Panasonic PT-AE3000U

I had a good experience with the projector for about 15 months as the picture was good.
After 1800 hours of time on the original lamp, I purchased a replacement lamp March 2010 from MWave.com and it failed 2 months later after only 225 hours. I noticed that when I originally installed it and fine tuned it, the picture was much darker and the blacks were washed out compared to the original lamp.
When it failed so soon, I contacted MWave about replacing it as it was supposed to have a 90 day warranty (still says it on the web site as of 5/13/2010). They claimed they only supported products for 30 days and that I had to go Panasonic for the further 60 day support. Panasonic said it's up to the dealer (MWave) to provide the replacement lamp. I got both parties on a conference call and all they did was to say to each other "No, it's your responsibility". So MWave and Panasonic couldn't figure out between 2 massive companies how to resolve the issue and have put the customer at the disadvantage.

Both have lost a customer for life. I'd ordered many times from MWave in the past but I don't trust them any more.

My 3000 has frozen numerous times during critical meetings and football parties. It recently went into "stand by" mode...tech support had no idea why. Since my unit was 1 month out of service, I was told to ship it in, at my cost, for a $130 review fee which very may not be applied to the repair or "try" buying a $400 + + + lamp when it only had 1,000 hours, 50-60% of quoted life! When I objected I was told that the 1,800 - 2,000 hour life was based upon what any real life user would consider a virtually impossible user pattern (3.5 hours on, 1 hour off and regular usage of that pattern, uses for shorter periods lowers the lamp life...plus if humans are in the room...only kidding! Be prepared for high maintenance bills, unreliable performance and lamp replacement at half or less of the quoted useful life! You are WARNED!!!!

Updated on Jan 27, 2010

After changing the $400 lamp it worked for 2 days...then crashed again. I am awaiting word from Panasonic if they will will honor their warranty as I am 45 days or so out of warranty on my $2,500 projector. I expect they will do the right thing and I promise to report what they choose to do. I have a large Super Bowl group expecting my Hi-Def projector...hope they are not disappointed.