azryan:

I think you've just made my 'short list' a bit shorter. I will have to be very skeptical of DLP before I pay my 'perfect' money for 'imperfect' product. IMHO the manufacturers have alot of cojones putting out anything less than a perfect chip, especially when there are thousands of dollars involved in the purchase price. Shame on them. When I go shopping, I'll be very wary, and demand to inspect a projector for dead pixels, the evenness of the light across the screen, etc. before I leave the store.

A Harley 883....and you SOLD it????!!!!!!?????
I have a Kawasaki cruiser that I've put enough money into that I could have bought a Harley. There's a picture of it on my website if you hack back to the root directory, and then to 'images'. I also have a Suzuki V-Strom DL-1000. I've ridden (and crashed) bikes for about 25 years. I just bungee strap the wife on the back and am done with it The V-Rod is just too expensive for what it is. Really, they have just started doing what the Europeans and Japanese have been doing for years, and they act like they invented all the technology. The engine was basically designed by Porshce anyway. I love the looks of most of the Harleys, but the attitude of the dealers, and the 'lifestyle' baggage that goes along with them turns me off. Besides, around here, every accountant, dentist, and lawyer rides a Harley


[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited December 02, 2002).]

"When I go shopping, I'll be very wary, and demand to inspect a projector for dead pixels, the evenness of the light across the screen, etc. before I leave the store."

Eveness should be fairly perfect, but a stuck pixel can happen at any time during the life of the DLP chip so a perfect one at the start doesn't mean it won't go bad. I actually don't think they ship too many (if any) chips that 'start bad', but that's just a guess since to do otherwise would just be flat out fraud I'd think (or something along those lines) and anyone can return a projector if it's bad on 'day one'.

Sounds like after you got a good set of LCD panels that you've had no future problems.
I wonder if that 'could happen at anytime' is as much a problem w/ LCD and DLP. Just a guess but I'd think 'no' since the LCD has no moving parts to get 'stuck'.

A Harley 883....and you SOLD it????!!!!!!?????
Oh man.. don't bring it up! It was great. I've been riding since I was 4. I hated to get rid of it but I just didn't ride it enough since my wife said it was too cold out or too hot out most of the time and we don't do much apart.

She's better than the bike though so I can live with the choice. heh

So two bikes and you're looking at a third?
Whoa.

"The V-Rod is just too expensive for what it is."

Yeah VERY. I think they'll put that engine (yeah, designed by Porshe) into a cheaper bike like a future Sportster. Just a guess.

"Really, they have just started doing what the Europeans and Japanese have been doing for years, and they act like they invented all the technology."

Yeah. They did have a liquid cooled racing engine decades ago though, but never adapted it to road use. Dummies.

"I love the looks of most of the Harleys, but the attitude of the dealers, and the 'lifestyle' baggage that goes along with them turns me off. Besides, around here, every accountant, dentist, and lawyer rides a Harley."

Yeah everywhere. I hate 'marketing machines' so even though I've been raised on Harley my whole life, I don't care much anymore.

The Japanese still can't make anything that looks as good though IMO. Too bad, they make better bikes.

One of our investors has a Harley collection back to (IIRC) 1934. Not bikes back to '34, but a bike from every year between now and '34, plus a few older, I think back to 1927 or so, again IIRC. Is it OK to hate someone like that? He also has one of the original 'lost' Easy Rider bikes.

As far as DLP failures TI says the reason the chips fail is contamination in the fab or field. They indicate the fab comtamination issues are solved but that some OEMs are not quite up to speed on careful assembly and packaging. I would hope that as the process matures things improve.

Take that FWIW and YMMV. I don't want a fight moving to this thread. For more discussion we can always revisit the (in)famous DLP projector thread.

azryan and charlie:

I am getting pretty nervous about sinking my money into DLP, at least at this point. My Sony works great for now, and I think I'll watch from the sidelines for awhile. You know, I really _hate_ that 'customer as beta tester' thing that came about with the computer 'revolution'. I'm afraid there's a whole generation growing up that doesn't know anything else, and accepts things as they are, without fighting back. Don't get me wrong, I love computers, having been involved with them heavily before there was such a thing as a "PC", but the corporate side is sorely lacking in responsibility in my opinion.

Never mind me, I'm ranting.......

azryan and charlie:

I am getting pretty nervous about sinking my money into DLP, at least at this point. My Sony works great for now, and I think I'll watch from the sidelines for awhile. You know, I really _hate_ that 'customer as beta tester' thing that came about with the computer 'revolution'. I'm afraid there's a whole generation growing up that doesn't know anything else, and accepts things as they are, without fighting back. Don't get me wrong, I love computers, having been involved with them heavily before there was such a thing as a "PC", but the corporate side is sorely lacking in responsibility in my opinion.

Never mind me, I'm ranting.......

P.S. I've seen the "exchanges of opinon" between you both in the other forum - may I suggest a couple of 'e-dueling pistols' at 10 paces? Or maybe a couple pitchers of marguaritas........

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited December 02, 2002).]

Actually I agree. I my experience with this sort of thing (delivering technology) is that sadly this is typical. The manufacturer thinks it's sorted out, releases (generally under pressure from accounting and/or marketing), finds unexpected issues, resolves those, has OEMs or vendors that find new unexpected issues, resolves those....

The 950 is an excellent example.

I'm tired of being an unpaid beta tester. I'm waiting until it's really sorted out.

At this point from what I've read TI has done a very good job of identifing and quantifying the causes for DMD failures. They say that the #1 cause is (drum roll) dirt. Basically.

At first I was surprized, but when you think about it dirt is the traditional enemy of all things mechanical. According to the post-mortem results crud can get either under the mirror and block it, under an edge and make it sticky or wedge above the mirror. According to TI operational cycles have almost nothing to do with it, and hinge failures just don't happen. This is very good news to me, because it indicates that (1) TI is actively addressing the issue and (2) it is not an intrinsic design flaw.

One thing I saw and didn't like was the fact that on the larger DLP screens I could clearly see the individual pixels and even the 'structure' of the mirror within the pixel. That's just not cool. Maybe AzRyans' idea of a bit of intentional 'out of focus' would work to cure that - it certainly would seem to have merit. Also on that vein there are optical filters for other applications that are designed specifically to 'soften' the image transmitted by a lens. I wonder if that might do the job without chromatic aberation?

The smaller (under 60") DLPs I saw looked fine, as did the HD1 65" RP Mitsubishi. I wonder if the screen material could be made to help out as well on FP units?

This looks very interesting to me:

http://www.optomatv.com/index.asp

But it's not applicable to your needs I bet.

Have a good one!

Chalie:

I have to admit that when I first heard of DMD, the needle on my patented SoundHound "Wank-o-meterª" went full scale. When I heard that they were using color wheels, the needle damn near broke off At this point, I'm taking the attitude of wait and see.

Yeah, me too. Here's a mental image:

Imagine you're at the conference room table, in the meeting at TI when this researcher first floats the DMD concept. Talk about a long protracted silence. I bet some folks thought it was a joke. "...and to make a color image we can spin a wheel really really fast...."

Once I had more time to think it over I decided that the concept of using tiny mirrors to refect light wasn't really so bad. The color wheel is goofy, but I'm all about practical solutions, so who knows? TI has to concern themselves with severe liability issues if they falsify data to support their product. They may not be fully forthcoming, but I've never known any engineering dept that would promote or tolerate flat out lying, so I suspect the figures they publish to be true as far as they go.

I wonder if it will be practical to expect the OEMs to attain the level of cleanliness required though. Maybe a packaging change, but then if a protective layer is added how will that affect the performance? This to me seems like the most serious long term risk to any company considering the development of a DLP system. Can I ensure my device will never allow microscopic dirt onto the DMD?

I'm on that wait and see list too.

Charlie:

At least one less thing to worry about: If you've ever seen an actual DMD device you will quickly see that the thing is REALLY sealed up at the fab. While you may be corect that clean room issues could be responsible for crud in the chip, that seems unlikely to pass their QA. As to your concern about putting a protective something-or-other over the chip, or for having the OEM do it, that isn't needed. it is possible that dust could lnad on the front surface of the device, but that could easily be cleaned or blown away as needed.

In so far as the color wheels themsleves, there are a variety of options available to those few companies that actually design and build their own optical engines. Right now you can chose from a variety of options, including four, six or nine segment wheels. (Depends on how many repeats you want and if you want a "white" segment or just RGB.) The new SCR color wheels have been demosntrated but are still a bit off in terms of being used in commerical or consumer products.

But what do I know, I'm only a dog!

ARF ARF, says Iggy

Iggy:

Thx.

I typed up a pretty long reply but it failed to post. In short the TI doc I read said what you said, but I mis-read it. My bad. The document is 'lifetime.pdf' and it's out there somewhere.

And if you have any other good DMD/DLP studies you could link to I'd be very interested.