.

I bought the Sharp XR-10X two years ago for just over $900. 700 lamp hours later, the bulb "dies". I have two choices... 1) Spend about $300 and hope the second bulb lasts longer. 2) Spend just over $900 with a business that is an AVSForum supporter and buy a new projector with hdmi input, similar specs, 3 year parts/labor warranty, and 3 year bulb warranty (bulb warranty purchased as a separate service plan).

Myself, I feel safer/better about spending $900 and be worry free for 3 years with hdmi inputs (I have Blu-Ray HD-DVD players that won’t convert without hdmi). I don’t feel safe about spending $300 with no bulb warranty and only 1 year of non-express parts/labor warranty remaining for the Sharp? But that is just me. If I felt that replacement bulb would last 2000 hours, or if my first bulb lasted over 1500 hours, I’m sure my thought process would be different.

Deewan
I hope you didn’t take my comment in the wrong way because I in no way hold anything against someone upgrading. I almost did the same thing and if I was firmly in the 16:9 camp I think I would have also.

To me the throw away society is less the cause of the consumer and more the cause of the manufactures and retailers. Planned obsolescence has been around now for 50 years at least and in high tech equipment it’s a mixture of planned obsolescence and spoon feeding the consumer the latest technology. Sure I believe technologies keep evolving and emerging but I also think when a rapid change happens the companies back down a smidgen and let the product flow out and the money flow in according to some master plan. Always introducing the latest and greatest beyond the buying power of the masses but building desire for the product. It’s a system that works and IMO they all do it.

I also am disappointed in Sharps lackluster response to the 10X problems. They sold this projector pretty clearly with lamp life hours plastered all over the box and any promotional materials. And yes a smart consumer knows those are only suggested life spans but in our minds you at least think those numbers came about by averaging some test data or something.

Because a product like this was mass marketed and sold at a price point Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe could buy I think this not responding to a known problem will end up hurting them and actually projectors as a whole, especially with the surge of flat panels on the market. Based around the poor demonstrations of front projection I have seen in retail stores maybe this is the plan. Who knows…

In my case even with some disappointment in not getting at least to the half way point of the lamp life I was promised. I’m actually glad about one aspect of the 10X, it was priced low enough to get me into the market. And I’ll go a step more and call it a hobby. TV never felt like a hobby to me more of a tool to use for multi purposes, some good some a brain numbing waste of time. If the price point of the 10X or any entry projector would have been 3k or more 2 years ago I know I wouldn’t have taken the plunge. But after this introduction into FP I could easily see myself going 3k now, but as you point out those 2 years have brought prices down to where my initial 10X price gets me far more.

I always remind myself of the 800 bucks I paid for a VCR about 27 years ago. Now that was some machine…. :o

bud16415 - no worries. I just wanted to make myself clear about why I believe I will go another route. I agree this is a hobby and a wonderful one at that. I watch mostly 16:9 material and after dealing with a bulb that didn't make it to the halfway point and then shockingly Sharps Customer Service, I won't give any more of my money to them.

Quick story about Sharp's Customer Service. The people on the phone were always nice and seemed to care. Which is good. However, the information they were provided with to share with the customer was TERRIBLE! Remember, this is "express repair" with a 3 day turn around (or so I was told).

Day 1 - I tracked my projector on it's way to Sharp. I knew it had been delivered on a Tuesday.
Day 3 - Sharp CS wasn't sure if they had received it yet on Wednesday.
Day 4 - Called for an update. All they knew was they had the projector.
Day 5 - (Friday) No status change.
Day 6 - (Monday) Called and the CS guy said it sounded like a bulb issue but nothing was showing in the notes yet but someone was working on it.
Day 7 - Received a black email with a document attached to it. Document was an estimated bill to repair my projector. Total cost $478. I replied to the email and asked them to simply return my projector.
Day 10 - Recieved snail mail from Sharp. Copy of the Estimated billed. I called to ask what was going on and if they had returned my projector yet. CS guy was very nice, but didn't know if my projector had shipped. Told me he would note the account that projector should be shipped back without being fixed.

So, unless they somehow got it sent out late yesterday and overnighted the projector back to me. The 3 day turn around for me actually meant 2 1/2 weeks.

Oh, another funny item. The estimated bill stated the bulb needed for my projector is "currently not in stock". Maybe they should order a few from Amazon for the sub $300 price. :)

It's been a while since I posted anything about my Sharp XR-30X so I thought I would do a mini-report. Thanks to this thread and the sage advice of bud16415 and others, I made the leap to purchase my first projector last August. I bought the XR-10X first and less than a week later picked up the XR-30X at almost the same price and did a comparison. I kept the XR-30X and returned the XR-10X. We finally had the drywall up in the new theater by around Thanksgiving and, sitting in our lawn chairs, were able to watch a little using just the wall and primer. Mid December we painted the 115" diagonal screen area using Winter Mist - a nice neutral gray (Munsel 8.6, RGB 220,220,220). The room is Sherwin Williams Latte (the color of coffee with cream in it).

Since that time we have watched nearly 90 movies - and have 227 hours on the bulb. I never thought we could enjoy anything as much as we have our new theater. I hate the look of ceiling mounts so the projector sits in a nice piece of furniture - a table with all sides finished and a drawer for remotes. Below is the door we open to expose the projector. I put a shelf of MDF at the proper heigth to allow for a perfect image without keystone and installed 2 12-volt fans under the shelf to bring in fresh air. We put the table between our recliners so we use the table for our munchies and drinks.

If there is interest, I'll take some pictures of the theater and table and post them. Again, thanks to all who contribute to this forum (and the DIY Screen section) for allowing me to make informed decisions about our first home theater!

southsound, I'd be interested in seeing photos of your table/projector setup.

Well, a few days ago, the bulb blew up in my xr10x, and I was right next to the exhaust fan when it happened.

My eye has been bothering me the past few days, so I went to the eye doctor. He thinks he got a piece of something out, although it's hard to find glass. It's not a major deal as he said the scratches aren't big, but I wonder if something like the projector blowing glass into someone's eye will make Sharp stand at attention.

Sir-Vival... it would be a shame if glass in an eye is what finally gets Sharp's attention about this issue.

One last update about my projector, I did end up getting my projector back from Sharp today, 1 day short of 2 weeks. Hooked it up, and the bulb is as dim as ever. While I was in the menu, I noticed something strange. Sharp has reset ALL of my settings. I'm not talking about only my contrast or keystone. Sharp also reset my bulb life value. So my projector with an ultra dim and dying bulb now displays 0 hours of use and 100% bulb life left. WTF?

Well I’m a couple days late in posting with my lamp issues. I took 2 weeks to get in the mood to order the lamp and ended up going with Amazon.com. with shipping it was about 275 bucks and delivery was really fast and the lamp was a direct replacement for what was in the projector. I took some time to study the new lamp compared to the one I took out and other than heat discoloration of the shiny metal parts it was exactly the same.

I was going to install the lamp Friday night but went shopping instead and found the 40” Sony Bravia 1080p LCD TV on sale. I have been looking at this set for 3 months but thought it over priced. This set is replacing a 32 Sony CRT that made it 27 years with lots of use. It’s also in the room that allows the man cave to be a “man” cave. And with the image failing on the vintage CRT the man cave was fast falling to intrusion. Along with the LCD purchase I grabbed a 1080p up scaling DVD player. And Saturday morning picked up a DVR HD cable box to complete the Mrs.’s room and hopefully re secure the man cave for some time. A great deal of Saturday was spent getting that 150 pound CRT boat anchor out of the entertainment center and out of the house. And setting up the Bravia.
Watching several hours of HD content on the new LCD really took the wind out of my sails as far as wanting to re lamp and watch the Sharp 10X. The HD picture on this 40” set was nothing short of breath taking. Up scaled DVD equally breathtaking. And it was only SD content and the Mrs. wanting to watch the lifetime channel in SD that that made me head down to the cave to change the lamp.

The lamp change out went easy and there were just the most minuscule particles of glass inside the projector, actually more like dust. The lamp is totally enclosed even the front where the light comes out is covered in glass. But on each side where the air enters and exits there is a fine screen covering and the exploding lamp could send anything finer than the screen hole size out. Total time to replace bulb 5 minutes total time to re hang projector 10 more minutes. And then I fired it up. Brought back the new projector feeling smelling that burn off smell that takes place. Did a quick focus and zoom and did a gray scale calibration. And switched on some HD TV.

What happened next was quite a surprise to me.

As I sat back to study the brightness change and try and compare in my mind the PQ before and after the lamp blew I really couldn’t. I was comparing in my mind the Sony Bravia LCD TV to the projector. And the comparison even with my back row lighting on about 1/3 power was very favorable. I dimmed the back row and was really shocked at what I was seeing. As breathtaking as that flat panel is and it being 1080p and knowing I was viewing 576p and viewing at least 5 times the screen area from roughly 2 times the distance. This FP image was totally better in some categories. The difference in the emersion quality due to transparent nature of my FP screen surface gave that open window quality to the image even the flat panel didn’t totally get. Call it “film like” or whatever you want to call it. It’s an image quality totally unique to FP, IMO. I watched a couple hours and even watched parts of the same DVD I just watched on the flat panel. The movie took on a whole new persona in the theater room. Hard to explain for sure. Considering when I went down I was fully prepared to be under-whelmed by the experience.

So in retrospect be it 20 cents per hour for lamp life, or 2 years at the cost of 275 bucks I’m still giving the 10X “one thumb up”.


On a tech note I tried a couple times to reset the lamp counter by holding down the 3 buttons on the projector and then hitting the third. But wont reset.
What am I missing?

Secondly right now I’m sending DVD to the 10X as 480p and sending SD 480i to it thru a DVD burner that changes it to 480p (a noticeable improvement)
The new up scaling DVD player I just bought for the upstairs TV is doing an amazing job taking the 480 and making it 1080. Are any of you using a up scaling DVD player with the 10X or do you feel 10X is doing as good scaling?
I can borrow the one I just put in upstairs and do a test I guess.
:)

I'd love to hear the results of your upscaling to the 10x, bud. My understanding is that this was only possible via HDMI.

bud - just send your projector into Sharp, they will reset your lamp timer. ;)

Today I have mixed emotions. I sold my XR-10 on ebay yesterday. I'm a little sad because now I don't have a reason to follow this thread and until I get a replacement, my theater looks bare and useless. Even though I didn't post much to this thread, I always enjoyed reading what others thought about the projector. And now that my issues with this projector are over, I have lost some of my bitterness towards Sharp. I think most of the bitter feelings were caused because I was so spoiled with a great, bright picture on a large screen for 2 years. Then it was suddenly taken away from me.

Anyway, thanks to everyone on this thread that ever helped with the XR-10 and the best of luck to everyone with their projector and theaters.

P.S. I calculated my cost for running the Sharp... $1.37 a minute. Next up, I am moving to a 1080p projector. It will be interesting to compare what I remember of the XR-10 image to a 1080p image on the same screen size.

I'd love to hear the results of your upscaling to the 10x, bud. My understanding is that this was only possible via HDMI.

Maybe use one of these…:)

http://www.hdfury.com/

http://www.curtpalme.com/HDFury.shtm

http://www.consoleshop.com/product.php?productid=16848

Deewan
Keep checking in and for sure post your thoughts comparing whatever you get 1080p with the 10X. I had a bright 1080 DLP over to shoot at my screen a while back. It was very impressive.

$1.37 a minute sounds like a 900 number…… :eek: if I cant reset the clock I’ll keep in mind sharp knows how to do that and if I cant reset it most likely I wont make it to 3000 hours anyway….:o

Maybe use one of these…:)

http://www.hdfury.com/

http://www.curtpalme.com/HDFury.shtm

http://www.consoleshop.com/product.php?productid=16848

I'd like to hear your experience with it, because it seems like I read that it didn't work...

$1.37 a minute sounds like a 900 number…… :eek: if I cant reset the clock I’ll keep in mind sharp knows how to do that and if I cant reset it most likely I wont make it to 3000 hours anyway….:o

Just record somewhere (here maybe) what the hours were at the start of the new bulb and go from there. It will interesting to see how many bulbs it actually takes to get to the stated bulb life from Sharp. ;)

I'd like to hear your experience with it, because it seems like I read that it didn't work...

Most likely I wont be trying anything exciting soon and I don’t know if I want to spend the 125 bucks to find out but I might if I can talk my nephew into buying a Hdfury for one of his jobs and then we could test it out on the 10X.

What sticks in my craw is having watched a dozen Imax movies output in true HD over the 10X and having the standard DVD of the same movie for comparison. Played off a PC.

If you want to see what the difference is you can down load clips here. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

This whole HD HDMI thing is annoying. And knowing HD can be played from any PC thru a different format like WMV-HD and the 10X shows a unreal image over component. :mad:

Most likely I wont be trying anything exciting soon and I don’t know if I want to spend the 125 bucks to find out but I might if I can talk my nephew into buying a Hdfury for one of his jobs and then we could test it out on the 10X.


I would spend the $125 if I knew for certain it would work. I already have an upconverting DVD player that I can't get the full use out of because the lack of HDMI...

I just can't stop posting to this thread now that I don't have a XR-10. :)

About the 1080 signals sent to the projector, up until about a year ago I had a Zenith dvd player that was made before upconverting over component was banned. I tried a few different setups to attempt to get the best picture. I ended up running component from the dvd player to the VGA input on the projector. Granted the dvd player was not the lastest and greatest machine, but I felt it did a good job. However, when it came to wide screen movies, I felt I could not tell a difference between 480p and 1080i. I even did some camera work using my digital camera to take close up screen shots and then looking at the pixel lines of the picture to see if I could tell I difference. I couldn't. But it could deal with the fact I was sending a 1080i signal to the projector that was then downscaling it to 768 (or whatever that number is). Just my worthless 2 cents.

Has anyone tried a player like these with the 10X?

Are they still allowed / legal?

http://helios-labs.com/us/products/hline/index_hline.shtml

Been gone a while, but I'm really surprised to see how, over the course of about 12-18 months, Sharp's overall reputation has pretty much gone from "loved" to "will never buy from them again." Even with the big box store taking great care of me personally when my bulb blew, I probably wouldn't buy Sharp again. It's quite unfortunate, especially when you consider how inexpensive these bulbs likely are to make in the first place. I am yet to see any evidence that bulb prices are the result of anything but insane markup on a proprietary product.

Sharp, if you're listening (and you probably aren't), is your reputation really worth what probably costs you, like, 20 bucks to manufacture?

Hey guys, my new projector is hooked up and I wanted to post back my quick observations between the XR-10X and my new 1080p project (Sanyo PLV-2000Z). But first, for anyone still running the XR-10X or someone looking to buy this projector, I have some aftermarket cables (component to VGA and PS3 component) that I would love to recycle into this thread since this thread helped me several times with the Sharp projector. If you are interested, let me know ASAP or I will just try listing them in the classifieds. Now to the comparison...

Can I tell a difference? YES! I can tell a difference between the Sharp and the Sanyo in three areas.

1) Fan noise. I never really thought the Sharp was extra loud, but I could always hear the fan. But, once you are "into" a movie, I never noticed the fan noise. I once measured the fan noise with my Radio Shack SPL meter and found the sharp to be about 30db. I don't have the Sanyo mounted yet so it is sitting 2 feet from my head and unless I mute everything and the HVAC is not running, you simply can't hear the Sanyo's fan. Not a big bonus, but it does add a little extra something when watching a quite scene and the room is silent.

2) Contrast. I watched Batman Begins last night. With the Sharp scenes where figures came from the shadows everything just looked the same level of black. Not a big deal, but sometimes I would know I should be seeing something and I couldn't. Again with the Sanyo and the 15,000:1 contrast, I could see shadows.

3) Overall image: I could see a big difference between the Sharp and the 1080p. The movie 'Cars' looked amazing. The NBA finals looked amazing and the few laps of the NASCAR race last night blew my mind.

Since the Sharp can now be bought for about $500 and the new Sanyo was about 4 times that cost, do I say the difference is worth the cost? Yes and no. If someone is looking for a first time projector and just getting into this hobby, I would recommend the Sharp for the lesser price. But if any of you XR-10 guys are even considering an upgrade, DO IT! After rebates, the Sanyo drops a lot in price and like me I am sure you will be shocked at the difference.

What happened next was quite a surprise to me.

This FP image was totally better in some categories. The difference in the emersion quality due to transparent nature of my FP screen surface gave that open window quality to the image even the flat panel didn’t totally get. Call it “film like” or whatever you want to call it. It’s an image quality totally unique to FP, IMO. I watched a couple hours and even watched parts of the same DVD I just watched on the flat panel. The movie took on a whole new persona in the theater room. Hard to explain for sure. Considering when I went down I was fully prepared to be under-whelmed by the experience.


:)

Ain't it the truth. I have several displays but I watch my projected image more...by far. Perhaps it's because it has the 'look and feel' of theater we associate to what movies should look like.:D

Just reporting a blown lamp. New lamp in tomorrow will check total hours, know I'm not close to 2000. But still have used the projector heavily since purchase, almost 2.25 years ago. Not happy with having to replace bulb, but oh well.

Will probably re-lamp spent housing for 3rd lamp change, whenever that happens, and then be looking for something new. Relegate the XR10X to secondary room usage.

But until then...

Hi frequent posters,
I've been lurking for years and have to say thanks for the fun. Because of this forum I bought an XR-10 in March 2006. I've done all the upgrades and hacks... DIY BOC screen, bought the ND filter, found a Samsung HD-850 player upconverting over component, calibrate frequently with the suggested AVIA disc, and anything else that completes the viewing experience. This forum has turned this into a hobby for me.

Just an FYI on what works best for me. I calibrate the four settings for the various light conditions I encounter (dark room to lighter), ND filter on in dark room, off in bright. HD cable rocks my world, 120" gray pull down screen now from Da-Lite (recommend over my DIY BOC for WAF since not a dedicated theater room!). Wife uses the Samsung DVD player, but I prefer my laptop with NVIDIA PureVideo. Amazing SRGB, especially if combined with ZoomPlayer and WinDVD's sharpening filter as secondary filter. Works as well as anything I did with FFDshow with much less hassle. Also as good as TNT/TBS upscaled cable HD. No lipsync issues running sound through my receiver and vid to PJ directly. Also run h.264 re-encoded movies loaded into ITunes with an Apple Touch as my remote control, makes it so wife just touches a button in ITunes and movie starts. Like Kaleidascape on a XR-10 budget.

All that means I was crushed when my bulb blew after 2 years and 900ish hours, with "75% lamp life remaining".

Using economic terms like "sunk cost", I replaced the bulb for $275 because I can't get 2 more years of equal entertainment for under $275. Would love to updgrade but the money's still on XR-10 budget.

Again, thanks for the help, you can tell I've used it all!
If you have Q's on anything I mentioned, please ask, I'd be happy to share.
My former roommate copied the exact setup when I got married, because the XR-10 is amazing for the budget.

Now that I've introduced myself, a question.

Does anyone have direct experience with Blu-Ray on XR-10? Either with Blu-Ray dedicated player and HD-Fury, or a PC drive, or another rigged hack I haven't thought of? I dream of upgrading beyond DVD but can't afford to upgrade the PJ until this second bulb dies in 1000 hours.

My 10x is going strong in my theater. Says 70% life left. 2years approximately is how long ive had it.

Only thing missing from it as far as im concerened is an HDMI input, if it had that it would be the perfect projector.

I think ill probably replace it next year so I can get the full use of my HDMI reciever. For now I run an LG DVD player that upconverts over component. Stellar picture but id still like to use HDMI and get the DVD player ive been wanting.

Now that I've introduced myself, a question.

Does anyone have direct experience with Blu-Ray on XR-10? Either with Blu-Ray dedicated player and HD-Fury, or a PC drive, or another rigged hack I haven't thought of? I dream of upgrading beyond DVD but can't afford to upgrade the PJ until this second bulb dies in 1000 hours.

My buddy has the XR10 with the PS3 hooked to it via Component cables. Picture is stunning.

Tony- I have no experience with the PS3 so this is interesting. Does it only upconvert over component, or will it output Blu-ray at 720 or 1080 over component? Either way, a stunning picture is interesting regardless of how it gets there.

The PS3 will output games and Blu-Ray discs up to 720p or 1080i over component.

However, the PS3 will not upscale DVDs to anything beyond 480p over component, for that you must have HDMI.

Note that you also need HDMI to send out games and Blu-Ray at 1080p resolution, but since the XR10X cannot accept 1080p that's a moot point.

The PS3 will output games and Blu-Ray discs up to 720p or 1080i over component.

However, the PS3 will not upscale DVDs to anything beyond 480p over component, for that you must have HDMI.

Note that you also need HDMI to send out games and Blu-Ray at 1080p resolution, but since the XR10X cannot accept 1080p that's a moot point.

Exactly.

Wow, thanks. Sorry I missed the earlier posts about this, thanks for repeating it to me. For some reason I was sure PS3 wouldn't put out HD over component. Further reading thanks to you showed me I was mistaken.

As soon as I convince the wife that it's a necessary purchase, I can't wait to get one and try it out. The more I read, the more I think it'll integrate into my system perfectly, and make me not mind the lack of HDMI on the XR-10.

Wow, thanks. Sorry I missed the earlier posts about this, thanks for repeating it to me. For some reason I was sure PS3 wouldn't put out HD over component. Further reading thanks to you showed me I was mistaken.

As soon as I convince the wife that it's a necessary purchase, I can't wait to get one and try it out. The more I read, the more I think it'll integrate into my system perfectly, and make me not mind the lack of HDMI on the XR-10.

The only issue is that the PS3 can't upconvert over Component for when you watch SD DVDs. From what I've seen of the XR-10, it appears to upconvert quite well on its own. I prefer a SD DVD picture on the XR-10 over an upconverted SD DVD on my Panny AE500U.

I prefer a SD DVD picture on the XR-10 over an upconverted SD DVD on my Panny AE500U.

Hi guys well i must say the I'm a happy & proud owner of the xr-20s I always use it for my games and to play movies from the PS3 & XBOX 360 -HDDVD player on a 120” screen I think I have almost 2100 hours over 2 years,

I test a NEC LT240 projector on the same screen but the the lack of light control on my game room (complete open) make me not to use this projector

A friend of mine has the Mitsubishi HC5000BL this projector is a full 1080p and hdmi ready on a complete close movie room, I swear my projector on 1080i looks a brighter & better picture

I joust recently bought the Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH and the main problem with this receiver is that any input wil be upconverted to 1080i or 1080p over the hdmi so we all know the this projector is not hdmi neither HDCP ready.

So finaly today I receive the HDFury I bought from FleaBay, I can’t wait to get out from work to test this thing so I let you guys know if it work

Now if you need to upconvert over components you need to reap the dvd and burn it using the less compression on the dvd this can be done taking all the menus and languages on the original dvd

Thanks Casper, I look forward to your thoughts on the HD Fury paired with this projector, especially with that receiver. Congrats on buying that too. I've drooled over it many a time. :)

Thanks Casper, I look forward to your thoughts on the HD Fury paired with this projector, especially with that receiver. Congrats on buying that too. I've drooled over it many a time. :)

After 2 days trying to get the HDFury I got it now the projector is connected to a hdmi output it’s no more than 1080i because its only capable of that, but if I play a DVD it will be upscale to 1080i not a 480p like it was before.

the first problem I encounter was the power source for the HDFury for some reason the 94elite is not pushing enough power to light up the HDFury so I found a discussion on the HDFury forum and someone mentioned a Nokia charger but the polarity is backwards from the HDFury but nobody confirmed so I say let me risked if it work it works if not I would have a burnout adapter and without changing anything I hook the power to the HDFury and I soon it went in the LED on the charger turn off so I pull it out as soonest I saw that so I cut the wires and change the polarity and it work, the HDFury is 5v 500ma negative to the middle, other source I found is to use a old ipod charger the one with the usb output and the cable from the wireless mic of the xbox 360

the second problem was the PS3 the problem was the handshaking from the hdmi it was not working at all so after reed and reed the official elite 94 thread I found a similar problem but this was a lcd tv fully 1080p and the problem was the a have the BD 1080p 24 Hz Output (HDMI) option turn on so I turn that option off the problem was gone now I have the the PS3, XboX 360 and the apple tv only to the hdmi no more component cables and the projector from the RGB to the HDFury only using the hdmi output no more component

Now like I said its perfect :D

Thanks for the report on how you got it all to work, I'm sure that'll save some hassle in the future for others, hopefully me. That's what makes this a wonderful hobby.

I couldn't convince my wife why we needed a PS3 when I wasn't going to play the games, so this weekend we bought a Wii. It's a lot of fun on the big screen, but I'll continue to dream of Blu-Ray for a while longer. Good to know I won't have to upgrade the PJ to make it happen.

I have just swapped my Sharp 10XL after the bulb blew at 900 hours.

My Sharp 10X only lasted 600 hours.

My projector's have all been sitting on coffee tables in a cool room so I do not believe that ventilation is the issue.

Has anyone had a Sharp10X(L) last longer the 1500 hours?

I couldn't convince my wife why we needed a PS3 when I wasn't going to play the games, so this weekend we bought a Wii. It's a lot of fun on the big screen, but I'll continue to dream of Blu-Ray for a while longer. Good to know I won't have to upgrade the PJ to make it happen.

Man I have to tell you I love thePS3 because is a multitasking unit like I can stream DIVX movies or browse the Internet, plus I can watch my dvd to al lot better quality of picture even if its at 480p or upconverted to 1080i its more brighter and sharper compare to the XBOX 360 but I only play games on the XBOX

Last week I purchase some movies and I was stoning wend I star the movie CAR’S the sound was real good but the picture on the projector was so amazing compare the DVD I have to say that I have a 62” DLP Mitsubishi TV and the XR-20S it’s a lot better picture compare to my TV

I forgot to mention I bought this projector on the Home Shopping Network with a 108” (16x9) manual pull down screen (Elite Screen) for less then 700 USD after rebates and my new project is to get a new screen since a the room for a max of 180” screen and the cheapest screen I could found was this

M150UWH2 150"(16:9)" MaxWhite Black From Elite Screens and it sales around 200 to 220 USD (last Monday I check and it was 139 USD the cheapest I could found I guess is the gas price)

Originally posted by CasperT1:

I was stoning wend I star the movie CAR’S

So that funny smell might not be coming from the XR-10. :D

I remember an old quote from my hazy days in the early 70's, "Better living through chemistry" - I think Dupont later stole it for their service mark, but I believe CasperT1 may have rediscovered it.

Idea for a new thread: What's the best PJ for use when high?

Haven't checked into this monster thread in a while, but now I have a problem that has me stumped. My XR10, now a couple of years old, has stopped responding to infrared remote commands. Anybody else ever experience this? I've put in fresh batteries. I have two learning remotes and the original Sharp remote that I programmed the learning remotes with a while back. None work as of the last two days.

This is frustrating because I use macros to switch inputs on the projector for my sources.

EDIT: Gosh, I'm almost sorry I posted this. But I'll leave it in case anybody gets into the same predicament. My solution -- I unplugged the projector from the AC for a little while. After allowing time for the lamp to cool, I reconnected the power and turned the XR10 on. Now it responds to the remote as it should.

Still on the original bulb, by the way. Only got about 400 hours used on it, but I figure that's about 200 movies.

Glad you were able to get a solution.

I've had mine since 4/2006 and can't quite remember my hours offhand, but I don't ever recall having the problem you described.

I give up! The second lamp just died on my XR-10X after 500 hrs. The first lamp was only good for 400 hrs

I thought it's because I never paid attention and cleaned the unit for my 1st lamp, so I've been extra careful for the 2nd lamp, fan on high speed and regular cleaning, etc.

It does not matter! I think it's a Sharp design flaw that lamp lives are short.

I'm going to save the $2xx for a new big LCD tv, no more lamp for me :mad:

I give up! The second lamp just died on my XR-10X after 500 hrs. The first lamp was only good for 400 hrs


That's disappointing to hear, especially since I'm at about 400 hours on my first lamp. The only bright (ha ha) spot for me is that with my patterns of use it has taken me a long time to get to that count.

That's disappointing to hear, especially since I'm at about 400 hours on my first lamp. The only bright (ha ha) spot for me is that with my patterns of use it has taken me a long time to get to that count.

You just jinxed yourself! Your lamp will blow the next time you power up. :eek:

Has there ever been a worse projector for bulbs? This thing seems to be eating them consistently at the 4-500 hour mark.

Can anyone recommend the Cheapest Place for a new lamp?

I purchased mine in April 2006 and weighed in all the feedback from AVS here prior to buying and am grateful. I was hoping Id get 3yrs outta this lamp but Ive got over 2600 hrs Logged on this w/11% Original Bulb Life remaining so I cant complain. ;)

I picked the projector up thru SAMS CLUB w/Extended Warranty but I'm assuming they wont honor the warranty when it comes to a lamp. Has anyone here had any luck with Sams replacing/repairing the unit when the lamp's gone??

I'm so glad to hear somebody has gotten long lamp hours from one of these projectors. You must be living right! I'm still hovering around the 400-500 mark on my original bulb after a couple of years, but my use of the theater room has been picking up lately. Still no complaints about the big beautiful image, and it looks super with Blu-ray and HD from DirecTV and over the air.

Robbob59

I got mine thru Amazon. Price was within a couple bucks of lowest I could find on line and service was great. It came packaged in Sharp box and is working fine.

Congrats on the good life I made it to 1300 hours and I had added a small fan to move air around the projector.

FYI.

If anyone is trying to connect a Motorola HD-DVR (3416 etc.) HDMI port to the DVI-D port of the Sharp XR30X please be aware of the following:

You must switch the HDMI/DVI setting from DVI to HDMI to get the DVI-D port to synch properly with the Motorola HD-DVR HDMI port. The instructions for changing the setting are below:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_a_Motorola_DVR/Setup#Additional_HDMI_Settings

The HDMI port must be connected to change this setting (otherwise the option is grayed out). My firmware version of the 3416 is 18.34 and I used a monoprice HDMI to DVI-D adapter.

Took me 2 days to figure this out. Hopefully this post saves someone some effort. LOL.

Just for another vote of confidence, I had 1327 hours on my bulb before I replaced the 10X with a upgrade projector. Never had even a flicker...

Which reminds me, I still have the 10X boxed up in the basement. I need to put it up on ebay or something, I guess.

I watch my 10x about 8+ hours mon-thurs and 10+ on sat/sun, and coming up on my 2nd year in december and just put my 3rd bulb in at 18 months. Its my main TV, I use the snot out of mine so a bulb around the 8/9 month mark was planned for and I think I'm getting about
2000+ hrs out of each bulb. Think that was what I figured when I changed the bulb about a month ago.
I do keep my house at 60 degrees though, maybe it helps.
Also I turn it on once and turn it off once each day no more, so it stays on even if I leave the house for few hours. I believe that the power up is the most stressful period for the bulb, no proof for this just what I think.

So glad to see some recent posters with relatively long life from their bulbs. I've been hesitant to post mine for fear of cursing myself. :(

Can anyone recommend the Cheapest Place for a new lamp?

I purchased mine in April 2006 and weighed in all the feedback from AVS here prior to buying and am grateful. I was hoping Id get 3yrs outta this lamp but Ive got over 2600 hrs Logged on this w/11% Original Bulb Life remaining so I cant complain. ;)

I picked the projector up thru SAMS CLUB w/Extended Warranty but I'm assuming they wont honor the warranty when it comes to a lamp. Has anyone here had any luck with Sams replacing/repairing the unit when the lamp's gone??

...Yes friends, I lucked out. I want to share this not as a "brag" but as a tip to those who may want to give it a shot themselves.


I approached Customer Service at SC and asked to see the Manager. I had the original receipt, Warranty paperwork and projector in original box with all packing, guides, & cables in the unlikely event they'd exchange it on the spot. I was prepared for rejection going in & knew my chances were slim. I was always polite but persistent. The manager informed me the lamps were expensive and didnt believe they were covered. I will admit I played dumb about not knowing that the Lamp was so expensive but obviously, in this case, appearing to know too much could have been a hindrance. Truth be told, I HAD asked Customer Service on Original Purchase date if the lamp was covered and neither the Customer Service Attendant pushing the Extd. Warranty nor the Electronics Clerk had any idea.

My argument was that along with Sharp's generous 3 yr warranty I purchased an additional 1 yr extended warranty thru SC. It wasn't until I opened the projector box at home that Sharp spelled out the facts about THEIR warranty covering just about everything BUT the lamp! This was not mentioned anywhere on Shelf Display Cards or Price tickets nor on the projector's box.

My contention was that with SC and or Sharp not spelling out that the most integral and expensive replacement part of this item was NOT covered by either manufacturer or retailer was "deceptive" at best. Even a Car Dealership will spell-out what's included or not included in their warranty up front prior to purchase. I reminded him that on only 1 of the 2 video projectors that they currently stocked does the Price/Info tag on the shelf mention that the Lamp was only covered for 90 days. The tag that did NOT spell this out, was their current SHARP model.

The manager never even looked in the box but did offer to run this by a Higher Authority (Corporate?). 4 or 5 days later the manager called me and said Sharp was shipping him a replacement lamp. It was delivered to the SC location about a week later.

Here's hoping anyone with similar Lamp Issues can duplicate my Luck.

I purchased mine in April 2006 and weighed in all the feedback from AVS here prior to buying and am grateful. I was hoping Id get 3yrs outta this lamp but Ive got over 2600 hrs Logged on this w/11% Original Bulb Life remaining so I cant complain. ;)
??

This is in direct conflict with the prior post. What are these guys doing different?

Anyone ever have any trouble w/ the colorwheel becoming noisy in their 10x? Mine seems to have the x1 syndrome lately, making a high pitched whine that drives me nuts after about an hour. Funny thing is I've only used it about 220 hrs (according to lamp life). Would think the wheel would last longer than that.....the funny thing is it seemed to be noisy one day after the pj sat for a few months not being used, due to time constraints, etc.

Congrats, Robbob! I think you'll be the only one we hear about though.

Thought I'd check in on my fellow XR10 buddies...

Has anybody else taken the plunge on Blu-Ray yet? Just wondering if there are any other fixes for getting around the HDMI issue (for upconversion) with this PJ.

Blu-ray will play 1080i over component to the PJ with no hacks. It looks really nice, although I decided it wasn't nice enough to warrant the $. I returned my Blu-ray player and just play upconverted DVDs (on my old Samsung HD850 mentioned in the early days of this forum that upconverts over component). Blu-ray showed the limits of the native resolution of the PJ, which was mildly disappointing but saved me $3-400.

I don't know of any ways to upconvert on a blu-ray player. Others might. If you want to upconvert by other means, the old DVD player and computer have both worked well for me.

It’s quite a few pages back by now, but I posted in this thread about my addition of a Blu-ray player last year. This little Sharp projector may fall short of the 720 high-def spec, but with an HD source it really does put a decent number of pixels up on the screen. Blu-ray movies and HDTV programming from over the air and DirecTV look stunning on my 100-inch screen, noticeably better than standard-def DVDs. Upconverted DVDs? Honestly, they don’t look any better than 480p to me on either this projector or my HD set upstairs. I’d never confuse an upconverted DVD for high-def content, even on the XR10.

The last two DVDs I bought before getting into Blu-ray were “Casino Royale” and “The Searchers.” These titles happened to be my first two Blu-ray purchases as well. At the time, using the XR10, I compared the Blu-ray movies with the DVDs. I played the DVDs with my Oppo player that upconverts over component. There was no contest. The Blu-rays revealed quite a bit more detail, even with the lowly Sharp projector being the weakest link in my video chain.

Thanks for the posts guys...looks like I will be pulling the trigger on Blu-Ray within the next few months...

my first post. looks like a great site.

now, about my sharp and lamp life XR -- hold on because from what ive read in previous post you going to find this hard to believe.

bought the machine from b&h photo in feb '06, replaced the first lamp about 15 months ago after 3200 hours. The second lamp was replaced today after another 3400 hours. I'm being completely serious here.

Ive always gotten really good lamp life (the X10 is is my third sharp machine). The only thing in my setup that may be unique is that i'm ceiling mounted within about 10' of a ceiling fan that i always run in reverse and i have never ran a projector without it on.

now i'm hoping you guys can help me out. i just got my third XR lamp in today and i bought it from "advanced lamps" for a really cheap $233. website said it was OEM but the lamp came in a box unlike any sharp lamp ive purchased before (i've bought about six lamps through the years) and, although the cage is correct the lamp is absent the screen on the rear of the bulb. I called Advanced and told them the box was stange, the lamp was physically different and that i didnt get the standard sharp paper work. The service rep tells me that they buy in bulk and thats the way sharp ships bulk lamp orders. I think ive been had and given a non OEM part. You guys have any experience with Advance Lamps or possible changes that sharp has made regarding the screen at the rear of the XR10 lamp.

thanks for taking the time to read this winded post.

Danger Will Robinson...

I haven't had any experience with changing lamps, but there are a few red flags (cheap price, different configuration) in your post that makes me think you've been given a non OE lamp.

Quick question, I have had my XR-10X for about 2 years and the bulb went out at 2300 hours :)

I got a new bulb and had to open up the 6 screws on the bottom and the 2 on the back to pop the top off and hit the red reset button after replacing the bulp and then it worked fine. But the lamp timer is still on 2300+ hours... I have been trying to reset it via the instructions for 30 min now and can't get it to reset.. I'm not a TOTAL idiot but I can't get it to reset, any advice?

Im still happy with mine! Got 50% life left on the original bulb it says.

Only thing I wish thismpuppy had was 1080p! Im running Blu Ray into it right now but its via component so I cant help but wonder what im missing!!!

Need to upgrade soon I guess unless there is a workaround im not familiar with.

I'm still happy with mine also. I have been using the 10X for a couple of years. HDTV OTA looks great. Mainly use the projector for football and movies (mostly). Bought a PS3, connected through component, running 1080i and noticed an improved picture with more detail than my older Denon 2910 DVD at 480p. Sound through optical was improved to some degree.

Just bought a Panasonic 55 blu-ray and connected it via analog to my Denon 3805 (not ready to upgrade yet). I think the picture is better with the panasonic. The sound has a definite improvement on 7.1 bluray (3:10 to Yuma).

Had some friends over last night and was switching back and forth from DVD to Blu-ray just running some demo chapters and we all noticed the differences in picture and sound. This was the first time I had done a direct conparison of DVD and Blu-ray and I noticed that there was definietly a difference.

If anyone is using a Sharp 10X with a Denon 3805 and blu-ray, I would like to discuss your settings and how satisfied you are with the results.

Sharp 10x projector
Denon 3805 receiver
Klipsch reference 7.1
SVS subwoofer
PS3
Panasonic 55 (7.1 analog out)
Denon 2910 DVD
Basement theater is about 20 x 30 no windows

Running mine off a Yamaha RXV-2600....the sound is simply stellar.

One thing we all noticed when switching back and forth between blu-ray and DVD was that the colors from the DVD looked a little washed out like it was slightly foggy compared to the blu-ray.

Have to give thanks for a post in July. My PJ is a couple years old, on my second bulb, still love it. Then yesterday it stopped responding to IR commands. The only other time this has happened was when the first bulb went, so i assumed I had a $300 bill coming after just 300 hrs of use.

Then I checked here as I always do, read recent posts, and saw someone else with the same problem. Power cycle fixed it, big bill averted, much thanks owed by me.

Side note... got an Apple TV for Christmas, the colors look beautiful on the XR-10, it's my favorite new toy.

Dah - Maybe a link to the post for others that encounter the same problem?

I must have been a good boy, as Santa brought me a Blu-Ray (Sony BDPS350) for Christmas. BD's look great, and it sure seems like regular DVD's look better, even though my old player (also a Sony) was a quality player and I know I'm not upconverting to the XR-10 via component. Would be interested to hear if any others have this same player hooked up to this PJ.

I too have greatly enjoy this projector. I bought it 3 years ago to play my Xbox 360 on. It was my first projector and I love it. I too saw that if the % was right on the bulb, I would be looking at 4000-4300 hours on it. However, my first bulb died at 700 hours :( I bought another one becuase it truly is a great projector with the great color wheel and pretty good contrast ratio. My second bulb died at 640 hours :( :( Again, it said I was at only 83% or something along those lines.

Bottom Line: Great Projector but with bulbs being $250 or more...be prepared to keep spending and spending

Sorry, not sure how to do links. The post was on the previous page, on 7-2-08. PJ wouldn't respond to IR, frustrating, but simple unplug/plug in fixes it.

Congrats on the Blu-Ray. With such a big screen, you can really tell a difference between good and poor source quality.

I expect to buy a new bulb every ~800 hours now, which is more than a year for me. Expensive, but I figure I can ride the XR-10 to the next wave of technology. $250 is less than a new PJ. May rethink that next time the bulb blows though.

To remedy this problem crack the case and on the front side there is a little red button at the front of the lamp assembly enclosure. Push it gently and reset it then you projector will work.

I have had this projector for a little over a year now, and my third bulb just burned out. Don't expect anywhere near the advertised bulb life. At $300 / pop, this projector is very expensive to maintain. I'm not sure I'm going to buy a 4th bulb... I think it would be cheaper in the long run to just get a new projector that doesn't eat bulbs.

Anybody of the regulars still using this PJ?

I am. Keeping fingers crossed on the bulb though.

I am one of the original XR10X customers. I am on my second err third bulb. I say that because my second bulb stopped working within two weeks. Shipped it to Sharp within the 2 year warranty over a year ago and they replaced the bulb and updated the firmware etc. This third bulb now though after a year and around 1,000 hours is having a hard time starting up. I now leave it unplugged and replug it in before starting the projector. This seems to help. Lately though, I have had to unplug and replug the projector up to 3 times before the bulb kicks in. I am guessing my luck is running out on this bulb. I feel ripped off by sharp with the low bulb life on this projector. I have been eyeing other projectors lately in anticipation of this bulb dying earlier than it should.

Still going strong. On second bulb. Works as good as the day I hung it. (knocking on wood)

I hope to take a few screen shots for perpetuity will post when I do.

As a side note I know several people with the 30X and they are liking it a lot. Gray screens and ambient light. ya have to love lumens….:D

Good to hear from you, bud!

My PJ is still going, well not exactly "strong" (see below) but it's still going (knock on wood as well).

It's been doing a funny thing lately where it will just stop throwing an image and the bulb indicator light on the device will blink on and off. Each time it does this, I think "here we are, the bulb has finally bit the dust." But so far, I've been able to reboot in some manner (unplug, wait awhile and restart, etc) and it starts back up again.

Keeping fingers crossed as I don't want to jump back into the market at the moment.

(I hope I haven't jinxed myself by just posting about it.)

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I'd introduce myself. I've been a long-time lurker on AVS, but have yet to post anything... until today. I just purchased a refurb Sharp XR-10s off Ebay for extremely cheap (ie, 250 bucks) and I wondered if anyone has any tweaks or suggestions for my current set up.

(bear with me here, I'm a total HT noob).

First, I purchased an 84" Elite Screen (16:9). It's the high-contrast grey screen, with a gain of 1.1. I had heard this PJ was very bright, and I have extremely good control of lighting in the room, so I went with something that would help out my black/grey levels. The screen looks amazing, to be honest.

Second, I have both a Playstation 3 (for Blu Ray and gaming), and a Harmon Kardon 146 receiver (with 7.1 surround and HD pass-thru). I will have only two items running in to the receiver - my HD cable box from Comcast (component), and the PS3 (also over component). I purchased a 35-foot component-to-VGA cable which will go from the receiver (component out) to the HD-15 component in on the PJ. I'm expecting a small amount of signal loss because of the distance I have to run the cable (which will be totally hidden from view), but that's OK with me.

Now, a couple questions:

For BD/DVD playback: Does anyone know offhand if the PS3 does up-converting over component? I know it does thru HDMI, and I'm aware of the HDFury products, but will I achieve at least my goal of 720p? Everything I read seems to suggest so, but I can't seem to find a firm answer.

Second, the Sharp techs tell me that this projector will accept anything up to a 1080i signal. Does anyone have any experience with 1080i vs 720p on this PJ? Personally, I have pretty "sharp" eyes, and notice a small amount of motion blur on a 1080i signal.

As far as lighting is concerned, I have total and complete control over 4 lamps in the room, all of which can be dimmed and turned off independently for optimum lighting conditions. There is only one window in the room (south-east facing), which has a full black-out shade covering it. There is no other ambient lighting in the room other than my receiver, heh.

All-in-all, this entire system was designed and put in for less than $1,000 dollars. I'm not looking to have the best, but if there's any tweaks or suggestions that anyone has to help me out, that would be awesome.

Thanks for this great thread, and all of them at AVS.


UF

Hi Everyone,

Now, a couple questions:

For BD/DVD playback: Does anyone know offhand if the PS3 does up-converting over component? I know it does thru HDMI, and I'm aware of the HDFury products, but will I achieve at least my goal of 720p? Everything I read seems to suggest so, but I can't seem to find a firm answer.

Second, the Sharp techs tell me that this projector will accept anything up to a 1080i signal. Does anyone have any experience with 1080i vs 720p on this PJ? Personally, I have pretty "sharp" eyes, and notice a small amount of motion blur on a 1080i signal.

UF

Welcome to the projector world. You will never look back.

I used my PS3 with the Sharp (XGA not SVGA) and it was great. Unfortunately it will not upconvert DVD's over component due to copy protection. If I remember correctly it outputs protected DVD's at 480P. The only SD disks that I got to upconvert over component were unprotected home video SD DVD's. There may be ways to overcome this, but to be honest I have used upconversion on other devices and am not that impressed wth upconversion of SD DVD's.

The SD DVD's still looked good and the Blu Ray movies looked excellent!

I fed my cable box to the projector via component (via a receiver) at 1080i. Good picture. Tried feeding it at 720P, but did not notice a difference. Your eyes may be keener then mine. The projector obviously does both so it depends on what looks best to you.

The jump from TV's to the Sharp X10s is dramatic. Once you start using a projector you will never want to be without one. That said the Sharp is notorious for bulbs dying pre-maturely. The best I could do was ~900 hours although others have had better luck.

Enjoy the Sharp, but also keep looking at the 720P and 1080P projectors as unfortunately the Sharp does not last forever.... I upgraded to a Mitsubishi HC1500 a year ago, but am still nostalgic over this 4:3 XGA projector that go me started in this projector world... Enjoy!

I dusted off my XR10 earlier tonight. Dang it shoots a nce looking 576P picture. Not 1080P, not even close, but still very pleasing to the eye when fed 1080i from my cable box.

It was July when we last heard from Bud, so maybe he will chime in if he's still using the XR10. I still am, but my Home Theatre time has been drastically reduced lately, down to 1 movie and one college football game since August. :(

Thought I would pass along my experience with my XR10-XL2 purchased 12/06. The bulb died at 2700hrs., extended Circuit City warranty covered that:D. The the ballast started to refuse to light the lamp, without unplugging it several times, plus the 'sealed' optics were dirty and color wheel was making a racket. So off to Sharp it went before the warranty expired. First they they fixed everything but the ballast, so it went back, after about 2wks total I now have a like new Xr10 for next spring's outdoor theater!!

Your post prompted me to remember that my extended warranty was purchased from Circuit City when I bought the PJ. Guess I'm out of luck on that one if something happens.

Bud is still around and the XR10X is still cranking out movies weekly and on its second lamp.

I finally moved into the world of HD and Star56 is right 1080I from my cable still blows guests socks off just scaled to 576P. Upstairs I have a Sony flat panel 1080P but I much prefer watching HD on the Sharp projector still.

I have seen 2 installs now of the XR30X or whatever they call it now, both on DIY gray screens and they look really good.

Irmo
Good to see you are still out there, have been down your way several times this year and ready for another trip with the weather changing so fast here. I find in the north I use my projector about 4 times as much in the winter months. My IMAX collection is really growing and its like taking a trip without leaving the basement.

I watched a 3D movie the other night with the color glasses, all I can say is WOW. :eek::D

Your post prompted me to remember that my extended warranty was purchased from Circuit City when I bought the PJ. Guess I'm out of luck on that one if something happens.

My ex got the projector in our divorce, and she got a new bulb from the third party co. with no problems. Just after that i bought the projector back from her. I decided to have the other issues fixed through Sharp, because I did hear that the extended people can be hard to deal with.

I'm sure you'll enjoy this PJ. I bought mine in 2006 and still use it frequently, looks great. Bulb life is only 700-1000 hours, and that'll set you back $250, but it's still a deal for the package.

If you've got a new bulb and a dark room, I found calibrating to be better when using a lens neutral density filter. It's mentioned in the first bunch of pages on this forum for exact sizes, don't remember off the top of my head. The PJ is a bit bright for a darkened room otherwise until the bulb dies down some. I use the Avia disc to calibrate, which improves picture greatly. There are four settings (Movie, Presentation, etc) and I calibrated them for each of the light settings I use... dark, dim lights, bright lights, and daytime.

For upconverting SD DVDs, there are programs that will rip DVDs and remove copy protection, but that's the only way I know of to make it work.

My cable box can output 720p or 1080i, and I have both enabled. That way ESPN broadcasts at its native 720p and CBS is at its native 1080i. That's what looks best to me. Let the Sharp do the scaling, better than my cable box. For a lot of things I prefer 720p.

Enjoy!