Originally Posted by
Gannon
Mbshan,
You didn't say what TYPE of Sony television you have, but since you describe the optic block I know it is a rear projection L-COS [[or Sony's term SXRD to JVC's D-ILA).
These have other periodic maintenance issues which you probably weren't told when you purchased the set...they require a bulb and a filter in the air cooling path roughly every two years. Some bulbs are rated for longer, and most don't just fail...they get progressively dimmer and off-colored.
Most dealers didn't talk about this, because it would've cost them sales...or their salesforce wasn't even informed they were necessary to the design of the sets.
If the air filter gets clogged, the bulbs super-heat...and actually toast the imager, or in this case the optic block. I'm not sure why, but with Sonys it shows up most often in the blue...Sala Thai's Sony Front Projector had a similar problem...all bars and restaurants that had heavy cigarette smoke do, too. This will be one positive outcome of the no-smoking laws, but I digress.
All fixed-pixel video displays have trouble in some ways as they approach black...but since most televisions are not adjusted properly for residential use out-of-the-box, the blacks are usually only dark gray, enough to mask the issues sometimes.
Any set that uses bulbs for their source illumination will cost anywhere from $200 to $500 every other year, to keep them in peak performance and color accuracy. Plasmas and LCD flatscreens don't suffer this, and LCDs benefit from a MUCH lower cost of operation.
Leaders in that format include Sharp, Sony, and Samsung. I'm most fond of Sharp. Panasonic still markets plasmas in the 50" range, and makes the absolute best ones, they won that market when it collapsed...a combination of increasingly-quality LCDs and the world-wide real estate market collapse [[because each successive-generation of screens seemed to require a new factory, oddly enough). Even Pioneer stopped making them, and resells a rebadged Panasonic, as far as I know.
Cheers, I'm still watching CRTs...the old-school television technology...because it is the best on the way to absolute black, and is easier on the eyes for longterm viewing. Shame you can't get them any longer...except on the used market, unless you are in the government.