[brianbat420]

Ok there are a few Epson threads but a couple are pretty old.


Ok I have a Sanyo Z2000 and it has been a great projector. Right now it has around 3500-4000 on the bulb and it is getting dim. I am wondering if I should get a new bulb or upgrade to the 8350.


I am somewhat in the sticks so there is nowhere near me to get a demo and see if there is a real improvement over my Z2000. While I am sure there is a performance gain to be had is it significant enough to consider?


Keep in mind this equip is a few years old and is on par with the AE2000U so I was wondering if anyone else had made the jump that I am considering making.


My setup:

Dark wall, celling, floor

Fairly dark during the day (Definite impact on image but nowhere near unwatchable)

small lamp on at night (Opposite side of room from screen) There is some light hitting the screen.


From what I have read the 8350 would be a great little projector for my purposes but then I was wondering about the 8700 as well

Should I , Shouldnt I , that is the question.


Any others like me out there? Inputs?

 

[dysfunction26]



Quote:
Originally Posted by brianbat420 /forum/post/19509151


Ok there are a few Epson threads but a couple are pretty old.


Ok I have a Sanyo Z2000 and it has been a great projector. Right now it has around 3500-4000 on the bulb and it is getting dim. I am wondering if I should get a new bulb or upgrade to the 8350.


I am somewhat in the sticks so there is nowhere near me to get a demo and see if there is a real improvement over my Z2000. While I am sure there is a performance gain to be had is it significant enough to consider?


Keep in mind this equip is a few years old and is on par with the AE2000U so I was wondering if anyone else had made the jump that I am considering making.


My setup:

Dark wall, celling, floor

Fairly dark during the day (Definite impact on image but nowhere near unwatchable)

small lamp on at night (Opposite side of room from screen) There is some light hitting the screen.


From what I have read the 8350 would be a great little projector for my purposes but then I was wondering about the 8700 as well

Should I , Shouldnt I , that is the question.


Any others like me out there? Inputs?

The 8700UB is a much better projector as far as picture quality. Just hope you're lucky enough to get one that is working properly the first time around...lol. Epson customer support is amazing, the picture quality is amazing, the quality control...not so much.


I have had to exchange my Epson projectors a total of 6 times, going on 7. I am still loyal to Epson, as they have the best picture quality out of anything in the under $3,000 price range. I have owned the 6500UB, and now the 8500UB. If something goes wrong, you will only be without a projector for a maximum of 2 days, so it's not that big of an issue.


If Epson would work on the quality control of the projectors they ship, they would be pretty much the perfect company. If something goes wrong, they will bend backwards to make you happy.

 

[Commoncents]

You'd think an Epson bean counter would show management that it is more profitable to put out a quality product up front. I couldn't imagine the cost of doing several swaps for many customers being optimal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dysfunction26 /forum/post/19509214


The 8700UB is a much better projector as far as picture quality. Just hope you're lucky enough to get one that is working properly the first time around...lol. Epson customer support is amazing, the picture quality is amazing, the quality control...not so much.


I have had to exchange my Epson projectors a total of 6 times, going on 7. I am still loyal to Epson, as they have the best picture quality out of anything in the under $3,000 price range. I have owned the 6500UB, and now the 8500UB. If something goes wrong, you will only be without a projector for a maximum of 2 days, so it's not that big of an issue.


If Epson would work on the quality control of the projectors they ship, they would be pretty much the perfect company. If something goes wrong, they will bend backwards to make you happy.

 

[emf]

Probably 8350 is the choice for you


You described your setup, and you mentioned a light in a corner that hits the screen. Assumiing that your setup seems OK to you, assuming that the reduced contrast caused by the light doesn't bother you, I would say that 8350 is the better buy for you. The extra expense of 8700 buys better black.

 

[dysfunction26]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Commoncents /forum/post/19509609


You'd think an Epson bean counter would show management that it is more profitable to put out a quality product up front. I couldn't imagine the cost of doing several swaps for many customers being optimal.

All they would have to do is have someone test it before shipping. They could hire QC people to make sure they are all in proper working order before being shipped. Kind of like AVS does, that would make their already awesome customer service even better.

 

[Jason Turk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dysfunction26 All they would have to do is have someone test it before shipping. They could hire QC people to make sure they are all in proper working order before being shipped. Kind of like AVS does, that would make their already awesome customer service even better.

That would cost way more than dealing with the occasional defect...though it would be nice if they did.

 

[42Plasmaman]

I had the Z2000 and upgraded to the 8350.

The PQ improvement isn't that much dramatic between the 2 but the 8350 is brighter and has better black levels(when iris is enabled).


Be warned that the 8350 has no lens shift lock.

The lens shift Vert and Horiz are linked so when you adjust one, the other moves so getting it lined up is a little more work with the 8350.

Also the lens tends to drift if you have loud LFE(sub) or in my case from iris movement. I'm having to adjust my lens shift about every 4th movie I watch.

If I turn off the auto iris, the lens seems to stay in place.


I still feel the upgrade was justified since I got half of my money on the Z2000 back from selling it.

 

[42Plasmaman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dysfunction26 The 8700UB is a much better projector as far as picture quality. Just hope you're lucky enough to get one that is working properly the first time around...lol. Epson customer support is amazing, the picture quality is amazing, the quality control...not so much. If Epson would work on the quality control of the projectors they ship, they would be pretty much the perfect company.

This isn't just a 8500 series issue.

I went through 3 8350's and may be returning the 3rd one.

Unit #1: Red haze in lower right corner and upper left corner. Also had 1/4" green vertical line on left side and blue vertical line on right side on the outer edges. If I over scanned on to my border/velvet, I might have missed this.


Unit #2: Red haze in lower right corner and upper left corner. Fan noise made oscillating sound like it had a 1-2hz wave. Almost like the fan blade was going in/out on the shaft.

Best I can describe the sound is: Whooooooooom-Whooooooooom-Whooooooooom, repeat continuously instead of a constant sheeeeeeeee----


It was really prominent during silent passages and seemed to be directional. Meaning you could only hear it if you sat in specific places in the room. I walked around my room to check this because my wife said she couldn't hear it and in her spot, you couldn't.


Unit #3: Red haze in lower right corner and upper left corner.


Just an fyi-

My projector sit on a shelf with about 8 inches between the ceiling and top of projector. The projector lens is pointing directly at the top of my screen so I must use the vertical lens shift to get it aligned with my screen.

Not sure if the amount of vertical lens shift I'm using is some how causing the red haze to appear. One other person in the 8350 has also reported this issue and it's only noticeable when it's all black in those corners.

 

[kimmik]

If you simply keep using your 8350 for about 200hrs, your so called problem will disappear.


You need to understand how LCD projectors work to know that the red tinge is just a design issue that almost all LCD projectors have to deal with.


The lcd panels in the projector have 1 polariser before the panel, and 1 polariser after the panel. When heated by the high intensity light, the panels will degrade rapidly initially, then stabilise. Differences in initial degradation between the 6 polarisers in a 3LCD projector will lead to colour uniformity problems.


HOWEVER, this will fix itself in a few hundred hours of viewing.


I've owned an 8100, and now the 8350. Both start off with uniform blacks. then about 20hrs in develop the red tinged corners. then over then next 200hrs slowly disappear almost completely.


You can choose to return your 3rd perfectly good 8350 sure, but i guarrantee you'll get a replacement with exactly the same image. the only way to fix it is to be patient and watch the problem disappear itself.

 

[42Plasmaman]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kimmik /forum/post/19517447


If you simply keep using your 8350 for about 200hrs, your so called problem will disappear.


You need to understand how LCD projectors work to know that the red tinge is just a design issue that almost all LCD projectors have to deal with.


The lcd panels in the projector have 1 polariser before the panel, and 1 polariser after the panel. When heated by the high intensity light, the panels will degrade rapidly initially, then stabilise. Differences in initial degradation between the 6 polarisers in a 3LCD projector will lead to colour uniformity problems.


HOWEVER, this will fix itself in a few hundred hours of viewing.


I've owned an 8100, and now the 8350. Both start off with uniform blacks. then about 20hrs in develop the red tinged corners. then over then next 200hrs slowly disappear almost completely.


You can choose to return your 3rd perfectly good 8350 sure, but i guarrantee you'll get a replacement with exactly the same image. the only way to fix it is to be patient and watch the problem disappear itself.

Thanks for the info.

I never noticed this with my Sanyo Z2000 so was a little worried that the 8350 may have had a production defect since 3 I've had have the red haze.

Besides the red haze, the PQ is great.

I still have 39 days to return it so hopefully the red haze degrades so my paranoia mind chatter falls to background thoughts and goes away so I can enjoy the movie/PQ.

 

[kimmik]



Quote:
Originally Posted by 42Plasmaman /forum/post/19518785


Thanks for the info.

I never noticed this with my Sanyo Z2000 so was a little worried that the 8350 may have had a production defect since 3 I've had have the red haze.

Besides the red haze, the PQ is great.

I still have 39 days to return it so hopefully the red haze degrades so my paranoia mind chatter falls to background thoughts and goes away so I can enjoy the movie/PQ.

hehe yes i was paranoid too with my 8100. then i decided since epson customer service is good, i'll just sit and wait to see if the red tinge gets worse or better over the warranty period. i totally forgot about the issue as the hours piles on, to my pleasant surprise too because that means the problem became much less noticeable.


If i look closely, the black is still not 100% uniform, though there are no noticeable tinges in dark scenes anymore. i think the turning point was around 20-50hrs.

 

[emf]

Is this red haze a consistent problem?


If polarizers need many hours to cook and stabilize, it would seem that every LCD projector would need a 72-hour burn-in at the factory.

 

[kimmik]



Quote:
Originally Posted by emf /forum/post/19520788

Is this red haze a consistent problem?


If polarizers need many hours to cook and stabilize, it would seem that every LCD projector would need a 72-hour burn-in at the factory.

maybe thats why some lcd pjs dont have this problem. epson may have chosen to reduce production cost and let the pj burn in at home instead.

 

[coderguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Turk That would cost way more than dealing with the occasional defect...though it would be nice if they did.

I dont know, as bad as the job market is in some places in the US, you could hire some fairly low wage people to do a simple task. It's not hard to spot red lines going across the screen, bad convergence, etc... People could be trained quickly, I would think they could even just use computer software to test it and have hot plug automated devices.


A lot of things don't get done in big business just because people don't bother doing them, you'd be suprised, a lot of big companies are like the govt, half the time people sitting at the water cooler talking about their kids soccer games.

 

[Ix]



Quote:
Originally Posted by coderguy /forum/post/19607625


I dont know, as bad as the job market is in some places in the US, you could hire some fairly low wage people to do a simple task. It's not hard to spot red lines going across the screen, bad convergence, etc... People could be trained quickly, I would think they could even just use computer software to test it and have hot plug automated devices.


A lot of things don't get done in big business just because people don't bother doing them, you'd be suprised, a lot of big companies are like the govt, half the time people sitting at the water cooler talking about their kids soccer games.

Jason wasn't wrong in this case though, which should be no surprise given that his company actually does test units and knows what is involved.


I'm not saying it's "right" or "wrong", but there are a million supply-chain variables that giant companies like Epson take in to account that you aren't. Hiring people, even low wage temps, to do the kind of QC you are talking about is obviously far more expensive than dealing with the occasional return. Don't be confused by what people here report - this is a small, very picky, minority of users posting here. Epson sells tens of thousands of these things and probably gets a very small percentage of them back (most of them from this forum am I right :rimshot

.


Again, not saying it's the right thing to do, really, but it is what it is. Buy from a dealer like AVS if it's a worry for you.

 

[kimmik]

+++++++++ Ix

 

[coderguy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ix /forum/post/19608137


Jason wasn't wrong in this case though, which should be no surprise given that his company actually does test units and knows what is involved.


I'm not saying it's "right" or "wrong", but there are a million supply-chain variables that giant companies like Epson take in to account that you aren't. Hiring people, even low wage temps, to do the kind of QC you are talking about is obviously far more expensive than dealing with the occasional return.

I'm not saying he is wrong, I'm just saying being in the technology business and having seen large companies test things, actually it's so much cheaper at larger companies to do such testing than it is at smaller companies, you have it backwards, its an economies-of-scale issue.


If the net cost of an employee to do such testing was $30 per hour per unit which should be more than enough even factoring all variables, you could test 2 units per hour easily with zero automation at $15 additional per unit. You don't have to pay someone $30 hour for such a menial task, so the $30 hour actually includes other expenses as a given. Guarantee you automation can be added simply reducing it to an even smaller cost.


Don't assume because things are being done a certain way in business that it is the right way. For years and years companies make mistakes and don't learn. Take software companies, I can name hundreds of examples of procedural mistakes made in the 90's that a software company would not dream of making today. It's more that large companies are often inflexible (Apple as an example is the opposite, very flexible).


It's usually a matter of people not taking initiative to change a process, the red-tape in changing the process is usually the most expensive part in this case, not the actual process.


If all businesses were doing things the right way, the more profit-friendly way, then we wouldn't see so many businesses exceed other businesses in cost with no debt, whereas a competitor in the same industry may have 10x the debt and operational costs of another company with the same sales. Projector sales is such a tiny part of revenue for most of these companies, that they just don't have a lot of experts involved in the optimization processes and procedures like they do in their core businesses.

 

[coderguy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ix /forum/post/19608137


Jason wasn't wrong in this case though, which should be no surprise given that his company actually does test units and knows what is involved.

A good percentage of the problems are visible immediately when turning on the projector, every problem I have had in my last 4 orders and RMA's at least was (black lines across the screen, convergence off so bad the focus made it like you needed glasses, etc...).


Just the customer satisfaction results of increasing the # of good units people receive would likely near immediately outweigh the testing costs. I guarantee you that if everyone in these forums had received a satisfactory and working projector on their first try from a particular brand, it would increase the sales of the projector by a decent amount over the competitor. It's pennies to these large companies though, the profit margins are in business projectors, not home projectors (at least not yet).


As Art from PJreviews once pointed out, we're talking pennies in profit these compared to what these companies make in their core business.

 

[coderguy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ix /forum/post/19608137


Don't be confused by what people here report - this is a small, very picky, minority of users posting here.

Have to call baloney on this one, the chances of getting a bad unit in the past 2 years on certain models is not a small percentage. I got 4 bad ones in a row, not partly bad, not slight off convergence, but totally not watchable / working bad. So maybe 2 of the 4 units were watchable if I didn't know what the picture was supposed to look like, but even then that still is not an excuse and I'm not talking nit-picking bad at all. I have 3 personal friends in real life that have ordered projectors, out of those 3 that have ordered projectors in the past (2) years, 2 of the 3 had a bad unit or had to RMA the projector within 6 months.


Sure that could be a coincidence, but all we have to do next is look at individuals in the forums who had to return thier projectors for major problems, and many of these talked about ordering before they ordered (which makes them ALMOST a normal statistical customer), and then received a DOA unit (and there are plenty of examples of this).


I will agree in that some models are more reliable than others (just like in anything), but there are certain projectors that have a history of bad units. The QC in budget projectors is inexcusably appauling right now, but at least the RMA process makes up for it in most cases. It's still kind of laughable though.

 

[charlievoviii]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kimmik /forum/post/19517447


If you simply keep using your 8350 for about 200hrs, your so called problem will disappear.


You need to understand how LCD projectors work to know that the red tinge is just a design issue that almost all LCD projectors have to deal with.


The lcd panels in the projector have 1 polariser before the panel, and 1 polariser after the panel. When heated by the high intensity light, the panels will degrade rapidly initially, then stabilise. Differences in initial degradation between the 6 polarisers in a 3LCD projector will lead to colour uniformity problems.


HOWEVER, this will fix itself in a few hundred hours of viewing.


I've owned an 8100, and now the 8350. Both start off with uniform blacks. then about 20hrs in develop the red tinged corners. then over then next 200hrs slowly disappear almost completely.


You can choose to return your 3rd perfectly good 8350 sure, but i guarrantee you'll get a replacement with exactly the same image. the only way to fix it is to be patient and watch the problem disappear itself.

i need your help, i have the red haze tin issues on my 8700ub. it goes from left to right horizontally at the bottom of my screen, but it goes bigger as the haze going to the right. Now my projector have 197 hours on it. You tint the haze would go away ?