Viewsonic Pro8200 -- it exists. - Page 30

I was seriously disappointed trying to watch LotR as the maiden showing on my new Pro8200. Nothing I tried was working, on the source or projector settings. I was *this* close to calling and getting an RMA.

Thankfully, after much searching, I finally came across the RGB color recommendation elsewhere in this forum... holy crap, what a difference. I can't believe they ship this thing years later with such a screwed-up profile for YcPbrWhatever color space :P

So yeah, if you're getting started with the Pro8200, force your components to RGB!

Thanks all, love this forum.

In a way , it's too bad we can't collect all the tips and helpful attachments for the pro8200 and in second post add important current info in dedicated forum room for that model PJ. For example , in this thread, if you went to very first page, the second post would give you all the important suggestions users in thread found helpful, all posted in "real time" second post, that is edited by any of us.
Things that would be helpful to you guys NEW to the pro8200, calibration settings for new bulb, RGB info, ND filter info, best ceiling mounts, best bookshelf wall mount, hdmi cables, Hood info, ps3 settings, xbox 360 settings, A/V receiver settings, screens that works, maybe "best price" info, and lots of other very helpful pointers many long term owners could share.
You guys have to go through pages of stuff to get info that is helpful.
Some sites have a wiki "second post" where users add current tips and settings.
Maybe if AVS forum mod sees this, they can think about adding something like that, many devices on AVS have over 100 pages of user comments, it would be nice to have 2nd post contain up to the moment info on any device in here.
Edited by rgtaa - 11/24/12 at 9:10pm

Awesome info....I just got my 8200 on friday and I love it! I have it projecting a 150" and it looks fantastic and I don't even have my 150" screen up yet! I've looked around and I didn't find anything that said "color space" exactly... Where can I find this information?

Agreed.

JoeBoy73
I posted this just a day ago, this is the info you were looking for, the other guy just wrote "color space", but this is how to change to RGB. Have fun with your new pro8200.

Awesome, thank you!

As important, your x-box, blu-ray player, etc also needs to be changed to output RGB.

Good note and would explain why I didn't notice a difference when I changed the Pro8200 from Auto to RGB but left it at RGB. My guess is that the Xbox may not be set to RGB and might also be in some sort of auto mode so I will have to check into that. That might explain why my green tiles on the Xbox dashboard are so dark when on my other displays they're much lighter. There are other differences in the production of color but that's the most obvious one I can think of at the moment.

Okay I know I posted these questions about a week or so ago but since I didnt really get any replies:
Does Anyone have any information about parts, parts list, parts suppliers, or can recommend any companies to deal with for this pj?
Does anyone have any experience with fixing ANY projector let alone this one? online diagrams? schematics?
Am I really the only one on this thread that has ever experienced the problems that I have had with the pro8200?

Even if you simply RMA'd your pro8200 I would like to know? Im really in the dark here!
Any information would be greatly appreciated.

I know you got it used from someone on yahoo, maybe you can email him and find out if he is the original owner, and if he ever registered the pro8200. Look on bottom of pro8200, it should give the manufacture date. The pro8200 does come with 3 year warranty and if your manufacture date is under 3 years , you could be covered. Look in the box that the pro8200 came in, does it have registration card.
If vendor never registrated it, maybe go online and register, but first find out when he bought it , from where and when. Explain the situation to him, and ask if he could help you with it. Don't blame him, be very nice.

If it was a refurb, it wouldn't work, but if it was never registered and he tells you where he bought it and date, maybe he can gift it to you. I don't know.
If that doesn't work, maybe call viewsonic and ask what the part would be, BUT don't do this until you can see if you are covered, because they might ask you for serial number.

I didn't register my pro8200. So if I "gift" the pro8200, I think it would still be under warranty.

I haven't heard of that problem with the pro8200 before, the thing is, you have no idea what the guy did with the PJ, you bought it USED , so he could have dropped it, who knows.

Thanks for the reply rgtaa.
I bought it from a guy on ebay for a steal of a price claiming that it was brand new, just that it waas "open box". As far as I could tell this was new. Not a single blemish and still factory packaged up. Although I dont rule out that something may of happened to it before I received it, I will say given its condition I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

After looking through all the materials I can not find the registration card! I'm not sure if It did not come with one or If I was just stupid enough to throw it out. I highly doubt that though.

Ill go online tomorrow and see if I can register it with just the serials.

Click on support link on viewsonics site:

"We are sorry, but the page you are looking for cannot be found."

I just checked my pro8200 box, and it doesn't come with registration form, just a cd, a start up sheet.

I just got an account for viewsonic, I am not gonna register my pro8200 but I am at the form to fill out , and it asked "purchase date, place of purchase". I had NO problems going to viewsonic site and signing up. I don't know why you had a problem? And makes me wonder if you really troubleshooted your pro8200, if you can't find viewsonic website that is world wide company, one way or another, and get support page and trouble shoot why NOT. Since troubleshooting is doing stuff one way, then another way, google search anyone! In any case, I found the support page , so it is there.

I'm thinking you do have the 3 year warranty, provided he never registered it and as you say, it was factory packed with regular pro8200 box. Email the guy and find out the correct info of when and where he bought it, and if he knows if anyone registered it. He might have bought it from best buy as "open box" , or from newegg or someone else. If he doesn't give you any info, than you have no choice and put something down on form. But it would be ashamed if you blew it by filling out the form the "wrong" way.
Edited by rgtaa - 11/26/12 at 5:46am

Tried everything under the sun and certainly everything that was suggested on here. Im not an expert like every other person on here but I can safely say I know how to troubleshoot. I've fixed my fare share of items over the years but I've never worked with projectors before. Most of the time when I run into a problem with a product there is at least some documentation on it somewhere here in the forums if not anywhere on the internet. I must of just forgot how to use google and be the only person on earth with this problem because im getting nothing at all.

Also several links on the vs site last night where giving me issues. I can see that they are just fine now. I think vs is just trying to make me look like an a**hole

Im not sure if Im allowed to post the ebay name of the seller or not but I see that he has sold several other pro8200 in just the last two or three months. I would be curious to see if anyone else bought from this guy and had any issues. Plan on contacting today to see if I can get any purchase info.

Thanks for checking your box as well. Makes me feel better that I didnt throw away the registration card.

stkguy
Actually, you are doing good. It was kind of funny you couldn't find the website support page. I didn't mean to offend you in any way. And it would be good for you, if it was something simple that is not set up right, to save you the headache of sending it back.
I have some friends that call me from time to time because they are having problems with their tech toys. And they always call me to fix something or another, and it's usually something very simple. Like the setting got reset, or bad cable, or not plugged in all the way.. Or I have to load everything back to factory settings because they accidentally screwed with one of the settings.
Listen, I myself "troubleshoot" everything I do, because hundreds if not thousands of times, I miss something, and do the same thing over and over and over, thinking it's not working, and it turns out, I checked the wrong thing. Like misplacing my reading glasses, only to find they are on the top of my head.

So, triple checking everything, taking your pro8200 into another room and just take hdmi cable and pc, and set the pro8200 to factory reset, and look in pc graphic settings and pro8200 settings.

When I got the pro8200 , it was working ok, but I wanted to know if I could make the picture look even better, then I tried doing calibrations on it, and it looked worse , and everything I kept changing didn't work, I RESET pro8200 and started from scratch and everything worked again. I went to friends house and used his hdmi cable, and wondered why it wasn't looking good. It took me awhile before I changed the hdmi cable, and used mine and it "worked" again. I do know you been tearing your hair out the last week troubleshooting the crap out of it, but, go into another room, and try again. As you are going down the registration process. Now if you do fix it, post, and lets have a good laugh about it. And post what happens with the vendor too. It would be nice to know you have 3 year warranty, hopefully you do. If not, you can call viewsonic, and try plan B, to find out part number to get.

No offense taken I was really hopping that I just forgot or overlooked something as well. Maybe you are right about just starting from scratch and taking it into another room. I may just have to find another project for the next few days so that I can clear my head.

I have taken the steps that you have suggested to (hopefully) get a RMA and I will keep those who are curious posted. Like I said I am not the only one that bought from this guy. Didnt seem shady at all but we'll see how it all goes.

At this point I am now REALLY interested in how this polarization issue happened regardless if I get a new one or not. As I had said before, Im finding nothing online.

Hey, sorry about the confusion. I should have put 0, 50, 55 or what ever. Put a zero in front of each. Was out of town longer than expected. If I run my machine tonight I'll have a look. I still haven't tried bse's settings either though. So I'll try those and see how it goes. Sorry about the mix up.

And yes to everyone, SET YOUR SOURCE TO RGB. Until I did that, blacks were crushed into oblivion. My Samsung plasma doesn't have this issue for some reason. I'm not sure why Viewsonic has this issue.

Great news! Seller contacted me and gave me all the necessary information and in a very timely manor.
He states that I was not the first to contact him about the issue. Im not sure how many of these he has sold but it looks to be about ten, at least in the last three months (cant really tell the way eBay seller history works). And Im at least the third that has had issues. So it turns out that Im not completely alone here.

Well, I think it was good you contacted the vendor because now you know where and when he got it, so you can get 3 year warranty, right?. I would hope every single person who bought from him get's that info. So all 10 people should contact him, I would think. As to this exact problem, I doubt 3 people out of ten had this problem, in any case, it should give you peace of mind going forward that if you do have problem you can have it fixed under warranty. Like the rest of us that bought NEW.
Let us know how viewsonic treats you, it could have been worse for you, it could have been refurb, or pre-registered , in which case you would have had no warranty if you bought from 3rd party reseller. Good News.

As a newbie to the Viewsonic Pro8200, I am trying to gather info about calibrating it for the first time. I am bamboozled trying to find a good initial setup.

Could someone post, repost or supply a link telling me how to calibrate a new Pro8200? I wish we had a way of sharing all the good pertinent information that can be found easily.
Thanks!

No kidding. Someone should start a new thread that just summarizes all the good and bad about this PJ. How to set it up. Common problems. Etc. Someone who's owned it a long time and followed all the little details about this PJ. The Pro8100 users did that, and I think it was really useful.

GreenBaron, try post 6: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1390576/viewsonic-pro8200-calibrations

GreenBaron:
These are the settings that I thought looked the best on my new vs pro8200. He states they are best for a pj at about 500hrs and I think that his ultimate goal was to increase the black levels a bit, but out of all the other suggestions on here I thought that these looked the best to eye. I also think that each pj is slightly different even if they came of the same line, just like any instrument. But then again Im not as experienced as others on here.

Eco mode: on

Just got my 150" 16:9 screen (1.1 gain Elite Cinewhite) up and I'm noticing some hot spotting in the dead center of the screen and it appears to move with the seating position seating or standing.

My projector is about 19ft back and hanging from the ceiling at about 9ft. It's only really noticable during bright or very dark scenes. Any thoughts on how I can correct it? Or is it even possible to fix it? I did put the PJ in Eco mode and it has help a little bit. But it's still there.
Edited by JoeBoy73 - 11/30/12 at 11:12am

JoeBoy73:
There was a poster on here a while back that had a similar problem. I believe that it was dust on the dmd mirror? I cant remember but it wouldnt hurt to take a look.

Thanks stkguy! I'm actually staring to think its rainbows and not hot spotting. I watched two movies last night and the "spot" would move according to my seating position. I've never owned a dlp tech before and maybe what I'm seeing is RBE. I've always associated that with a rainbow like aurora on the screen.

Ok, let me get this straight. You didn't use a screen and you didn't have hot spots. You get a NEW screen and with this new screen you get hot spots, is that right?

Some screens can make the picture brighter, good for low lumen PJ's, some screens make the picture darker (make better blacks) if you have higher lumen PJ. If you got a screen that is good for batcave, it might not be good for the pro8200 unless you turn down the lumens on it, I don't know.
When you project picture on white wall do you get hot spot?
There are many settings on the pro8200, dark room, user 1, standard, etc. Do you get it on all modes? Hard to tell how much you troubleshoot. I could get hot spot on my screen if I make the PJ in super bright mode.
It's the same if I shine a flashlight on different wall types, some paint surfaces would produce hot spots, and some paint surfaces would have dull shine. Maybe the screen guys in this room can offer you suggestions. I don't think there is anything wrong with the pro8200, but it maybe need to be calibrated or adjusted. How many hours do you have on bulb? If you were shining on white wall before, you will have to tone it down when using screen, I had to.

p.s. Maybe go to screen forum rooms, or plug in your elite cinewhite screen in search, and post in their too, to see if they can offer you suggestions, both forum rooms, here and in screen room can help with finding solution, I would think.
Edited by rgtaa - 12/1/12 at 2:27pm

let us know what happened, did you send the pro8200 back and are they fixing it for you?

Hi guys, I have this projector on the way from the Newegg deal during black Friday, now that I look at it again, I'm beginning to doubt if it'll work in my room:

The size of the room is (LxWxH) (23'x19'x8')
Throw: 18'-22'
Screen: 100" Motorized Elite Screen from Amazon (I haven't ordered it yet)
I'm planning to ceiling mount the projector upside down and as close to the ceiling as possible. According to the projector central calculator, at 20' throw, the image has to come down 27.4" from lens to the top of the screen, the Screen i'm planning on getting: 100" Elite Motorized screen from Amazon.



My question is I know the Pro8200 has a manual zoom, so if I mount it at say 20' would I be able to Zoom it in enough to get a 100" screen? Also if I do this, does the drop from the lens to top of the screen change? How much? I looked at the specs from the manual and it looks like I have to mount it at 16' to get the 16" offset?

The projector is arriving soon and I wanted to figure this out, if it doesn't work, I can always return it, thanks guys!
Edited by ThomasAV - 12/2/12 at 11:04pm

ThomasAV, you are correct. For a 100" screen, with maximum zoom, the greatest distance for the lens of the Viewsonic Pro8200 from the screen is 15'7". The offset will be 16.8". If you play around with the various variables in the ProjectorCentral calculator, you will notice that for a given screen size, the offset is constant, regardless of the amount of zoom. I can confirm that is correct. (offset doesn't change w/ zoom).

One other item to note - for a given screen size (100") - for the Viewsonic, the available mounting range is 10'2" to 15'7". Note that the offset stays the same. Also note that for the 100" screen size, the brightness of the image will vary between 34fl at 10' and 25fl at the 15' mounting point.

For comparison, the Epson 8350 is much more flexilble in its mounting options, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. For a 100" screen with the Epson 8350, the zoom allows mounting anywhere between 9'9" and 20"9". Quite a range. However, the Fl of the image varies from 34Fl at 9'9", to 14fl at 20'9" is a very large change. In the case of the Epson, you probably would want to mount the projector based more on desired light output, rather than the easiest installation point.

Depending on your room and viewing conditions (lights, windows, wall color), your desired light output from the projector may dictate the mounting position more so than other factors.

One last consideration - I believe the ProjectorCentral Calculator is pretty accurate with regards to the math calculating throw distance, zoom range, and offset. However, the Fl calculations are taken straight from the manufacturing supplied information as well. You should factor in the fact the Fl output of a projector varies greatly over its life and depending on the calibration/mode (eco, full brightness v. theater selection).

CoderGuy, an owner of a Viewsonic Pro8200, and frequent poster, has a link in his signature to a calculator that has a little more real-life calculations for the Fl you can expect out of a projector.