Attn: DLP Owners

I have a 5688 but only for a month. I have not been tracking hours, but probably only 100 hours............I know this doesn't help much. What kind of problems?

I bought the set/extended warranty from Tweeter.

STW, a trusted TV repair tech, I talked " a lot " with before buying said he just replaced a bulb on service call on a 4 year old Sam DLP. Said it looked just like new afterwards...................

I have an HLN5065W. I've had it for almost 4 years and have ~7800 hours on it. I replaced the lamp - "proactively" - at about 6500-7000 hours (not real sure as I discovered the service menu after that) and have the original as a spare.

I have had no problems.

Greg

I have my HLN for the same time, have had no problems, and am still on the first bulb.

I have a HLS6188. Had a problem two days after delivery which resolved itself and didnt return. Tweeter exchanged set for a new one anyway and it has been perfect. Has been calibrated by Eliab and exhibits outstanding PQ! Had about 300 hours on the first set when they picked it up. have about 200 on the second.

In 6 weeks our Samsung HLM507W will be 4 years old. It has less than 2000 hours on it so far. The set has been fine, no problems. I have a spare lamp on hand, and after hearing a sound that I thought might be the color wheel, I bought a spare one of those too.

That said, if I were in the market for a new set today, I would probably purchase a Samsung HL-S5679 in order to avoid the lamp and color wheel issues. JMHO.

Also have a Loewe Articos 55 which is just over 2 years old with about 4000 hours. The set has a habit of clogging its fan filter causing lamp shutdowns. Clean it and all is well. Had to have a light engine replacment a couple months ago due to color wheel noise. Works great... looks great.

Sounds like a trolling question, but for what it's worth I have no complaints about my Sammy HLS5686

I'ld agree that it sounds like a trolling question...but 425 posts later?

The only more common problem I've seen on forums are a few color wheel issues with older models.

Samsung DLPs in general are reliable. Toshiba DLPs on the other hand...they don't seem to have the cleanest track record

Doesn't sound like trolling to me, he said his worked flawlessly for 2000 hours. Mine on the other hand only made it 6 hours.

I have the Toshiba 56 MX 195 for six ms now i watch about 5 to 6 hrs a day weekends a little more and so far so good .. I guess it is a hit or miss game with all dlp with all the money we all shell out on these tvs it should not be that way.. Nothing like the old tube sets they keep on going and going and going..

I'm curious -how do you guys keep track of the hours used? Is there an internal timer or do you all (gasp!) actually track the time used?

THere is a lamp timer in the service menu

^^^
Do all TVs (Samsungs in particular) have that?

I've got over 800 hours on a one year old Mits 52628, no problems.

I am a proud (and seemingly lucky) owner of a Toshiba 52hm84. I have had this monitor for about 22 months, with about 6000 hrs of use, and am still on the original bulb. No problems whatsoever. After I bought the TV, I purchased a spare bulb since I saw that people were having a lot of problems, and now I'm at the point of hoping that the spare bulb will still be as good after sitting on the shelf for 2 years.

I have two Samsung DLPs. My first, an HLN507W that I've had since mid-2003, is now on its third bulb and undoubtedly has a little over 10,000 hours on it and runs just like new. In fact, the set has been so reliable that it prompted me to stick with Samsung when I upgraded to the new HLS6188W. This set has about 250 hours on it and runs just like a charm. A neighbor of mine bought a Toshiba DLP last year (52HMX95?) and has already had a tech out twice for it. I tried to warn them, but they said they got a deal that they couldn't pass up. They now regret not listening to me.

No problems with my 6187 which I got a little over 2 months ago. Very happy with it. And the word is "glean", not "gleam":

glean = gather, assemble, collect
gleam = shimmer, sparkle

I have had a 42" Sammy for just about a year now. I can't recall the exact model, but it is HLR something. I would estimate 1200 hrs & zero problems.

How much does a light engine replacement cost these days? Ive heard they are quite spendy?

Usually $200-$400 depending on manuf

HLN-5065, made in korea, purchased Oct 2003, 9000 hours, replaced: color wheel, light engine, ballast and finally chips to fix sound and 480i/480p display problems. Luckily all covered under extended warranty which just expired......

Consumer Reviews consider the Toshiba DLP the most reliable. Now they may not be good for anything else but tracking reliability is one thing they are reliable at.

I've had my Samsung HL-R5678W for more than a year now. Zero problems, very happy. Great picture...

I think this is an interesting and very valid line of inquiry.

I've had my HLN437W since August of 2003; purchased from Tweeter with an extended warranty. (I rarely buy extended warranties, but the technology was so new, and involved rotating machinery, so...)

Unit was DOA because the plastic tab on the lamp door that presses down on the interlock switch was broken off. Tech jumpered around that and we fired 'er up... discovering that the color wheel was noisy. Had a complete light engine exchange, no questions asked. Also had the digital board replaced under the "attempt to fix the video delay" program. Finally, had the lamp replaced last winter. All of the above was done at no charge by Tweeter, under either factory or extended warranty.

I have no idea how many hours I have on the unit (never looked at the SM).

So much for specifics.

Those of us who bought DLPs 3-4 years ago knew (or should have known...) we were buying into new technology. How well known is the long term reliability of the TI DMD devices? What life testing did production models (not prototypes) receive, outside of a laboratory? Further, what's the reliability of a 3600 RPM (or whatever it is) rotating color wheel (rather akin to a disk drive, but without the heads and arm)?

Manufacturers have been making CRT sets for... what? decades, now, and the design and production issues that lead to reliability problems have been solved. Well, we clearly ain't there yet with DLP. And we shouldn't compare 4 year old technology with decades-old technology.

Samsung was a company that had a reputation for fair-to-middlin TVs, and they have been attempting to move up into the high end. Well, they've made it with their technology, but maybe not so much (yet) with their reliability. (And I'm not going to get into my opinion of the digital image processing in these sets)

The telling thing, for me, will be whether the reliability of their new units will be far better than the stuff they built 3-4 years ago. If it is, that will mean they've climbed the learning curve and are worthy of my repeat business. If not, I'll go somewhere else when I'm ready to replace the HLN.

Some folks have commented on the inherent unreliability of a TV with rotating machinery. That was my initial reaction, too, when I first learned about DLP (How many people realize that a rotating color wheel was proposed for one of the first color TV systems by CBS in the 1940's?). But the other advantages of DLP, in terms of being immune to burn-in from video game images, and better picture brightness (4 years ago) than similarly-sized projection LCD sets, and their price point compared to plasma, all led me to take the plunge (or the risk, as the case may be) and buy DLP. I'll bet many of you, too, made the same decision for similar reasons.

Trouble free HDTV? Maybe when direct-view LCDs this large become reasonable. But then, I'm sure, we'll grouse about dead pixels instead of screaming color wheels.

Sorry for the long post, but I did want to share my views.

Ken

I was one of the gripers over on the HLN board whose posts encouraged Sea Ray to start this very worthwhile thread. I think in the interests of full disclosure, I will post here the message I posted over there that inspired Sea Ray to start this thread. I think this thread is an excellent idea, and I don't mean to start any flame war with those posters who have had positive experiences with their Samsung DLPs. After all, up until now, I was one of them, as you can tell by my member name (Now I have to figure out how to change it!). I also think it's worth mentioning that Ken's post immediately preceeding this one is an excellent summary of alot of the issues we need to consider now and considered back then when looking at DLPs.

Here is my post from the HLN thread:

Well, I guess I need to change my member name. Check out my tale of woe:

I bought my HLM507W in April 2003. I bought the extended warranty, which expired in April 2006. While the unit was covered under the extended warranty, I had to replace the color wheel. Cost, if not under warranty, +/- $500.

Then, after the warranty expired, the lamp went out. Okay, no room to gripe there -- it had 8192 hours on it. So, I replaced the lamp. Cost, including S&H, $250. Since it was out of warranty, I paid that.

That was in June of 2006. Almost immeditely after replacing the bulb, the picture went absolutely crazy -- frezing, rolling, scrambling -- the exact symptom of DMD failure. It only got worse.

Then, to top it off, the lamp, the new lamp, with 708 hours on it, failed. So, as of this minute, I am looking at a $750 DMD board and a $250 lamp, and the labor to install the DMD. Bottom line, this is a likely $15000-$2000 repair, including the lamp. Add that to the earlier lamp I bought and the replacement of the color wheel, and I have more in repairs to this 78 pund paperweight than the set cost new.

I called Samsung, and they laughed. They said that I should expect these problems because the TV is "old and out of warranty."

Unbelievable. The reason I did not buy Plasma in April of 2003 was because everyone said you wouldnt get 5 years out of one. I couldnt get 3.5 years out of a DLP! When I asked tech support why I should ever buy a new Samsung or recommend one to my friends, she laughed and told me she wouldnt own one either, based on my experience.

So, even though this board is technically about the HLN series, I know that potential Samusng DLp buyers check this board, and I would like to warn everyone -- be careful of DLP and avoid Samsung like the plague. Their product is crap, and their customer support is non existent.

Oh, BTW, I take delivery of my new Sony this Thursday. KDS-50A2000, with a 5 year service agreement for the grand total of $2500 after rebate. I will never ever own a Samsung product of any kind again, and I am making it my duty to my friends and everyone else to warn about Samsungs shoddy products and terrible customer support practices.