DLP TV Question - Why is this so cheap?

[Tormentormike]

http://www.pcrichard.com/catalog/pro...tegoryId=40020

65", 1080P, 3D, thin, yet its only a little over $900...what am I missing here?

Eh seeing it's a little bulky now but still...

[Ketna]

DLP is just an inexpensive way to do large screen TVs. its a projector instead of a panel of LCD or Plasma. They are fine as a TV as long as you have a dark room. If you are in a bright room, or if there is light focused on the screen it will be super washed out. LCD screens are like 1" thick now, this tv is like 16" which isnt really bad, but its not like you can hang it on a wall.

[SnickySnacks]

Eh. While a DLP isn't generally *super* bright, they're fine in a normally lit room. I doubt you'd want to have the sun shining directly on it, but that's true for any TV.

Personally, I prefer the LED DLP tv sets as they don't have traditional bulbs or color wheels, which should make them last a lot longer...but back when I bought mine it was right when Samsung discontinued their line. I haven't looked in a while, so I don't know if another manufacturer started making LED ones, specifically.

(oh, and of course DLPs don't suffer from burn in...ever...)

[Kryssan]

I love DLP - been using it since it came out. Samsung discontinued, Mitsubishi still makes them though.

With DLP you have to replace bulbs (the newer generation like my Mitsubishi have run hours between 5000-6000), the mirror engine can fail (took my old one about 5 years, ymmv) which will create 'dead pixels', and viewing angle is best heads on (it's not like with some TVs how you lose screen looking at it from an angle, but color clarity/quality can be lost at an angle). Some people also complain about seeing the bands, I know I used to; but you will get used to it and with the newer sets you honestly can't see them because they use more than one wheel or LEDs. I'm not sure if all DLPs have it but like with mine you can define PC input and it'll turn postprocessing off, making lagtime very low.

[Tormentormike]

So is the one I linked using bulbs or LED? Sounds like a good deal!

[Isiolia]

There are bulbs available online for it, so I'd assume it's not a more advanced DLP engine. My parents have a Sony DLP TV from a few years ago, which they've been happy with.

Long and short though, as mentioned, is that it's a rear-projection TV, which is cheaper than a direct display TV of the same size. If you think back 10-15 years at a "bigscreen" TV, it's basically the modern incarnation of that tech.

[Kryssan]

It uses bulbs. 915B441001 according to the owners guide.

I don't think Mitsubishi actually makes an LED DLP TV... They have their LaserVue setup which uses 'lasers' but I don't really know what they're referencing/how the tech works. Those TVs cost 5000+.

[SnickySnacks]

The benefit of the LED (and by extension, laser) DLPs is they don't have color wheels, which means that banding or rainbowing is almost, if not completely, unnoticeable.

If you are getting a bulb based DLP TV, I would suggest demoing it first to see how much (if at all) the rainbowing effect bothers you. (basically, look at white image on a black background, such as credits, and move your eyes or head. You will likely see rainbows. How much you notice this day to day varies by person).

Again, I'll point out that I'm not really familiar with the new mitsubishi dlps, so I can't comment how much (if at all) they experience this. There's ways to reduce it (using faster or multiple wheels) but LED/Laser eliminates it completely by moving the color generation from a mechanical device to the light source itself.

[Kryssan]

Newer, high end versions of lamp-based DLP TVs don't use color wheels either. LED/Laser produces the different colors itself, but the new ones use a prism to split the light into several colors, with each 'color beam' directed towards it's own chip vice a color wheel to create colors. Finding out which ones use prisms and which ones use wheels is difficult though, since they don't seem apt to come out and say it.

The prism ones also don't have the color banding issue, but they do still suffer from requiring lamp replacement, whereas LED/Laser do not.

From my reading of things, it would seem that Samsung went with LED technology and Mitsubishi went with the laser technology as their 'next step' DLP TV. I haven't been able to find any clear evidence that Mitsubishi makes LED ones at all, and I don't know who's left in the market for DLP besides them these days.

[Kerberoz]

If you get one with bulbs, buy a couple replacements right off the bat so you don't have to worry about finding them for sale in a couple years.