BYE BYE Mits DLPs - Page 3

For those of you who have a light controlled room you might consider front projection. I had a couple of DLP RPTVs years ago along with a Sony SXRD and personally the switch to plasma was a huge upgrade to me at the time (Panasonic Plasma -> 1st gen Pioneer Kuro -> 2nd gen Pioneer Kuro). I then went to an LCD for TV/PC usage and front projection for movies. Some of you might be surprised how good front projection is at larger sizes and it's much cheaper than a flat panel in large sizes. For those who want brighter images the combination of a front projector plus a Dalite High Power screen is a great choice.

Just my 2 cents.

Sorry to chime in and joust once again but . . . Yeah, companies left it behind for a reason, namely profitability or a lack thereof not PQ (or a lack thereof). This intimation is akin to saying McDonald's got out of the New York strip steak market because the food is bad in that space.

I just think that LCD is awful--DLP is gone--and plasma is on the way out.

It seems to me that it will be a long time before I buy 4K because I think LCD sux.

I guess the best I can do is buy one of the last 65-inch Panasonic plasmas.

Maybe I could get a used 85-inch Panasonic plasma. That would probably be the best route for me to take and HOPE that big OLED at a decent price would one day become available.

Maybe 4K front projection would be worth trying for 4K.

Brightest 4K 89-100 inch front projection versus 4K LCD at 85-100 inch sizes and same costs--which would be better picture quality wise?

P.S. I may be the only one at this forum who is brave enough to say it but we are moving to a world in 2015 where all that is left is LCD that SUX! When it finally happens don't be shocked and say that someone here didn't already say so.

I'm a little more optimistic.

The recent bad news regarding OLED production problems in my mind represents a technical challenge, not an absolute obstacle. And I remain cautiously optimistic about Sony's inorganic Crystal LED concept.

LCDs will evolve, probably getting better off axis, and Sharp's Moth Eye technology is a step in the right direction. And front projection will be around for a long time. Just don't look at the projector lens after a few beers and hurt your eyes.

Too bad Mits couldn't figure out how to put a brighter light source in their mammoth DLPs.

As someone reported earlier in this thread 4k chips from TI (being used now in movie houses I believe) could be sold to Mitsubishi. Presumably the increased resolution would also have the effect of brightening the picture. I suppose we will never know if my assumption is right much less if Mits. just decided to get out of the business or if TI would not sell them the chip. (or perhaps the price was too high) Too bad in any event that Mits is gone......

4K DMDs in a Mits would have been cool.

The problem is that the edge that DLP had was very large screens at a good price point. With huge, thin LCDs (even with their shortcomings) soon to be coming out of China, those advantages are diminished.

Quick question for you guys. Since Mits wisely stopped making RPTV's in the 65" and under size, since LCD's were finally able to compete in that price range for a TV that size. How long will it take before we see an affordable 80" LCD? Affordable as in close to what you might pay for an 82" RPTV? Such as like you can do now for around 1200-1500? When might we even see an LCD with an 82" screen for even under 2 grand?

You won't. There is no competition in that size market. Sharp is bleeding cash so cuts in pricing will be minimum. The new 4K sets at 84 inches are $20,000-35,000 USD. 2017 you might get one of those for $2500. The market will keep pushing 32-65 inch TV's even in 4K resolution. We the RPTV crowd are being pushed into 4K Projectors now. That's what I will be doing anyways. Was really hoping for a 4K RPTV from Mits.

I, too, felt DLP with newer DMDs had a future, but I have the feeling Chines companies like Hisense will push the price of large panel LCDs, including 4K, way down. The future of these displays is likely moving from Japan and Korea to China.

According to whom? At what prices? With what kind of PQ?

We'll see.

These guys, for one:

http://hdguru.com/hisense-targets-the-us-hdtv-market/8853/

Oooooo, those looked great at 600x400 on my laptop screen. Actually, I'm continually amazed at one thing: The manufacturers have run out of ways of coming up with stands that look ugly as hell to me.

Yeah, the stands look like passive aggressive protest from underpaid Chinese workers.

The other trend that irks me a little is that little dip dead center on the bottom bezel that manufacturers put in just for their logo. Hopefully it's used for a sensor, or front-facing camera, or some other such thing too, because mucking with the clean thin line just to have the name hovering there seems crummy.

"Yeah, companies left it behind for a reason, namely profitability or a lack thereof..."

Well that is why they're in business.

And adding a 4K DLP chip while it sounds doable what is also necessary is all the software engineering, support boards, etc., that would actually use its enhanced capability.

I'm not happy that MIT is leaving the RPTV business. I own a 65738. Just saying I understand it.

Re "why they're in business": My point is a little more complicated than that. What I was/am taking issue with is the intimation in your post #60 that there's something inherently problematic about DLP RPTV ("The design that sucks air and dust and dirt through its innards is sooner or later going to create problems.") and that that inherent inferiority directly correlates to DLP RPTVs' demise through 'natural selection.'

Even if I'm perhaps overconstruing your remarks, the bottom line for me is that it is not as simple as the tautology that is "the market is the market." I think companies create/foster and destroy markets through their actions. To wit, I think DLP RPTV could/would still be around with better marketing efforts from the manufs. I understand that kitchen remodels likely represent greater profit margins via appliance sales for Best Buy, but I find it difficult to believe that with all the square footage dedicated to Pacific Kitchen & Home in many BBY locations that Mitsu (and Samsung) couldn't have made the case for more floor space being dedicated front and center to their larger DLP sets in Magnolia Home Theater locations. I particularly find it problematic when one considers 3D: 3D is at its most impressive on larger displays. We are seeing an unprecedented level of 3D "content" right now, from I, Robot, Finding Nemo and Top Gun (in February) on BD to a theatrical 3D re-release of Jurassic Park next April. It's arguably not in the best interests of public perception/acceptance/growth of (home) 3D for this tech to have been allowed to wither. (But I also understand that Sony and Panasonic have far greater investments in 3D than does Mitsu.)

I'm annoyed with the shifts represented by Mitsu getting out of the DLP RPTV, have some understanding as to the market forces that led to it, but do NOT understand how it is that the likes of, say, Krell and Meridian can hang in there but Mitsu and other comparatively behemoth companies couldn't stay with DLP . . . (Selfish addendum: . . . at least until I can afford either a killer 3D front PJ or 80"+ 4k plasma.)
Edited by Paul.R.S - 12/26/12 at 2:32pm

"there's something inherently problematic about DLP RPTV"

There is. Wasn't hiding my point at all in my post.

The design of the MIT's is they pull in unfiltered outside air. Over the long haul that is problematic.

Does a TV that uses DLP technology HAVE to do that? No. Do they? Yep.

The drive to hit a price point that made them as a product competitive with other technology added up to design compromises. Those design compromises do and did end up causing problems.

The image path, color wheels that are mechanical, timing of the DLP chip "mirrors", all kinds of things about the MIT DLP RPTV's and its design all created issues.

So yes, there is something inherently problematic about DLP RPTV's. In order to engineer a product that did not fall into the traps the technology carries with it means you have a product that comes no where near a price point for them to be competitive.

If they as a technology represented a marketable and profitable product they'd still be available.

They are disappearing because as a product DLP RPTV's are neither marketable nor profitable.

Edit: In other words they didn't disappear because Best Buy didn't give them floor space. They disappeared because consumers choose other products/technology that represented a better value and investment for their money. If people wanted them, Best Buy would have given then all the floor space they needed.

If you think that with some tweaking, some kind of change in their design, they could be marketable and profitable, I suggest you start a company that fills the void that companies leaving the market has created.
Edited by jsmiddleton4 - 12/26/12 at 4:49pm

JSMiddleton4:

You're proffering bromides that evince we'll simply have to agree to disagree. Be that as it may:

DLP RPTVs have been around for many years. One need not look further than the owner threads for the past two or three years to note that there are very few if any anecdotes of guys having display failure due to their being cooled by "unfiltered outside air." If anything, that simply leads to earlier lamp failure, completely remedied by buying a new lamp.

It's an entirely different discussion but there are far more anecdotes of guys having problems related to light engines and motherboards. The simple answer to the mole hill that you are trying to reify into a mountain is regular vacuuming of the grills on the back of the display. If there was significant merit to this criticism, then the 10-year old Dell laptop I have with a poor fan-based cooling design would have died from heat exhaustion long ago. Instead, I simply purchased a laptop pad that elevates the downward-facing cooling fan more than the feet of the lappy itself and am sure to blow the exhaust port out with compressed air occasionally. The purported problematics of this "design flaw" have more to do with the (lack of) diligence/maintenance/care & feeding of the owner than the inherent design itself.


This is an entirely different argument than your earlier premise, which was about air cooling.


They refined the design of the product so as to address its design "flaws," but that process somehow REDUCED price points?


Tautology. MANY of us love Twinkies, Ho Hos and Sno Balls but Hostess is no more.


Again with the tautology. You're missing my point entirely. Mainstream consumers didn't make those decisions in a vacuum. Most made them based upon the influence of marketing (or the lack thereof). Just because, say, Justin Bieber sells more records than Jane Monheit does NOT mean the former is a better vocalist. Similarly, just because most mainstream consumers want The Big Sexy of a wall-mountable display does NOT mean that that is the best technology for PQ. That does NOT mean that other consumers with different priorities shouldn't have choices. It is this reduction in consumer choice that you seem to be missing in your rush to lionize market values.


Condescending/disingenuous/not the point.
Edited by Paul.R.S - 12/27/12 at 12:31pm

Alswys remember Mitsubishi stopped selling consumer LED/LCD panels long before they quit with DLP Rear Projection. I think they just projected pricing of large display LED a year or two down the road and they did not see anyway they could sell 92" DLP Rear Projectors on the street at 25 hundred dollars if LED at similar sizes was going to be similarly priced. Mits except for Home Theater Projectors was pretty much giving up on TV in the consumer space. Don't be surprised if they are out of Front Projectors too soon. Their large commercial display business is a real business for them and like everybody else they have to rationalize their businesses.

I am sure that TI was not going to price 4k chips where Mits needed them and that level of resoltuion needed a much better chassis screen construction and surface and optic... At some point 4K will be zero extra cost to the LED OEM. For Mits Consumer TVs were like for most manufacturers a money loosing proposition and why not devote scare resources to the large professional display business. They are not Samsung making a zillion panels a year with fabs that can't afford to be closed down as they represent multi-billion dollar investments. It was a small business and it was easy for Mits to exit, so exit they did.

For all the tech reasons that are stated here and other places as to why DLP is going away, I think it is really much more simplistic .

TV's have mostly been considered a turn in and work item, not requiring any regular maintenance other than a bit of exterior cleaning. And that is still pretty much the way the vast majority of the market looks at them. With LED/LCD and plasma that is still the way they are. Not so with DLP and previously LCOS. Bulb changing and other maintenance too keep them working, while not really onerous,is still more than most want to fiddle with.

What other maint?

Vacuuming the intake slots and also doing that to the lamp cavity when you change out the bulb.

Yeah, those are trivial to do, but you don't do them on CRT, LED or plasma. But most people don't do any maintenance on their tvs. Hell, my sisters and brothers don't even teaks settings when they get a new tv. I suspect they are more common than those of us that fiddle with all sorts of settings and post here!

Re: " I think they just projected pricing of large display LED a year or two down the road and they did not see anyway they could sell 92" DLP Rear Projectors on the street at 25 hundred dollars if LED at similar sizes was going to be similarly priced."

I understand and agree with your larger argument. But in this specific regard, I will be surprised if we have 92" LED-driven displays costing under ~$3k in a year or two. More like five? (With the nagging precedent of plasma prices at larger (70"+) sizes having stayed annoyingly high for many years.)
Edited by Paul.R.S - 12/27/12 at 12:30pm

My brother paid $3503 for an 80" Sharp a month ago in a price match at Best Buy.

Tens maybe hundreds of Billions of dollars have been lost overestimating the price of LED/LCD displays a few years down the road. Even if everybody goes bankrupt and there is not the large overcapacity hanging above the marketplace, the fabs will be written to zero and product produced on them will reflect the new cost basis.

So using plasma price history is problematic/not dispositive regarding the future of LED/LCD display pricing due to different market issues such as greater investment in the latter?

Even if what you're saying about future price points is true, I'm concerned that the display offerings will be from Vizio or some other brands that I'm heretofore not that impressed with.

Have you come across any single article or writer who has been making predictions about the display market that you agree with and find informative? If so, I'd love to get (a) link(s) to learn more.

In addition, the law is totally meaningless if the company goes bankrupt. Keep in mind that the company selling the product may not be the company that you think it is. For example, recently Suzuki Automobiles USA went into bankruptcy - taking all the liability for the warranties on their cars, SUV and trucks with it. The parent company Suzuki is not effected by this, nor the motorcycle group. Mitsubishi may have structured their DLP business the same way...... I do not know.

All the more reason to have picked up on a 3rd party warranty on these sets. I purchased 4 additional years through Costco/SquareTrade a year ago for my 92840 around a hundred bucks. Imported automobiles have long been handled by distributors sometimes multiples like Toyota does. Of course Toyota is building a lot of cars here and no bankruptcy coming in the near future for them. I don't believe Mits did anything tricky. They just decided not to be in consumer displays any more. The product division that offeredDLP has been restructured but is still an ongoing business.

Having said that, does anyone know the skinny on why Mitsu changed the name of the division via which these displays are sold to "Mitsubishi Electric Visual Solutions America, Inc." It was something else when I purchased in 2010.

That was yet another consolidation when Mits decided it would not longer sell sub 73" displays.

Thanks. I think it was Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc. before. Did you happen to see any trade press stories about that change and this rationale behind it? If so, linkage? Thanks again.