My Optoma HD81 projector has developed a problem with faint horizontal lines showing in bright areas in the upper part of the image. The company handling the warranty repairs for Optoma in Sweden (Projektor System AB, http://www.projektor.se) unfortunately seem unwilling to look at the problem because the projector was originally bought in the US. According to Mr. Lars Tedebo from Projektor System AB warranty repairs are difficult across continents, and the company blame Optoma for making it so. Trying to get in touch with the Scandinavian Optoma office hasn't succeded yet, so I don't know their story. Talking to Optoma USA and Mr. Robert Sarauw in their Technical support department gives me a similar picture, they have to return the unit to a US address after servicing even though I'm not currently staying there. I assume that Optoma Scandinavia would want to resolve all issues with these units as they have proven to fail a lot. An upgrade to the HD81-LV would of course be nice (and solve the problems), but that doesn't seem to be the Optoma way of handling customer complaints. I will update the info here if and when I get some feedback from Optoma.

Here are two images showing the problem (click for full size - really large photos!):

Default "full-on" blue image displayed when unplugging the HDMI connection between the scaler and projector. Upper left corner shown


"Full-on" white image input into the scaler through HDMI. Upper center part of the image shown

Anyone seen this odd behavior before on any DLP device?

The official Optoma HD81 discussion at AVSforum listing several other faults with these units: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=628036

Contact info: wj@xnk.nu