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If one looks at Barco's history on maintaining parts supply on discontinued projectors, it has been quite good. How long did they support the DP100 past its discontinuation? It was pretty close to if not 10-years. The wild card in all of the long-term parts support is the effects of C19 and the supply chain combined with chip shortages/plant burning down that has allowed/caused early obsolescence of various chips/semiconductors. How much investment will a company make to overcome part inavailability?
Christie is the one that scares me on parts. Even before C19, getting a 3-month lead time on a critical part (standby supply, PIB, TPC or even the IMB S2) was not unheard of and even semi-common. The standby supply one can overcome with a little effort. Try to roll your own PIB! Barco/Cinionic, of the big three, is a 24/7 company. I've NEVER not been able to get a part fast...and that includes in a C19 world. And, by fast, I mean same day/next day...weekends/holidays included. Yes, normal parts orders are, typically a 2-week lead time from Belgium. Okay...those are normal parts orders. At least you know that is the typical lead time. Every once in a while you get a longer lead time. When you are down and move into the expedited class, there are depots all over where the parts can get to you fast. Yes, it cost more in shipping (and I don't think unreasonably so), but you WILL be back up that day or the next. Seriously, I had a switch mode power supply (LVPS in some circles) go down at opening...by 4:00pm, the replacement came walking in the door and they didn't miss their evening shows (it was on a Friday too). That sort of support is worth something.
As for light engines, Cinionic does have an RX system now for those though I wouldn't call it very cost conscious. The other two are significantly cheaper on many parts and similar programs (though for NEC, I believe it is just Strong that does the clean and repair of prisms...that is where we source them and they always supply good ones though your backfocus may be WAY off). NEC will also let one change just the formatter, which can be cheaper than even the prism swap.
I agree that Barco and Christie are notably better on their S2 4K (or S2K) images. NEC has very low contrast and also very low light output/watt (about 20% less than Barco or Christie). That said, NEC's 1200-2000 and even the 3200/3240 are very solid performers in terms of reliability. Early 1200-2000 had some LPS issues...early ones had some router issues and early ones had the dreaded power switch issues. But, overall, NEC has the fewest problems/per unit of the systems we service. NEC, typically, has a greater degree of granularity of parts offered. Barco is very much into modules/assemblies...so the parts price disparity is even greater there. NEC's .69" lenses and their lens mounts have horrible motorized resolutions so they never come back to the same place twice so I would avoid them if you need to move the lens between formats. They are much better on the .98 and 1.2/1.38 DMD lenses.
If it were me, I probably would not use xenon in a commercial cinema, going forward though I think xenon looks notably better. It's the economics of it all. Laser is, now, typically, cheaper on day-1 and cheaper every day thereafter...right down to not needing an exhaust. That said, once you do consume your lasers (fade down), that will be an expensive repair that will likely be a substantial portion of a new projector. And if laser-phosphor, factor in changing that too. NEC has a novel ideal on their "ML" series lasers (those with the suffix ML)...the rear portion with the lasers and phosphor wheel is exchangeable. So, once you consume the lasers, you RX just that portion and do not have a tech go in there and change out the laser modules or phosphor wheel assemblies. The ML series is available in 2K and 4K.
As to targets with all of the ratios (like Christie's Framing V2 or words to that effect)...meh. What I've taken to doing is I have screen files with those ratios already done. So, I load the screen file for the ratio I'm working on...immediately save it under a different name on that projector and merely trim for keystone (curve pincushion). The screen file lets me zoom, center, trim with any target to focus and full white...it goes pretty fast.
Christie is the one that scares me on parts. Even before C19, getting a 3-month lead time on a critical part (standby supply, PIB, TPC or even the IMB S2) was not unheard of and even semi-common. The standby supply one can overcome with a little effort. Try to roll your own PIB! Barco/Cinionic, of the big three, is a 24/7 company. I've NEVER not been able to get a part fast...and that includes in a C19 world. And, by fast, I mean same day/next day...weekends/holidays included. Yes, normal parts orders are, typically a 2-week lead time from Belgium. Okay...those are normal parts orders. At least you know that is the typical lead time. Every once in a while you get a longer lead time. When you are down and move into the expedited class, there are depots all over where the parts can get to you fast. Yes, it cost more in shipping (and I don't think unreasonably so), but you WILL be back up that day or the next. Seriously, I had a switch mode power supply (LVPS in some circles) go down at opening...by 4:00pm, the replacement came walking in the door and they didn't miss their evening shows (it was on a Friday too). That sort of support is worth something.
As for light engines, Cinionic does have an RX system now for those though I wouldn't call it very cost conscious. The other two are significantly cheaper on many parts and similar programs (though for NEC, I believe it is just Strong that does the clean and repair of prisms...that is where we source them and they always supply good ones though your backfocus may be WAY off). NEC will also let one change just the formatter, which can be cheaper than even the prism swap.
I agree that Barco and Christie are notably better on their S2 4K (or S2K) images. NEC has very low contrast and also very low light output/watt (about 20% less than Barco or Christie). That said, NEC's 1200-2000 and even the 3200/3240 are very solid performers in terms of reliability. Early 1200-2000 had some LPS issues...early ones had some router issues and early ones had the dreaded power switch issues. But, overall, NEC has the fewest problems/per unit of the systems we service. NEC, typically, has a greater degree of granularity of parts offered. Barco is very much into modules/assemblies...so the parts price disparity is even greater there. NEC's .69" lenses and their lens mounts have horrible motorized resolutions so they never come back to the same place twice so I would avoid them if you need to move the lens between formats. They are much better on the .98 and 1.2/1.38 DMD lenses.
If it were me, I probably would not use xenon in a commercial cinema, going forward though I think xenon looks notably better. It's the economics of it all. Laser is, now, typically, cheaper on day-1 and cheaper every day thereafter...right down to not needing an exhaust. That said, once you do consume your lasers (fade down), that will be an expensive repair that will likely be a substantial portion of a new projector. And if laser-phosphor, factor in changing that too. NEC has a novel ideal on their "ML" series lasers (those with the suffix ML)...the rear portion with the lasers and phosphor wheel is exchangeable. So, once you consume the lasers, you RX just that portion and do not have a tech go in there and change out the laser modules or phosphor wheel assemblies. The ML series is available in 2K and 4K.
As to targets with all of the ratios (like Christie's Framing V2 or words to that effect)...meh. What I've taken to doing is I have screen files with those ratios already done. So, I load the screen file for the ratio I'm working on...immediately save it under a different name on that projector and merely trim for keystone (curve pincushion). The screen file lets me zoom, center, trim with any target to focus and full white...it goes pretty fast.
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