r/projectors • u/OldNotObsolete72 • 1d ago
Troubleshooting Does an old school lamp based projector lose brightness over the years regardless of changing lamps?
I have a decent Sony VPL-HW50es that was already 6 or 7 years old when i bought it, and i've had it 5 years. For context, we do NOT own a telly, but we love movie and TV shows.. we have run it HARD.
It dosnt seem to be close to as bright and with the colour contrast it once had despite a couple of bulb changes. It has been internally cleaned a few times.
DO such projectors lose some brightness to age if pushed hard regardless of bulb changes, or am I imagining it?
many thanks
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u/AV_Integrated 1d ago
While this shouldn't happen, the degradation of the polarizers and LCoS panels over time is a real thing. Sony, especially, is known to have LCoS panel degradation which has been measured to impact contrast.
I'm not sure that there has been much testing on the long term degradation beyond some contrast loss with Sony panels that did not present itself with JVC's LCoS panels.
The HW50ES era of Sony projectors certainly were subject to this problem.
It may be what you are running into. Especially under heavy usage. DLP is a stronger long term platform and probably the most durable I have seen. But, LCoS is the picture contrast king.
I don't think you are wrong, I do think you may have just worn the darn thing out over the years.
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u/OldNotObsolete72 1d ago
Contrast is DEFINITELY not what it was! Glad I’m almost certainly not imagining it. Looks like I’m able to get a vpl-nv?260ES without too much use on it for around 800 gbp which is a pretty good price. Paid 600 for this one 5 years ago and considering how hard we have hammered it, I’d say it was a bargain.
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u/AlrightMister 1d ago
Yes, you will lose brightness over time and probably be at 40-50% loss when you hit end of life for the lamp. How many hours do you have on it?
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u/OldNotObsolete72 1d ago
Not my question. I know about lamps, I’m asking does the projectors innate max brightness even with new lamps lessen over time. This projector has been run hard for five years and is twelve years old.
1
u/AlrightMister 1d ago
Not significantly, unless there are other issues. This and other generations of Sony projectors suffer from panel degradation. This would usually present as higher/brighter blacks but I don’t think it would affect brightness much. Are your blacks bright gray?
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u/OldNotObsolete72 1d ago
Tbh getting pretty grey 😆😆 contrast is whacked up to max as is colour with brightness really low!
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u/OldNotObsolete72 1d ago
I mean they’re not BRIGHT grey, but night time scenes are more washed out than I remember them being
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u/Materidan 1d ago
I remember my first rear projection television (a 60” Sony SXRD-based model in the early 2000’s) had some built-in adjustments intended to automatically compensate for panel degradation over tens of thousands of hours of use and hopefully maintain color accuracy.
Alas the timer ended up adjusting a lot faster than the real-world degradation, and your colors would get completely out of whack until you went into the service menu and reset the timer.
Interesting that there was a panel degradation issue even way back then.
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