Mitsubishi Drops Bulky DLP TVs: End of an Era 95
An anonymous reader writes "Mitsubishi was the last hold-out in the big-screen rear-projection display business after Samsung left the category in 2009. Now Mitsubishi has dropped the dinosaur. Every big-brand CE manufacturer got their start in the big-TV business via rear projection sets from CRT to DLP to LCoS, eventually replacing them with modern-day flat screens. Mitsubishi did develop LCD flat-screens for a time, but dropped out of that market to focus on rear DLPs after Samsung gave it a monopoly. The author, a CE editor, takes a nostalgic and amusing look at her 15 years with three Mitsu rear pros, the only big-screen TV she's known."
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Re:DLP (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously? I didn't realize DLP's were still manufactured/sold. Go Mitsubishi!
I've got one, unless you're in a location without sufficient space or money is no object they're great. 1080p, 3d support, great appearance, 65". Couldn't come close to that with any other product out there for the $800 it cost brand new.
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Yeah, as long as you can sit directly in front, they do work pretty great. Had one for years. Too big to haul away, so I sold it with the house when I moved.
But its nice to actually be able to see what you are eating and drinking in a Sports Pub these days without them having to dim the lights just so that people can see the rear projections screens mounted like a sword of Damocles over the bar. The modern bright LED screens do so much better in such places.
Re:DLP (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, as long as you can sit directly in front, they do work pretty great. Had one for years. Too big to haul away, so I sold it with the house when I moved.
Too big to haul away? My 60" DLP was 90 lbs and and about 15" deep at the deepest point. One guy could lift it by himself, although it was a lot less awkward with two.
The average dining room table, love seat, recliner, dresser... is far more difficult to move.
As for viewing angles? They were fine; you could sit anywhere in the room and see it just fine. The only bad viewing angle was if you were too high looking at a substantial downward angle which would only be a problem if you sat on a baby's high-chair 2 feet away from it.
But its nice to actually be able to see what you are eating and drinking in a Sports Pub these days without them having to dim the lights just so that people can see the rear projections screens mounted like a sword of Damocles over the bar.
For sure, the thin/flat superbright plasmas and LCD/LED screens are far better suited to that mounting arrangement.
But unless there's an actual game on I just wish they'd turn the fuckers off. They are annoying distractions. If they were just in dedicated sports pubs it wouldn't be a problem, but they seem to be everywhere these days. Family restaurants, fast food restaurants, and so on, the volume is turned off, the content is just mindless drivel -- bowling and tennis highlights, commercials for gum... Nobody wants to watch this crap, but its bright and shiny and it moves so your eyes are drawn to them.
Re:DLP (Score:4, Interesting)
Same here. Even the 83" my parents have isn't a big deal for two people.
Agreed. So far, I have better luck with good off-axis viewing on my DLPs than any LCD I've seen yet. Then again, I didn't buy sucky DLPs. ;)
Not to mention that most of the DLPs were using bulbs way past their service life and lenses that had been in a smoke-filled bar their entire lives. (Ever seen a lung? Yeah, lenses are worse.) There are some bars up here that have old LCDs and they're worse even than the old DLPs.
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I know it's an anecdote, but my neighbor's display has developed a bunch of stuck pixels in 3 years or so. Annoying. I don't know if that's a common issue, though. It used TI's original chipset, I don't know if it was licensed to other parties though, so that may be a moot point.
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I know it's an anecdote, but my neighbor's display has developed a bunch of stuck pixels in 3 years or so. Annoying. I don't know if that's a common issue, though. It used TI's original chipset, I don't know if it was licensed to other parties though, so that may be a moot point.
I've got the same problem on my 73" Mitsu DLP. The "acne" is a common problem due to a run of bad DLP chips. The mirrors stick. You can replace the DLP chip for $159 http://www.shopjimmy.com/samsung-mitsubishi-toshiba-4719-001997-dlp-chip.htm [shopjimmy.com]
I still love my DLP and I'm tempted to get a bigger one when they get even cheaper.
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Good point about DLPs being much more "user-serviceable" than current flat-screens. I think the bulb replacement part on my 61" Samsung is down to about $35 now and takes about 5 minutes.
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Agreed. I've disassembled my neighbor's old one that had a bunch of stuck pixels. It's a fairly lightweight construction, the TV is pretty much an empty plastic box with a bit of hardware at the bottom. The center of mass is very low. I'd argue the model in question (I forget what it was) was a bit on the light side and was easy to tip over in spite of having this very low center of mass. It felt like 60lbs at most.
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I don't believe you have ever looked at a DLP. As you are stating problems that were common with rear projection that i have never seen on DLP's.
FYI: I work in the AV field
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Yeah, as long as you can sit directly in front, they do work pretty great. Had one for years. Too big to haul away, so I sold it with the house when I moved.
But its nice to actually be able to see what you are eating and drinking in a Sports Pub these days without them having to dim the lights just so that people can see the rear projections screens mounted like a sword of Damocles over the bar. The modern bright LED screens do so much better in such places.
You're likely comparing these to CRT rear-projection TVs, which were indeed dark - but that's apples and oranges. A DLP rear-projection TV is very bright even in normal lighting. It's essentially a high-quality DLP video projector with a built-in reflector and projection target.
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The screen brightness leaves a lot to be desired, IMHO. Personally, the only good thing ever to have come from those monsters is, well, monster Fresnel lenses. Good for melting concrete and such.
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>they're great. 1080p, 3d support, great appearance, 65".
They weren't even making them that small anymore.... 73" 82" and 92" are the choices now [amazon.com].
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I purchased a Samsung DLP in 2007 with an LED backlight
Re:TLAs (Score:2)
I don't know what DLPs are, or were.
CES2001 (Score:3)
I don't think I ever fully realized how long ago 2001 was until I just saw that picture in the slide show of a giant hulking DLP TV "featured" at CES.
CE? (Score:2)
hey! editors.. why not make some sense of these summaries..
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I think it means "consumer electronics", but I agree it's an odd place for an acronym.
Good riddance (Score:1)
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The author of the article mentions that they never had to change a bulb for the entire 10 year or so tenure of their first DLP...but maybe quality went down.
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Consumer Reports did a test in the mid-2000s and found about 5000 hours per bulb on average. How long that is depends on how many hours a day you keep the TV on...
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Consumer Reports did a test in the mid-2000s and found about 5000 hours per bulb on average. How long that is depends on how many hours a day you keep the TV on...
Guess I got lucky. My Samsung DLP (HLN series) is from 2004. 11,000 hours on the original bulb and still works fine. Haven't had a single problem with this TV.
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Change the bulb and you'll know what you're missing brightness-wise :)
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Samsung had an LED light engine for their DLP sets for a while - and I had looked at them heavily; they seemed like a really good idea. I think however there were moderate issues with light engines failing - and that probably spurred their exit.
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It's the Centennial Light.
There is a light bulb somewhere (Score:3)
Yes, and you can read about the carbon filament bulb that has been burning for over a century at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light [wikipedia.org]
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Are huge TVs a US thing? I never saw a DLP TV in anyone's home, only at trade shows.
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Are huge TVs a US thing? I never saw a DLP TV in anyone's home, only at trade shows.
Bigger rooms, bigger TVs. I grew up in Europe before moving to the US and living rooms were much smaller than typical US living rooms. A 50" TV is pretty much the minimum around here.
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Are huge TVs a US thing? I never saw a DLP TV in anyone's home, only at trade shows.
Maybe so. I don't know a single person with less than a 40" with the exception of my father. He's still using a 19" tube.
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Yes, big TVs are a big deal in the US. Size Matters over everything else. That means that some people even buy TVs that are too big for their room.
But size was one reason DLP was never on my list of choices. The footprint for a 42" TV is something like 8 square feet of floor space, and I just don't have that big of a house. A flat panel hangs on the wall, nicely out of the way.
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That means that some people even buy TVs that are too big for their room.
Eh. Actually most guides for TV size overstate the distance to the TV based on TV size.
Start watching TV in the center seat. If you can see anything outside the TV without turning your head, your TV is too small for the room. There is such a thing as too big for a room, but that's only if you have to turn your head in order to follow what's going on at the edges of the screen.
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> on top of the short life of their expensive bulbs
WTF are you talking about? I have a Mitsubishi WD-62627 (62", bought in early 2008). It's still on its original bulb, but I finally bought a spare 2 months ago just so I wouldn't have to wait for a replacement when the day finally came. I paid about $40, and got it from Amazon.
Putting it in perspective, my "fragile and expensive bulb" with allegedly-short life has lasted about twice as long as roughly 1/3 of the LCD TVs my friends and family members have
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Actually, I've had pretty good luck repairing LCD TVs. More often than not it's a bad capacitor. Usually the hardest part is getting the things apart without marring the case too much as most are clearl
We already don't miss them (Score:2)
The first Air-Traffic Control Tower simulator I helped build used 9 73" Mitsubishi rear-projection DLPs. They weren't our first choice, but we didn't get the funding we asked for so it was either settle or get nothing.
They were awful for our purposes, except in one key factor: price. The image quality was bad: fuzzy, low contrast, inconsistent colors between displays. Their mirrors were fragile! I think we lost two displays to broken mirrors eventually. They were also prone to bending, and not well calibrat
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It'd have been cheaper to put up a cylindrical screen and point a couple projectors at it. You can get a heck of a bright system for the cost of those LCD panels...
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Projection systems require space for throw-distance, or expensive first-surface mirrors. That adds cost. And they're a maintenance nightmare. Plus the cost of a good screen. Good, bright projectors are also usually in the $20k-$50k range.
Really, projectors weren't an option. There is literally only one inch of clearance between the wall and two of the screens in the room we built the first system in. We had to build something that fit in the space we had been provided.
At the end of the day, we got nine "acc
Hmmmm (Score:2)
Why make rear projection TVs when you can just omit all the bulky injection molded plastics and just manufacture HD DLP Projectors! :D
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The market for putting a box in the corner of the room is far larger than the market for people who build a dark projection room or people who can tolerate a contrast ratio in the double digits.
Rear projection TVs never had a perfect diffuser. If you sat in front of them they were far brighter than any normal projector would ever be. You could actually watch them during the day while direct sunlight was shining on the TV. There's a hell of a lot of houses where a projector would be absolutely useless during
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And I think the thing about DLP front projectors is that you can shove a lot more light through them than you can LCD projectors, or the old CRT projectors.
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The old CRT RPTV can still produce the best picture in terms of colour and motion blur as long as they are calibrated properly. The idea of removing the protective screen is basically, everything has a life and if you damage the screen, meh, it's time for a replacement anyhow. I have a Philips on it's last legs, can't remember how old it is more than five and less than a decade, although it is likely close to the decade mark.
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Open the door. (Score:1)
Get on the floor.
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Everybody do the Dinosaur!
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WALK
Easiest setup in history...
crap televisions, anyhow (Score:3)
Many of mitsubishi's TVs had horrible electronics. I knew about a year after I bought my modle 52525 that it wasn't going to last more than about 3. Sure enough, within 3 years it was broken and mitsubishi wasn't being proactive about fixing the bad control boards.
Why companies need to save a few bucks on capacitors on a $2000 television will never make sense to me.
Re:crap televisions, anyhow (Score:4, Interesting)
Why companies need to save a few bucks on capacitors on a $2000 television will never make sense to me.
The manufacturers take cheap components that they use in cheap products and design expensive products with them. Those components, like capacitors, are often purchased in large volume. An engineer sometimes doesn't even have a better part in the database. Often the engineer doesn't even know what part will be purchased for this or that position - as long as they are all similar the buyer will make that decision. When the time comes to buy parts the PHB will always point his finger at a mountain of compatible components that is already in the cage instead of going out, researching and negotiating a new set of prices on a new part - which may have its own problems.
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Now find the balance between cost of production, and people returning products - there is a point where cheap parts (with a predicatable failure process/rate) end up making a better profit.
There are many reasons why that would be the case. For example:
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I don't know who you call a "buyer", but in any sane volume electronics manufacturing company, you'd actually have an engineer do part qualification prior to ordering anything that reaches the customer. I don't know what kind of a dysfunctional company your experience comes from, but man, if you design stuff without having a clue what exact parts will end up in the shipping product, you've got some serious organizational problems. Your production operations director or whatever that position is called shoul
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I don't know who you call a "buyer"
Well, here is an example. [talentvelocity.us]
you'd actually have an engineer do part qualification prior to ordering anything that reaches the customer
If the product contains 1,000 components and each can be bought from just three vendors, how many combinations do you need to test, and will the Universe be still habitable by the time you are done?
The engineer just says "100 pF, 5%, C0G, 0603, 25V, no special RF requirements." The engineer cannot possibly know where this part will com
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Some components are more critical than the others. What you do is have a gold set of parts, and then some substitutes, and you should in fact build it at least with all the substitutes put in all at once. Suppose that for all parts you have up to 3 substitutes. You build 3 different boards, and all three go through all the testing. You don't necessarily have to test all combinations unless you have a good reason to. Everything depends on volume and liability, of course.
Of course EMC testing doesn't ask for
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Everything depends on volume and liability, of course.
This is a very important factor. It costs me more than $10K to make a production run. There is no way I will be spending this money for an experiment with generic capacitors.
If you have a bunch of decoupling caps on the board, you'd probably want to run them and the substitutes on a component/network analyzer and make sure their as-shipped performance is in the same ballpark.
It's not easy to even test a capacitor. You need to build a test fixture
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Above post should go as a Community FAQ question/answer pair onto electronics stack exchange ;) Well done.
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I always thought printer makers just figured I had a USB cable left over from my previous printer.
I mean seriously, printers don't come with USB A-B cables, but everything else does. I probably have ten of them in the ratsnest behind my desk. (A whopping one of them is actually in use, on an external hard drive.)
I really ought to clean up that cable mess, but it frightens me.
This is a bummer... (Score:2)
Honestly? I think this is a real shame! A month or so ago I took some friends tv shopping. After going through Costco and ogling the tvs we we t to a shop that was selling these Mistu sets, I'd been hoping to show them a good PJ honestly. I was stunned at how good these things looked and the cost of an 83inch unit was incredible compared to the 60 and 70 inch LCD we'd already looked at. They weren't all that thick and I was very surprised at how far to the side I could stand and still get a terrific picture
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It is a bummer. They are also hands-down the most ghost-free best quality 3D source.
The technology was never very reliable (Score:1)
Warmer, brighter pictures (Score:4, Funny)
Of course I'm still trying to figure out where to find some of that good, old, warm, analog TV signal to feed it.
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Ditto. I still prefer CRT monitors and TVs even for digital stuff. :(
Crap, no more LaserVue? (Score:2)
I'm assuming this means the LaserVue line is dropped as well? [mitsubishi-tv.com] This sucks as I wanted one of those TVs someday... I've seen the picture on these and they are awesome! I thought this would be an alternative to Plasma...
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$3k for a 75 inch screen is expensive?!
Just upgraded (Score:2)
I bought an LCD projector a few years ago after my trusty old 25" studio monitor died. I considered DLP at the time, but they gave me a headache. Bulb prices quickly went from expensive (over $100) to dirt cheap (less than $40) for my Sony, so I have to think they all came down in price over the years.
But with more devices wanting HDMI inputs and wanting a bigger 1080p display this year I decided to upgrade to a 50" plasma. Didn't even consider a projector, mostly due to problems with black levels and washo
The dinosaur (Score:2)
Wow (Score:1)
Texas Instruments would cry now. They are the one supplying the chips for DLP.
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These cars are not really designed purely for the quarter mile... They are designed to be able to handle round a track or a rally circuit rather than just go for straight line speed.