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The Sony VPL-HS51 was a technology breakthrough. It was the first projector equipped with dynamic iris and reached an optimum contrast ratio of 6000:1 with price under $3000. That was 3 years ago. But it’s a suspected faulty designed electronic device that required over $2000 to repair after 3 years of use. There been number of reports from the owners (me included) with a blue smear issue.
A LCD projector is less resistance to heat, the common issues in aging burn-out polarizer. One can get replacement part from manufacturer; usually cost around $120 to replace it yourself. That isn’t the case with HS51, the blue smear seemed to be developed inside the costly Prism Block Assembly that cost of the part alone is $1700. I got the bill of as-good-as-trash-it estimation from Sony like others, a ridiculous cost of $2330 to fix the problem. That costs more than a new unit and a newer and better one today. I have a much older projector from Panasonic that’s still throwing a wonderful image, the only work that needed work is maintaining; replace the lamp once every 3000 hours. Sony engineer is innovative but the quality control could be better. My suggestion, take responsibility for mistake; offer trade in incentive for loyal customer.
I have the same problem w/ my Sony VPL-HS51 where the blue smear started in one corner of the screen & then eventually spread throughout. There are still dark areas, but they will eventually become blue. This blue smear is affecting the qaulity of the picture & watering down the image. Luckily, I did purchase an extended contract from 6th ave. store for 5 yrs., but sadley I dumped over $300 already on a new bulb thinking that was the problem. Not sure what they will do w/ my unit, whether fix it, replace it w/ a refurbished one or hopefully give me credit towards a new replacement. Also hope this doesn’t take 2 months to resolve.
Sam, let us know how it turns out. I hope they get you a new unit :) I need to get one of them extra warranty when the current one ran out on my Panny AE2000U.
I tried my luck replacing the polarisers myself but none seemed to work, turn off the iris seems to get reduce the smear but it’s not helping as the darn thing is glowing in size.
Mine has returned from service with no works done, well, i refused to pay for > $2k repairing cost, it’s too ridiculous considering you can get a full 1080 24p PJ with less than the repair cost. The blue smear is the manufacturing defect, not a commonly known LCD issue for PJ. They really need to do something about that.
On the positive side, even at out of warranty, one only need to pay for low shipping cost to ship the unit to Laredo Tx (Sony PJ service center) for estimation, the overnight return shipping is free.
I have the Sony VPL-HS50, this issue manifested itself after 4 years of use. It started out as a blue smear in the bottom left corner and then slowly but surely took over the whole screen. I did the same as Sam and purchased a new bulb but that made no difference.
Luckily I purcahsed a 5 year warranty. I just sent the projector in for repair today, according to the repairer this is the procedure:
- Repairer takes 2 days to generate a repair quote which is then sent to the Warranty Company
- Warranty company decides if it is worth repairing and contacts me (can take up to a week)
This is my second Sony projector, my first was the VPL-VW10, purchased for $12,500 Australian! It is still going stong as my “gaming night with the boys”/backup projector.
I am a bit of a Sony fanboy and am waiting on their answer to the Epson EMP-TW2000. After reading this post I don’t really want the HS50 back, I can’t with good conscience sell it now, hopefully the warranty company will cut me a deal.
Update:
- Correction - I had the projector almost exactly 3 years, it was still running the original bulb when the blue tinge started at around 2800-2900hrs, the bulb lasted to 3000hrs
- I called the repairer and they are yet to finalise the quote but they aren’t allowed to give me the figure anyway
- I will call up the Warranty Company next week and see what my options are
The Ae2000u would be my last LCD PJ, no more dust and panel discoloration issue to deal with. forget’ abou it.
Sony’s Lcos have came down in price, vw40 ain’t looking that bad rivaling vw60 without the convergence adjustment feature. Then there’s Sony VPL-HW10, cheaper than vw40 coming in CEDIA. Epson EMP-TW2000 is probably LCD best yet to offer but not industry best. Sony is pounding the enter level market with several models.
Good luck with your repair, mine is piece of junk now.
I see the rainbow effect very well on DLPs so have to stick with LCDs.
I am yet to see a multi-chip DLP in real life though so that might be an option.
This “blue tinge” problem is discussed here by multiple people:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb.....p?t=886918
Me too, but that was few years ago, demo with a Yamaha DLP, 5-segment-color-wheel, seen it but not enough to throw me off. Price was another issue.
It’s a much different story now with pricing and i’m tempted with Infocus coming In83, too bad none of them got len-shift function.
What about Lcos or aka Sony’s SXRD?, the price were much higher than LCD back then but Sony aggressive price cut on entry models is darn close to LCD these days. (the 1080p model)
Then again, next year we’ll have $1500-2000 1080p LCD with better spec.
Well the repair cost was much less than you were quoted:
$720AU parts and labour which works out to $662US at todays exchange rate.
The warranty company has decided to repair it, I still have two years warranty on it so I am going to see if I can rack up 3000hrs in the next two years and get them to repair it again/give me store credit. :-)
This is turning into a real saga. The $720AU that was quoted was only for the replacement of the filters!
I am not sure how many filters are in the HS50 I thought the only one was the external one which I have always replaced when prompted.
So a new quote was sent to the warranty company last week and I need to contact them next week to find out if they are going to go ahead with it this time.
The thing that really annoys me is that I told the repairer what needed replacing and I told the warranty company the quoted repair cost was too low and that I didn’t think they were replacing the right part.
Sorry to hear that, Daniel.
They must have figured out it’s not the blue polarizer filter that went bad (typical Blue filter burn out issue for LCD projector), there are 6 filters, 3 sets each RGB for in and out on the light path.
I was told and many have reported it’s not the filters but the Prism Block Assembly. For a piece of mind, I went ahead and ordered $170 part from Sony anyway since the $2400 repair was beyond my reach. I could tell my blue filter burned out partially alight but that wasn’t the issue. So i ended up sending the part back and paid 15% restocking fee.
Hope you get yours done.
Hi Daniel,
I picked up my projector two weeks ago and it is working fine
Total repair cost: $2500 AUD
The funny thing is that it is selling in stores for $1800 brand new. I asked the repairer why they repaired it when it could have been replaced for cheaper and they said that the warranty company evaluates the repair cost against the initial purchase price! It will be interesting to see what they do if it happens again in two years as it will still be under warranty and be worth almost nothing.