Viewsonic Pro8200 -- it exists. - Page 5

Does this projector have a sleep timer function? Thanks.

There does not appear to be a sleep timer.

There is a "power saving" timer option, but this is for auto-off when no signal is detected for a certain amount of time.

Not sure as it was already available when I got mine back in 2009. I think the PJ had been out for a year or two by then.

Here's my experience after 9 hours of operation. Your mileage may vary. ;p

My 'blu-ray' also crashed (green strobing screen) on another projector. This was not the Pro8200, but it's the first blu-ray movie that my player has had any problems with.

After mounting to the ceiling, I experienced the chirping noise too. 20 minutes later, it seemed to stop. - Resolved (for now)

My "blacks are gray" problem only exist when my player or console is set to RGB. When I set them to YCbCr, the blacks appear dark again, and the colors aren't washed out. - Resolved (so far - some games might want to force RGB mode. We'll see.)

I use a 25ft HDMI cable, no problems (1080p) so far. Eco mode = on, quick on+off = off, dark room, 60/50/40 colors (I might tweak the reds down a bit though), and it's still very bright and visible even with the sun shining through the window. No static or unexpected noises though the internal speakers - but we normally have the home sound system cranked up to a good volume.
(Orof, you were spot on - we ended up using eco mode + dark room, but we also selected gamma profile #2. I still might have to bring out the sunglasses! )

I did have to turn auto-keystone off, as it was incorrect. (+19 vs. +24) I would have turned this off even if it was correct anyway.

So far, I have not experienced any factory resets, but I have experienced certain on/off settings have toggled when I did not expect them. I understand that certain options conflict, so changing one option will toggle another (green mode ON will turn dcr OFF and hide that option), but I've found eco mode or speaker mute to be the opposite of what I set them after tweaking other settings. However, no factory resets yet.

I could see the rainbow effect on my previous projector, but I have not yet observed it with the Pro8200. I haven't been looking real hard though. So far, just a few TV shows and some gaming.

In conclusion on day 2; After tweaking the colors and brightness, we're very happy with the display (103" diagonal from 14' away). The only real problem remaining is; On a few occasions, I have found that "mute" has reverted to OFF, and I'm pretty sure I didn't change any other settings when this occurred.

The question about firmware - ViewSonic didn't fully answer me when they were checking what the latest firmware should be. (How do you even find out what firmware you have?) The tech got distracted or interrupted and then informed me any models still in the factory are updated if a new firmware comes out. When I asked what page she was looking at, she said it was an internal page and not public, and she was looking at "8400" instead of "8200" anyway. She did answer though that in some conditions they could assist with a user-applied firmware update, but I do not know if that applies to this model.

It's been awhile since I looked but on the 8100, the FW version is on the first or second menu screen.

Someone found a link to a pdf version of the 8100 service manual thru Google.

I still haven't found any firmware version info in any of the menu sections.

Green mode on = solid blue light after shutdown.
Green mode off = blinky blue light after shutdown.

I am still finding that changing some options will toggle others, that don't make sense.
Example - my wife turned close captioning on, and this seemed to turn green mode off.
(I then found the blue light blinking at me in the morning.)

I have a feeling that my "mute resets to off" might be related to green or eco mode being on. I eventually ended up setting volume to 0. I'm glad to report that all other settings appear to stick.

any update on impressions of the 8200... my coin is still in the air but it will land tomorrow and i need to make a choice between the 8200 and Acer H7531D. I s t i l l can't decide. Oy.

Minimal problems. All settings except mute have stayed, and in the 50 or more on/off cycles so far, it only lost *all* settings once.
Screen is beautiful, much better than the Acer P1265 we had, and a longer warranty (3 years normal, or 5 years with extended). Acer has a 1 year warranty, and their support was useless I called them up last month (initially tried to get me to pay $99 just for the one phone call, until they realized it wasn't a PC I was talking about.)
We've decided to keep this Pro8200, even though the back says "October 2010".

I heard the cailbrated mode cranks out nearly 1500 lumens (which is workable with even a 180 inch screen for example), I'm thinking of doing an outdoor theater with a projector like this.

Well, the coin landed and I chose the pro8200. From what I see... NOT a good choice. I can't dial in the colors at all. Setting are holding even though my build date looks like October 2010 (disappointed I didn't get a later build on this "new" unit). Although I would say it's image is sharp, it has an issue w/ coloring that I can't really describe. Skin tones have a sheen like display as if water is sheeting off a beach and it changes as light aspect changes. I'm only able to dial out this issue if I pull gain down which completey destroys colors. I AM SO DISAPPOINTED by this unit. Such high hopes... I can't see how to get control of this color issue. My old Acer PH530 isn't as sharp as it's an older 720 unit but it's color saturation is superior and I think I have to hook it back up. I'm going to try and figure it out for about another 30 minutes and then it's getting boxed and going back (I hope). Frustrated.

spankle: what are you using as a source?
edit: and what connection type?

Source: 1. Dishnetwork 720p HD channels/HDMI 2. PC blu-ray HDMI. 3. Dishnetwork Component. All 3 sources have what I can only describe as a water-color type depiction. Light aspects in source material change color into a pooling effect. ?? Can't quite describe it. Maybe it's got some tech name? I am so disappointed with this unit. I would not recomment this projector. It's going back. It finally did exhibit some of the firmware problems for me too. Quick shutdown turned back on, eco mode was reset, mute was turned back off... Uggg. I guess three isn't the charm. This is my 3rd projector... a real dud.

hmm that sucks. I personally love this thing. I do have issues such as forgetting settings, but it's not a big deal to me. My biggest problem has been with HDMI cables. no matter what cable (have tried 4) or which port (tried both) I can't get 1080p over HDMI to save my life. sources include HTPC and blu-ray player. the bluray player gives green screens and interference, the htpc just won't display (flickers on and off). almost like an hdcp issue, but if I set the htpc to 720p, it works absolutely fine. I switched to a VGA cable and the problem went away. I was able to use 1080p and tweak everything beautifully. Of course that's no good for your setup since you need hdcp, but it did the trick for me. good luck on your next one.

thanks Reebok. Glad you can work around the issues. I can see why you like the projector minus the coloring issue I have. I can't get my PS3 to play through a switcher at all. It's the same switch and cables that the Dish receiver is going through. No matter now, I'm set on returning instead of trying to mitigate the issues. I guess I'm getting an Acer H7531d which was my other option. I'll report my thoughts on that when I get this projector flipped. Hopefully in 2 weeks...

Have you tried connecting a source directly w/o the switcher and a known good HDMI cable?

On dark scenes, I've noticed a pinkish color in the corner of the screen. I have two 8200s (Oct 2010) with this problem. It's not really unwatchable, just not perfect... I should note that in order to get them side by side, they are very close to the wall, and the pink isn't this strong at 90".

Does anyone else have this problem?

73Shark, my pc blu-ray source was directly connected via hdmi, a good hdmi cable. Dish receiver also connected directly w/ another hdmi. Same image issue no matter. Armless, I didn't notice your issue but do notice that white's are pushed to the pink slightly. That just may be me not tweaking it properly as I've given up.

Does it turn off by itself? This has happened to me a couple of times (<10)...
My projector randomly turns off after 5 mins of operation... when I switch back on, my settings are lost.

It seems recently shipped units were not updated to a better firmware from factory.

Has anyone managed to check their firmware version on screen?

PS. Haven't had color issues yet, hope you guys are able to sort it out.

ro2207: I have not had that happen. Its stayed on thus far but I only have about 4 hours on it. I can't find any screen that shows the firmware version. I'm boxing it up tonight so if anyone has any last minute requests I'll do what I can before it gets shipped out.

I haven't noticed the pink screen or power problem. approx. 70 hours on it.

say... what if i prefer using a component input with my pro8200 instad of the HDMI output, will i still get the same quality?
the reson behind my desicion is that hdmi doesn't support 576i res, while the component do.

I didn't see any difference in quality between component and hdmi during my experience w/ the 8200. Maybe others who've owned a "good" unit can better address...

One may download firmware from the Viewsonic ftp server:
Ftp address is:
124.9.11.199

ID: viewsonic
Password: 6i4jTS

Look in the folder:
02_Pro8
Inside this is a folder: Pro8200
In there is a FW(Firmware) folder: 08_FW
Lastly, inside this are 4 FWfiles, for versions 2.10 to 2.13

Enjoy!

can't connect to ftp://124.9.11.199

for those who were looking for the firmware version of their pro8200's. According to the service manual (I haven't done this yet) to find the firmware version (or to upgrade it) you have to go into engineering mode. Here are the steps to do that:

Open the Main menu and move the color bar to Information item, and then move down the color bar to Equivalent Lamp Hours item, press the direction key following the actions below:
Right once, left twice, right once; then you will enter the Engineering Mode.

The firmware version is at the very top.

Doh! Great timing guys... I just sent my 8200 back. I would have tried the firmware update.

there doesn't seem to be one.

weird. still doesn't for me. how are you getting in? can you email the latest firmware?