Dim projector

[Rob_P]

Hi Guys,

 

I am running sound for a production little shop of horrors coming up in January where the director wants to project films onto a gauze on the pros during the interval. The show is in a small theatre, with a pros of approx 22' x 12'6", and I was aiming for a projection area of between 10' and 12' diagonal, bug generally as large as possible to suit the light output, appearance, etc. We would close the house tabs slightly to make the screen look slightly more in proportion.

 

As usual, however, there is no budget available, but those dreaded words "Don't worry, X can borrow a projector" have been spoken. Despite my initial reservations, this turned out to be a Hitachi CP-X505, with a theoretical 3500 lumen output, which I assume should be ok for this sort of thing.

 

I have now borrowed the projector for initial testing.The problem is the actual light output of the projector seems to be terrible, to the point where it isn't really visible in a domestic environment without closing the curtains. It turns out out that it was removed from a school hall as it was getting old and dim!

 

My first thought was that the bulb was getting old, but it is showing 350 hours of usage, as they had changed it to attempt to brighten the output. This seems to have been unsuccessful. I have checked that the brightness is turned up, cleaned the air filter etc, but to no avail.

 

I have very little experience of projectors, apart from the basics. My questions are:

1. Is 350 hours enough to result in very significant light output from a bulb?
2. Is it conceivable that they have fitted a cheap aftermarket bulb that has a rubbish output?
3. What else is likely to cause a reduction in light output? The light is consistently low across the picture, so it doesn't look like dirt on the LCDs etc.Is this likely to be something that a professional service could resolve?
4. Am I just expecting too much from this projector?

Thanks in anticipation!

Edit - All of the carriage returns disappeared from my original post. Sorry!

[timsabre]

I've had exactly this problem with a slightly larger Hitachi projector which had had a non-Hitachi replacement lamp fitted. We sent it off for repair in the end, but they determined (by swapping lamps with a genuine one) that it was just a rubbish lamp. That had only done a few hundred hours too. New genuine lamp restored it to its former glory.

 

This is not really an option for you with a borrowed projector though.

[Robin D]

I don't know that particular projector, but it could be a number of things.

 

The first thing is to disconnect all source cables and see what the projectors own menu's are like. If they look OK, then look at the quality of the source signal. Some projectors have High and Low output settings, low being the default for lamp life. Also, they have profiles such as Theatre, Cinema, Dynamic etc. Dynamic is usually the brightest but try them all. Other settings that can make a huge difference if present are gamma, contrast, sharpness etc.

 

If all that fails, you are faced with changing the bulb again in the hope that it will fix it, but it could well be the electronics as with Benq I had to return to supplier 2/3 years ago.

 

Or borrow or hire a known good one ... hire costs can be remarkably low if you shop around.

[Rob_P]

Hmm.

 

I have just pulled the bulb out and it doesn't seem to have any markings indicating that it is a genuine Hitachi one - In fact the part number is blank. Looks like someone has bought a "bargain"

 

I will keep playing with the settings, but I suspect the bulb.

 

I will try to persuade them that the projector is scrap (which, to be fair, it is at the moment), then consider buying a proper bulb if they let me keep it or buy it cheep!

 

Thanks for your help.

[revbobuk]

Worth re-setting the projector to factory default settings. The manual is available online - press the menu button and select reset. If there are issues with brightness / gamma etc, this will get you back to somewhere sensible to start from. We've got one of these, and it's been running a lot longer than 250 hours without getting dim, so a genuine lamp shouldn't have lost anything much in that time.

[AHYoung]

The hitachi with a genuine lamp should be capable of what you want to do. in the past ive had issues with hitachis where the lamps worked only not very well as the filament envelope had deformed after a few hundred hours use quite possibly due to the filters being clogged and it running hot. Its also quite possible that the lamp in the unit is a fake and again lights up, but not very well. Any lamp thats less than around 180.00 gross for this model isnt genuine, the world is awash with fakes and at least one of the biggest online resellers sells genuine 100% guarenteed original lamps, the only genuine thing being that there is infact a lamp in the box.

 

As stated above select menu > advanced> service > factory reset. This will put everything back to out the box condition. If everything is dim including the menu but the colours generally look ok, Its the lamp,You should be able to project brightly around 2m wide in a normally lit room or 5m wide perfectly adequately in a blackout with one of these units. If you cant, someones bought a "bargain" lamp and predictably its not working as it should.

[Rob_P]

Prodding the total system reset button on the back, followed by a reset to factory seems to have made things much better. The bulb is definitely a non-genuine part too, but the system should be good enough to get us through this show.

 

If I can persuade the school who own it to sell it on I will look at getting a genuine bulb for it.

 

Thanks for all the help.

[timtheenchanteruk]

If I can persuade the school who own it to sell it on I will look at getting a genuine bulb for it.

 

Thanks for all the help.

 

you can try, but I doubt it will work, for one, schools don't like selling stuff for various reasons.

second, it probably does just fine for what they use if for, ie powerpoint presentations 5 feet from the screen