Sony VW 675-ES Dim Picture--Iris Not Working/Closed?

[basspig]

On June 7, Fedex delivered a factory new, seal, in box, VW675ES projector, as promised.
On the same day, United Radio (the authorized service center for Sony) sent back my new projector lamp which was in the old projector when I sent it in for service. So I have the new projector and the new lamp I bought for the old projector.

Now on to how the new projector works. Some slight differences in settings for brightness. I can go higher and still maintain good blacks. The new projector has black levels so black, that it's like the projector is off and this is in a near pitch black room.

The Lens Shift has much more range. While the old serial number 189 unit struggled to shift the lens down and to the left (the projector is mounted to the right of a support column), the new one has plenty of headroom to go way past the needed offset values.

When changing lens modes for 2.35 vs 1.85, the lens shifts accurately to the new position/zoom level. I don't have to touch it up with the Shift controls.

Panel RGB alignment seems to be more stable. Old projector would have red/blue halos around the menu text for about 30 mins until fully warmed up. This one seems better in that regard.

Picture quality is flawless. No edge rolloff or discoloration or vignetting.

Was watching some reference movies for HDR characteristics and noted that when the camera looked up at the sun, it was really bright and painful on the eyes. Checked out a few minutes of a 3D movie and found brightness with the glasses on to be comfortable.

I'm watching my drone footage on this big screen now and it's impressive. All I need is a music soundtrack to go with the scenery.

And this is the saga of how I got a $15K projector for $6500.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Awesome! That's a heck of a deal. Quite the saga to get to the final results, but it sounds like Sony customer service, while maybe not rocket quick, still came through in a solid way.

I think the hard part with projectors is still (very much) the lack of any standardization. They can't swap parts out with other parts on the fly. You can't upgrade pieces or parts, you can't replace a part once it is out of production. So, when they are out of stock it can leave you in a heap of hurt.

But, it sounds like when you work with companies that have the resources to come through, then at the end, you can end up with a great solution to a tough problem.

I remember, back in the day, having a similar situation with Sears, where I bought a repaired video camera and a 1-year warranty for it. That's typically a bad purchase, but the camera started acting up. They couldn't get it repaired in a timely manner, so they gave me a brand new model, which I paid a slight upgrade fee to get a much nicer model on. It was a similar phenomenal deal overall. Now, I just use my phone instead. Go figure.

 

[basspig]

LOL.. the camera phone. That's been killing my video production business.. but now I have a drone.

In my case, not a penny out of pocket. Sony generated a return shipping label and I dropped it off at Fedex.

I'm happy that the lens is a tad better and lens shift works more reliably, in addition to eliminating the other problems.