DPI HIGHlite12k SXGA+

[Kingcaffeine]

I've got an opportunity to purchase a pair of these and wondered if anyone had opinions (well....I'm sure there are lots of opinions here, but...)
They'll be for a 2200 seat Proscenium theatre with about 120' of throw. Each comes with three lenses (short, short zoom, long zoom).


Reliability, Picture quality, brightness, built in software, etc...

All views much appreciated.

[chausman]

Do you have a link for us?

[Kingcaffeine]

Used HIGHLITE 12000Dsx+ - Digital Projection - Used Video Panels & Projectors for Theater, Stage, Installation & Touring - Solaris
and

Digital Projection Highlite 12000Dsx+ DLP Projector

[ruinexplorer]

Good projectors, with a good image (as long as they were properly maintained). Biggest concern that I would have is making sure that DPI will still be able to maintain them. They don't allow for many outside vendors to service their units and some of these units are discontinued and will be difficult to maintain.

Also, with DPI, when it comes to relamping the lamp modules for those projectors, they do not stock the bare lamp (as of about six months ago when I had to deal with them), they order the lamp at the time you do your RMA. This can extend the time for relamping to about two months.

The good thing is that I don't see TI discontinuing the SXGA+ chipset any time soon. If you were looking at an older SXGA projector, I'd advise you avoid like the plague since you wouldn't be able to replace the DMD should it fail.

I do like the stacking cages on those units since it also includes yaw along with the vertical positioning. Also, the lens has memory sets so that you can program zoom, focus, and shift for multiple positions.

I do want to stress again that you should verify service availability before you purchase and make sure that the relamp costs will not be outside of your budget (they only allow six lampings of a module before you will also have to replace the reflector in the module, so you would want to find out how many relamps have been done on those modules as well).

[Kingcaffeine]

Looks like they have 4000 hrs total on them. Not sure how many lamps that is, but it's a fair amount of miles no? We have a vendor here who services DPI so I'm gonna do a little more research. thanks for the heads up.

[ruinexplorer]

I would probably consider the cost of new lamp housings with the cost of the projector. Most likely those reflectors will need replacing.

[jbrem003]

I would probably consider the cost of new lamp housings with the cost of the projector. Most likely those reflectors will need replacing.

There is a really good company if you can get on their vendor list for replacing projector lamps called Diamondlamps

Diamond Lamps - 100% genuine lamp performance replacement projector lamps

they are part of an initiative called the genuine lamps alliance

www.genuinelamps.org

[ruinexplorer]

Biggest problem with this DPI model, as with some of the Barco models, is that there is an integrated chipset in the lamp housing which records the use information and the lamp information (including serial number). Unless the outside vendor is able to crack the programming and reset this information, then putting in a new lamp is useless. The projector reads the information from the chipset and will or will not arc the lamp depending on specific settings. In this manner, the manufacturer is able to control the quality of light output from the units by guaranteeing that you use OEM lamps.

I have no objection to using secondary market re-lamps, I have just found that many of them will tell you that they can relamp a unit without knowing if there is an onboard chipset for that model.

[Kingcaffeine]

well well well....it turns out I'm not going for said model. I got a hold of two Lightning 35hd's for a steal. One comes with a lens and a brand spanking new lamp, the other- no lens. Both have about 2k hours. BUT- they are 16k's at 2k rez. I'm stoked. Now I just need to source a decent piece of glass......any ideas?

[ruinexplorer]

Lenses hold their value. Just keep watching the used gear lists. You can even put out feelers with Solaris and others.