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Problem Sony srx 515 convergency r g b

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  • #16
    UV can be effectively filtered out with optics though. I'd like to think that someone at Sony looked into that and decided it was ok, considering all engines in the 320s were already failing.

    Sony always stated the issue was the glue in the blue optical path and I've seen that glue "bubble" myself over the years. It was never suggested that the issue were the imagers themselves. I guess they didn't want to admit that.

    Yes, I'm aware of the severe degradation of SXRD panels in home cinema projectors - I was once at Sony and I saw one of those on a shelf, repaired. They told me the process to recalibrate the panels to factory specs took 8 hours (and could only be done by Sony!)

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    • #17
      You and I know that an UV filter will never be 100% effective, otherwise you'd loose way too much light. Remember the Barco DP100? That one used cooling pipes that became brittle under UV light. UV light at considerable strengths will still filter through at those light intensities.

      The glue issue was indeed acknowledged by Sony, but it's unrelated to the SXRD panel degradation. I doubt that the SXRD modules for their cinema projectors were fundamentally different from the expensive home cinema ones, other than that the DCI machines used 1.48" panels and the home theater machines use 0.68" panels. The symptoms are pretty much the same. Sony also never acknowledged any real problems with those projectors, although many of them were silently repaired, at least initially.

      Meanwhile, if you're stuck with those aging Sony machines, you're pretty much screwed. You can try to calibrate the hell out of it, but contrast has long gone into the toilet and gamma uniformity will be all over the place.

      As for color convergence on those machines: I wish the OP luck, but like others already mentioned, this isn't something that was designed to be done in the field. Didn't the two-projector box also do digital color convergence? Maybe this offers a backdoor to do digital color convergence, that's' just good-enough?

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      • #18
        well, Dolby 3D was able to filter narrow wavelengths pretty effectively. I feel that the engine area of the DP100 cannot be used to prove your point here, Marcel. There was stray light coming a little bit from everywhere there. I'd imagine that by the time the light reached the DMDs, UV would be fully filtered out.

        But I am also not an optical engineer so mine is an educated guess based on limited experience.

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        • #19
          We are still running on our first T-Core. Admittedly, we have only 1-2 shows a day and only use two of our six 450W lamps. Last PCAB-U and PCAB-G were flawless. These panels or other optical parts would not only suffer from UV - visible light carries harmful energy as well. Just not as much.

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          • #20
            I think you're lucky to be using the machine within "safe boundaries". Most cinemas I know that run on those Sony's have at least cooked their T-Cores once, but they're usually running them at considerable more power and also often more shows a day. At a local cinema with four 515s, the only non-cooked T-Cores are in the smallest room. The image in that room is still pretty decent, other than that the screen suffers from not being a microperf screen, but that's not the projector's fault. In all other rooms, the image looks terribly washed out. This is especially noticeable in darker scenes, where everything disappears in a hue of bluish gray. I feel for them, because they simply don't have the budget to replace those machines. They were one of the first smaller shops with proper 4K on every screen and in the beginning, their picture quality was really quite good.

            I know that many people don't seem to like the looks of SXRD, but being honest, if everything is "new and fresh" and the picture is correctly calibrated (PCAB-U and PCAB-G​), then I think the picture looks more film-like than DLP. One thing I always notice in DLP generated imagery is that there is always a tiny amount of speckle visible in large, uniformly colored areas, especially in full-white screens. I've not seen this with SXRD.

            Originally posted by Marco Giustini View Post
            well, Dolby 3D was able to filter narrow wavelengths pretty effectively. I feel that the engine area of the DP100 cannot be used to prove your point here, Marcel. There was stray light coming a little bit from everywhere there. I'd imagine that by the time the light reached the DMDs, UV would be fully filtered out.

            But I am also not an optical engineer so mine is an educated guess based on limited experience.
            I'm also not an optical engineer, but I know that stuff isn't perfect and also has the tendency to deteriorate over time, that includes UV filters. If you've ever looked through those Dolby glasses "eye for eye", you'd 've noticed that while their filtering was way better than using polarizers, it was not entirely perfect either. Heck, even shutter glasses do not block 100% of the light from coming trough. And like Casten indicated, even visible light contains harmful energy, especially at those wattages.

            As for DMD engines: I don't think any stray UV light would actually do much damage to those DLP chips. It would probably do more damage in other parts of the light path, especially where glue or filters are involved.
            Last edited by Marcel Birgelen; 08-21-2025, 03:45 AM.

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            • #21
              I know that many people don't seem to like the looks of SXRD, but being honest, if everything is "new and fresh" and the picture is correctly calibrated (PCAB-U and PCAB-G​), then I think the picture looks more film-like than DLP
              I'm one of those - maybe because I am guilt of having installed a bunch of them!
              An out-of-the-box Sony (500 in particular) looks great. The issue is that they won't last long and require maintenance. Before it was clear that the engines were disintegrating themselves, I thought it was just a matter of accounting for extra maintenance but apparently that's not enough.

              This is especially noticeable in darker scenes, where everything disappears in a hue of bluish gray
              I never had a chance to practice a lot with it but I thought Sony introduced the polariser adjustment to address that (quarter-wavelength adjustment?)? Or was that just a bend-aid on a bigger problem?

              Heck, even shutter glasses do not block 100% of the light from coming trough. And like Casten indicated, even visible light contains harmful energy, especially at those wattages.
              Of course nothing is 100% but it would be foolish for Sony to introduce an even "harder" light source when the engines in the 320 were already showing degradation.

              Sony told us once that Sony Japan had rooms were projectors were being run 24/7 so they could anticipate issues over time. I guess that by the time the 500 series came out, it should have been clear what the situation was.

              That said, if any of you have worked in a corporation, we also know how things work there

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              • #22
                Originally posted by Marco Giustini View Post
                I never had a chance to practice a lot with it but I thought Sony introduced the polariser adjustment to address that (quarter-wavelength adjustment?)? Or was that just a bend-aid on a bigger problem?
                I know from their previous owners that they had a big legal fight with Sony. The one-quarter of the wavelength​ adjustment on the engine was long since performed. After they received their first new t-cores and everything was adjusted again, their image quality bumped back to previous standards. However, that's already many years ago. Those projectors are no longer in service and what we see right now is similar to what I've seen from an old worn-out VPL-HW65ES projector.

                Originally posted by Marco Giustini View Post
                Sony told us once that Sony Japan had rooms were projectors were being run 24/7 so they could anticipate issues over time. I guess that by the time the 500 series came out, it should have been clear what the situation was.

                That said, if any of you have worked in a corporation, we also know how things work there
                I've got a beautiful bridge for you, like new, barely been used...

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                • #23
                  I know quite a few cinemas that bought the 10 year extended warranty. They certainly didn't know that their T-Cores would be fried at some time when they signed, but they were lucky when they received a new one for free. A T-Core swap is also done in a breeze compared to other projectors. Wondering why Sony made it so easy to replace them... The 5xx, 6xx and 8xx are built for very easy service.

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                  • #24
                    ahah yes, the clue was in how fast it was to swap them!

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Carsten Kurz View Post
                      I know quite a few cinemas that bought the 10 year extended warranty. They certainly didn't know that their T-Cores would be fried at some time when they signed, but they were lucky when they received a new one for free. A T-Core swap is also done in a breeze compared to other projectors. Wondering why Sony made it so easy to replace them... The 5xx, 6xx and 8xx are built for very easy service.
                      Many of them luckily bought into the 10 year extended warranty. I guess those that did VPF did get the 10 year extended warranty as part of the package anyway. What I've heard though, that initially, Sony was very reluctant to change T-Cores even under warranty. Only later, that stance seemed to change, but not without some legal struggles for at least some of the affected locations. They also didn't provide the PCAB-U & PCAB-G cameras as part of the package, while without them, those projectors are essentially useless, requiring integrator intervention for every calibration.

                      Also, those 10 years have since been passed, at least for most of them. The thing is, most of those machines, now being 10+ years, are becoming unserviceable. While it's usually no problem to find spare parts for a comparable DLP machine, where do you find a fresh set of T-Cores? Also, most comparable DLP machines will probably still perform great, without much degradation in light output and contract, if they have been taken care of.

                      Heck, I still see some sites chugging along with a bunch of DP100 just fine. While they all have had their cooling system reworked, there is no degradation of the light engine, comparable to what you'd witnessed with an SXRD machine.

                      Maybe the original plan for Sony was, to see the T-Cores as a consumable unit, much like the photoconductor in a laser printer. The problem is, this was never sold this way to the cinema owners and the fact that many of them were swapped under warranty also is an indicator that this wasn't being sold as a consumable item either. Also, what was the ticket price for a new one? Anything between $25k and $40k?

                      Sorry, I keep on rambling...

                      297.jpg

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                      • #26
                        A new one is 15.000€. Sony is still supplying them. A company from china is also selling refurbished ones (they are actually changing imagers) at around 5000US$. Sony is obliged to supply spare parts until 2027.

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                        • #27
                          I didn’t know Sony was also selling SXRD chips

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Marco Giustini View Post
                            I didn’t know Sony was also selling SXRD chips
                            It could be that they outsourced the production...

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                            • #29
                              They probably did not outsource the production of the imagers, but from the second run of the SRX-R5xx, projector production took place in China. And maybe that company is a spinoff. They may also recycle working imagers. As far as I know, the blue imager suffers most. They also sell the imagers individually, and I guess that's where the OP received his from.

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                              • #30
                                Sony does operate several CMOS fabs around the world as they're one of the larger and more renowned image sensor manufacturer. SXRD/LCOS chip production is similar to CMOS technology, so that may be the reason for them to put their bets on that technology.

                                Sony is still producing home cinema projectors based on SXRD technology, but those SXRD packages have a considerably smaller surface area. I'm not aware of any other company using SXRD technology. Companies like NEC and JVC have LCoS based projection systems, but those are their own proprietary systems. It looks like the cheaper, business projectors that Sony produces, don't use SXRD anymore, but 3LCD, indicating that they probably have swapped to a 3rd-party solution for those machines.

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