RBrianTaylor

Actually, I'm not really confusing front projectors with rear projection sets, I just lumped them together as a similar technology. Most commercial and consumer front projectors have manufacturer rated lamp lifes in the 1000 hour to 4000 hour range. Regarding a DLP rear projection TV with a standard (non-LED) lamp, here's a quote from David Carnoy, an Executive editor at CNET: "Both Samsung and Sony say that their TVs offer up to 8,000 hours of bulb life, depending on brightness settings and usage." This 8000 hour rating also seems to be confirmed by many blogs and discussion threads I've read. Some of the newer rear projection TVs are using solid state LED lamps to extend the lamp life of a DLP rear projection TV. Here is a press release from Samsung talking about their new (at the time) LED lights sourced DLP televisions: "This model also replaces the current UHP bulb with a high-powered LED light source, called PhlatLight™ that has a single chip DLP® light engine, which doesn't require a color wheel and provides improved longevity. Red, green and blue high-powered LEDs sequentially fire to produce smooth, stable color. The LED light engine also ensures a longer lamp life (20,000 hours without brightness degradation) and a shorter turn-on time (seven seconds). The engine is also mercury-free making it more environmentally friendly." According to their web site, Samsung still makes both technologies of DLP sets, some with regular UHP lamps with an 8000 hour rating, and some with the LED lamp with a 20000 hour rating. While it's absolutely true that early technology plasma displays were plaqued with short half lives, causing many people to have to throw away an expensive investment well before they wanted to. However, most manufacturers have vastly improved the life of their displays to the point that Panasonic and other have models with half lives rated at 60000 hours. Does this mean that EVERY plasma will last 60000 hours? Of course not - this is just a theoretical calculation by the manufacturer as to the time it will take for half of all of their displays to fail. One model could last 1 hour and another could last 119999 hours, and on average they would have a half life of 60000 hours... While it may be wise to not trust a manufacturer on many things they say in their spec sheets, I would also argue that if a manufacturer's own tests determine that a new model should last much longer, then it probably will, even if many people never get the full 60000 hours of use out of a plasma (the same is true about projector lamps - they don't ALL last as long as the manufacturers' ratings say they do). I'm sure that in the past, "any HT Pro will tell you 60,000hrs out of a plasma ain't happenin" was certainly true, since the older models installed years ago (that have now failed) are the ones that these dealers/installers are talking about. However, only time will tell if the plasmas installed last year and this year are failing at the same rate. However, since every owners' manual for a DLP rear projection TV includes instructions for the USER to change the lamp, I would certainly expect that good modern LCD or plasma display would typically last longer (maybe even much longer) than a good DLP rear display, no matter what manufacturer you trust or distrust...

(Forgive me if someone has already mentioned this, but I didn't see it in this thread). While it is certainly true that you can replace the lamp in a DLP rear projection television or LCD/DLP projector for $300 or so and "get the brightness back" so to speak, projector lamps only have a half life of between 1000 hours and 8000 hours, while the half life of a modern plasma television (such as a Panasonic) is about 60000 hours! While it's true that a plasma display will eventually fail and have to be junked if it is used for many hours, you'd have to buy about 7 to 8 $300 lamps for a projector to match the rated life of a plasma. All in all, plasmas and LCDs are a better deal in my book....