Epson EH-TW3200 - personal log

I have my Epson EH-TW3200 now exactly one year and it has 1592 hours on the counter.
In the winter time my eyes enjoyed more the extra lumen I get with the Living Room preset and since some days I even watch in Dynamic mode with the iris on slow.
I just enjoy the more punchier colors and brightness right now.
The flicker I had a few times did not return and so far I always was in Eco mode, except for some bright summer evenings where I needed all the light to combat the sun.
I noticed some big dust blobs when I have a black static picture but it is not visible during normal usage.



Fixed the wrong link to the Fujifilm 3D W3 blog.
Passing the 1000 hour mark and everything is bright an without problems.

Passing the 800 hour mark and everything is bright an without problems.
... and a few hours later the 1-2 second brightness pulsating was there again.
I switched from Eco to normal mode for 5 min then back and it was gone again.

After over 500 hours the brightness of my lamp started to fluctuate in a 2 to 10 second interval. Fearing for imminent bulb failure of my Epson EH-TW3200 I searched the Internet and found out that I am not alone with this problem and that it is common with a lot of projectors.
During normal watching it is barely noticeable but if you have a static picture it is quite visible.
One of the solution seemed to be to put the projector out of the Eco mode for a few hours and than it should "burn" itself clear of that problem...

Just when I found this solution after 550 hours the problem went away by itself and I have the feeling that the overall brightness is a bit higher then it was before.

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After over 400 hours so far there is no problem with the projector or the lamp, but I noticed a very noticeable loss of brightness after passing the 100 to 200 hour mark. I wish some testers would measure the real brightness after 500 hours because that is more the real thing than just the very bright new lamp.
But this is not an Epson problem, every projector lamp looses big time after the first couple hundred hours.
As for maintenance, the air filter gets taken out and vacuum cleaned every 200 hours.

Projectorcentral.com has a good comparison of 8 1080p low price projectors.
Epson represented through the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350 (near identical to the TW3200) did quite well and is still unsurpassed in zoom and optical lens shift.

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Everybody is talking about shooting the big moon we have now with their camera.
how boring
how about shooting it with the projector?
how you ask?
simple: watch Speed Racer and there you go.

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After tinkering with my new Epson EH-TW3200 now for over a week and 65 hours, having tried every possible setting to the max and everything in between I have found my optimal setting. Just read the blog and you will know how to optimize your projector too.
No worries, you can not hurt your Epson while adjusting and there is always the DEFAULT button to get things back to where it was set up by Epson. If you go over board a bit like I did with Gamma Color Tone 2 the you will notice in some scenes that something looks not right. In my case it was on Fringe when Walter´s hair just did not looked right. So I dialed Gamma Color Tone 2 a bit back until the hair looked normal again but I had still enough shadow detail left.

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Wow - we just got a response from Epson Spain and they confirm the 3 year warranty on the lamp up to 4000 hours! That is the full life time of the bulb, but then my NEC VT had 3000 hours in eco and was still working good with over 6500 hours...

Our e-mail
Para: Epson Centro de Atención al Cliente<Level.one@Epson.es>
Asunto: Garantía del proyector Epson EH-TW3200
Buenos días,
ya he comprado el Epson proyector TW 3200 en Media Markt.
En el empaque encontré la información de garantía que dice:
este producto tiene 3 años garantía (a excepción de la lámpara)
La reposición de la lámpara de proyección dentro de los 3 meses siguientes a la compra del producto o 500 horas de uso (la primera condición que se cumpla)

Printed in EU 19.01.07 MSEIBO966 card

Antes de compra leí en su propia página web que le ofrece una garantía de tres años SIN excepción de la lámpara.
Por eso condicion yo he comprado el proyector y de momento estoy confundiendo por el contenido de la garantía.

Por favor explíqueme la garantía del producto.
.....

Epson answers:
Un saludo cordial
EPSON e-mail Ref No-600-20497XX-14 de marzo de 2011
Por favor, no modifique la cabecera de este mensaje para poder mantener el histórico de su consulta.
Estimada. Sra.

Gracias por contactar con el soporte e-mail de Epson.

La garantía de la lámpara del proyector Epson TW-3200 es de 3 años o 4.000 horas.

Para cualquier consulta adicional no dude en contactar de nuevo a través del número de teléfono 902 28 27 26 en horario de 9.00 a 14.00 y de 15.00 a 17.30h de Lunes a Viernes, o por e-mail en la siguiente dirección sic@epson.es.
Reciba un cordial saludo,

SIC / Servicio Integral Corporativo
Epson Ibérica, S.A.U.
Avda. Roma , 18-26
08290 Cerdanyola del Vallès
Barcelona
Tel: 902 28 27 26
Fax: 93 582 15 80
sic@epson.es
www.epson.es