Home Theater and Projectors: The Technical Side

Understanding the characteristics of the lamps used in video projectors and going as far as to track the light output of your projector can be a useful exercise for some home theater owners.  The industry standard for lamp life is based on a 50% dimming of the lamp.  Therefore, when a projector manufacturer specifies that a specific model of projector has, for example, a lamp life of 2000 hours that means that they expect the lamp to lose one half of its original (i.e, when the lamp was new) light output after 2000 hours of use.  However, there are other factors that can impact the lamp life and it can be useful for the projector owner to understand what these factors are where their projector’s lamp actually is in its life cycle. Read the rest of this entry »