The Official Acer H9500BD Thread - Page 86

I also want to thank you for trying to help out here Jason. Without your efforts I would not be trying as hard as I am here. You have done some awesome testing in the other thread. I hope you are feeling better.

I also hope Acer has taken note that owners want thier units fixed like BenQ has seen fit to do for their owners. I have every confidence they will when the right people get the right information before them.

Thanks Brian. I'm thinking I may have to forego 3D at this point and just find myself a cheap bright gaming DLP. This one is in my top 5, but I'm looking hard at the non-3D Viewsonic Pro8200.

I would go with the Benq w6000 for the best NOn-3D DLP image under $2000. The Viewsonic Pro8200 is a good projector if you need a light cannon and to save some money, but for movies it is not as good as a Benq w6000, or a Mits hc4000. The reason I like the w6000 over the mits hc4000 though, is because the Benq is so much brighter and has the IRIS for darker blacks.

This Acer9500bd is good if you want 3d, but like Mike has noted, hard to recommend anymore until the pixel blur issue is fixed.

As an innocent bystander and potential customer, I am more concerned with the various basic QC issues than the current "pixel blur" crusade. I want to give Acer the benefit of the doubt here, as I've been happy with my Acer HDMI monitor.

I'm interested in hearing about how Acer is responding to malfunctioning and damaged units. Firmware issues and patches -- well, a design oversight is not a malfunction.

Yeah the "HDMI Blur" crusade has become a bit absurd. The fact that people are giving bad reviews on that minor issue itself is creating a very inaccurate perception of the projector. The very concept of people "needing" to have a 120" screen as their computer monitor is also somewhat bizarre and laughable at the same time.

Make no doubt about it, this is an awesome projector for the money. The 3d is fantastic, the contrast ratios excellent, motion handling excellent.

Thanks for the input coderguy. Unfortunately my maximum throw distance is only 17ft, so I won't be able to zoom the BenQ to fill my 140" wide 2.4 aspect screen. I do need a bright PJ, so until they get the Acer blur fixed, I'm looking at maybe an Epson 3010/5010 for 3D movies and casual Xbox gaming (I have a JVC X70 for 2D movie viewing) or something like the Viewsonic Pro8200, just for gaming. The search continues...

Oh boy. I don't suppose I can count on you for help with Acer then despite my evidence? None of us are saying the 9500 is not a good unit. All we are saying is that it can be better. Are you going to tell me you are one of those guys that does not want better for your money? Kind of like that commercial where the kid refuses free money. OK then, but I do not think you understand my intentions.

Nobody is trying to badmouth the 9500. We are trying to get them to fix a known issue like BenQ has. All of the reviews clearly point out the strengths of the unit but also mention the issues. That is called honesty friend. If you do not agree then you can post objections as you have but until you fully test the unit then do not tell me that what I see is not an issue.

If Acer support would simply own this and fix it all would be well. Let me ask you this, would it be honest of me to recommend this unit when I know something this simple needs fixing? I have posted in all my reviews the issue and have said if you are OK with it then buy.

Here is my bottom line, I have brought this to Acer's attention and they are dismissing it as non-existant. It exists and I have proven that. The response is lackluster at best and if they will not accept it, then I have little choice but to get their attention. I have not lied in any of my reviews. If you have evidence to the contrary then please post it up. If not, please help the effort or stand aside if you cannot get on board for a better picture. Please do not be one of those people who do not want to get what they paid for.

I am trying to get Acer to fix this. We will all benefit from this. What are you trying to do? If you feel this strongly, why not call Acer and ask them what they have to say about customer complaint case #15505588U? Thanks for your input though I believe you misunderstand my intentions.

You are free to choose if you prefer to live with a faulted projection that was also previously found on another projector from Benq, but has since been fixed by the Manufacturer.

If Acer choose to ignore Customers' complaints on multiple issues, it will definitely deter me and other potential buyers from getting another Acer in future.

And this is what a forum for fellow owners is for.

Cheers!

There's no doubt you have put in a great deal of effort, and I always want my products to perform at peak level. I hope I didn't offend anyone, but I just wanted to give a different perspective.

Reliability is an issue and you should be concerned. I realized early on that "out of the box" reliability could be an issue and, for me, it was. I've worked from a reasonably simple premise.....I was willing to go through the paces if I got a bunk unit. That's part of the reason the projector is relatively inexpensive. It's a bit of a "pick your poison" situation and it isn't all about Acer.

I remember (many) years ago getting very frustrated with Apple (Imagine that....). They'd come out with a new computer which had just one or two features the one before didn't have...and they'd charge more. Damn...if only I'd waited for that ethernet port . Could they have incorporated those changes in earlier units? Sure, but they wouldn't have made as much money.

The point is that, frankly, Acer, Apple, etc. aren't looking out for you. They're looking out for their bottom line and, if they don't, they aren't going to be around for long. Sure, Acer might piss some people off, but if they come out with the better model next year, they'll make a lot of money. If they fix this year's model too early or too well, they'll possibly lose sales for next year. Please understand that I'm not defending or attacking anyone. This is just the world we live in (at least for the time being).

Ahhhh....but I digress (again)....the reliability of the Acer IS an issue, but there are good ones out there. Getting one of those is the trick. I didn't mind saving 12 to 15 hundred bucks on the Acer knowing (going in) that I might have to return it. That's why I put the projectors I got through the paces early on. After two tries, I have what I think is a reliable projector with a very good picture, am drinking a beer, and watching the Dodgers with my dog on a 120 inch screen (Wife is watching people sing or something.....) and I'm cool with that. I'd like Acer to fix any problems and will do what I can to push them to take care of it.

What Acer will probably do is, fix the problem, wait until the stock on the 9500 is pretty much depleted, sell a bunch of new units, and then offer the fix. What corporation wants to read the following review:

"There's basically no difference between the new and old model since they fixed the blurring issue. Don't waste your money on the 2012 model and buy the 9500."

Cheers....LA/Atlanta....2 to 2 and time for a Becks....

Like I said, time is not on our side. We need this fixed now.

Maybe we need an ipetition to show that many people want a fix?

I, for one, having received a DOA unit, really appreciate everyone's effort at trying to make this a reliable and improved unit. When I contacted Acer and specifically asked about their response to Mikes2Cents case and the quality control issue I had, they said it's been "escalated to the engineering department, you will receive a call back from them." Not sure if that's a generic response or to be taken that something is actually being done. I have bought 7 projectors in the past couple years from various manufacturers at different price points (weekend A/V business) and this is my first DOA.

Mike, you might take Chuck's comments to heart (or at least his Username). No need to revisit alpha-beta-blocker territory.


I wouldn't put it that way. It's more of an allocation of resources issue. (Don't forget, there are enough favorable reviews out there to mitigate some "minor" input-mapping complaints.) Engineering staff is under the gun to get new product ready for prototyping and tradeshows. If this is a firmware issue, however, I would think that an alert Director would get one of his new hires to check it out.
Now, that's what I'm talkin' about. Now that the wife has her plasma to watch the Singin/Dancin stuff upstairs, she made the mistake of saying that she doesn't care what I do downstairs with the basement renovation. Next stop: BatCave (albeit with a 96" screen).
And Kemp misplays a fly ball into a triple in the 9th -- Atlanta wins. Damn.

(Watched it on my Acer monitor.)

You might be right about the resource allocation issue, but my guess is that isn't it unless they have re-engineered this year's projector. I used to do electronic engineering and, generally, you just make tweaks from release to release until you're ready to make a big leap. If they are using a lot of the same component parts (likely based on my past experience), they probably already know what the problem is and (most likely) are working to fix it in this year's PJ.

See where I'm going? It's a short step to add a firmware upgrade you are already working on (or is finished). I'm not saying the firmware is the same, but I'm betting many parts of it are pretty close. My VP used to get with marketing and pull stuff like this all the time. We just wanted to fix the problem. There were times we were PROHIBITED from fixing known issues (not major ones, but things of the magnitude we see in the Acer) based releasing our newer models.

Now, I'm speculating here, but, believe me, it's not out of the question.

After last night, I'm getting damn tired of these 9th innings.....maybe Bug Selig (not a typo) would consider making it an 8 inning game????

You know, I'm thinking that we might be on the wrong track here. Maybe instead of trying to get Acer to admit there's a problem (difficult) and fix it (difficult), we should be talking to BenQ and asking them what caused the original problem and what they did to improve/fix THEIR product (the assumption being the the same problem has the same root cause...do Acer and BenQ use similar video components??).

The logic here is that people are usually a lot more willing to talk about the details of their successes than their failures or shortcomings. If we can get the information from BenQ, it might be possible for some smart person to approach Acer and say "Hey, you've got a problem, this is what it is, and this is what your competitor did to fix it. All of the people on these Acer forums are wondering what YOU'RE doing about it."

I have to disagree. Look how zombie10k described the improvement when this same bug got fixed on the BenQ W7000:

This is neither absurd, bizarre or laughable. On the contrary, it appears to be quite noticeable when you are able to see the difference. I'd like to say thanks to all the folks who have worked hard to get Acer to own up to this.

i don't think they've owned up to it yet. they are treating it like isolated instances instead of design flaw on all the projectors. im curious to see what benq did in such short time to fix the issue. might have been as simple as NR=0 (noise reduction) in the code

Right....that was the point of my recent post. I'm poking around to see what I can find out about how BenQ solved the problem. I'm happy with my projector, but, don't get me wrong, if the picture can be even sharper (which I find hard to believe when I'm looking at it), I'm for it.

any idea what kind of eprom they are using, maybe we can dump the firmware and reverse engineer it (if failure analysis doesn't progress of course).

Mission Impossible - Blur Protocol

I got it last week. Could be my old, blind eyes, but I thought it looked good.

I wish I had more info for you guys, but I'm not certain even the BQ engineers in the US know what changes were made since the firmware was issued from their HQ overseas.

I know this is firmware only for the W7000, regardless of when it was made. There's no hardware mods being done.

The difference was obvious to me for a number of difference reasons. I have a rather large screen @ 142". This particular flaw stood out blown up to this size. I also have similar BQ models (W6000 and SP890) at work and use them for 1920x1080P PC presentations, they are both crystal clear. I knew something wasn't right with the W7000 as soon as I turned it on.

i'm still amazed that 2 different companies had the same exact problem. I can finally recommend the W7000 now that they fixed the issue. I hope you guys get some answers from Acer. I still have my original 5360 3D DLP which started the 3D front projector craze for me back in 2010.

My guess is they both started with the same 3D reference design from TI or a third party, which had an incorrect parameter somewhere in the HDMI processing chain. It'd be fascinating to see a teardown of both these projectors to see how much they have in common.

Is Playing Stupid an Effective Defense?
Projector Central caught this same bug in their Acer K330 review.
http://www.projectorcentral.com/acer...tor_review.htm

Throwing the Baby Out?
The extra pixels are there by design to reduce the cost. Admittedly it does reduce the artifacts.

What To Do?
Who would recommend customers consider the BenQ W7000 instead since they have fixed the same issue?

I would love to chime in here with some magical solution from Acer but that has not happened. I thought I would give them some time to respond to me but also set about to the negative review thing. Then I was advised to "chill out". Well I have heard nothing and have done the negative review thing. Now I wait. Tomorrow I may try calling other options at Acer USA but I am not holding my breath. Quite frankly I am disappointed with them. I have posted photographic evidence and they fail to acknowledge what I sent them in any way. So this is a numbers game. They either get a lot of complaints or fail to sell units. I have come close to all I can do.

I would like to see some video or blu ray compares between hdmi and vga to see how much difference there is. I have seen the single pixels and one pixel line tests but never an image from a movie showing the difference. It seems to me the only people to pick this up saw it looking at pc graphics and noticing a softness with the text and other lines.

I put up a bunch of test patterns through my 9500 and it is much sharper than the 8350 I had before and in another league compared to my hd70. I guess my point is that I dont see how this is making a big impact in video.

That is because it is so hard to compare. I do not believe my camera can capture the diff but it is there. User Kfor told us this a long time ago comparing to his older Acer which I believe was the 7531. I have no way to put up TV viewing via the VGA but I can do it via Blu-ray on the PC and it is clearly better via VGA there. That is not right.

New Stealth DLP Chips Trade Increased Brightness for Resolution

From the Optoma ML500 review:
Optoma says that the mirrors on the DLP chip are arranged in a way that's designed to produce higher brightness from a more compact design. However, the mirror arrangement also makes it impossible to have a true native resolution in the traditional sense, so the projector does indeed scale the image. Note too that scaling is also likely responsible for a slight sense of soft focus that I also noticed. The good news is that the obvious scaling artifacts show only on images with repeating patterns over a large area.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395279,00.asp

This implies if they enable 1:1 pixel mapping in the firmware, then the projector losses some brightness. Did the BenQ W7000 become dimmer after the HDMI blur fix?