Hi, I have a Sharp XV-Z3000 that suddenly failed after probably 250-300 hours of use. I bought it new 1.5 years ago on clearance for about $1450. The local independent warranty service electronics repair shop says the repair bill is about $620 (about $435 for a new lamp, and about $185 for repair soldering work on the power components). I'm a projector novice and I don't know how this model compares to the new ones - so do you think it's worth $620 to get this going again, or would you just write it off and get something newer? It's always worked perfectly until the lamp suddenly turned off and the lamp failure LED lit. It might be a coincidence, but the failure happened after I hooked up an HDMI cable for the first time. I switched back and forth between HDMI and the component input a couple of times via the remote. The lamp would go off during the switchover, then it wouldn't come back on the last time. Since the first couple hours of use, I've always kept it plugged into a Tripplite 1500 VA UPS designed for A/V applications, except when occasionally packing it up and moving to show movies at another location. This UPS stays fairly hot even when idle, so many months ago I started leaving the UPS off except when I'm actually using the projector. Of course I only turn the UPS off or on when the projector is shut down, but I don't know if doing this too many times caused any cumulative damage. What do you think? When shutting down, we always let the cooling fan stop before turning off the UPS -- except for once when my son accidentally turned the UPS off while the fan was still running. But power was restored within 10 seconds, and the fan immediately continued the cooling cycle. This happened long before the failure. Any advice would be most appreciated! Thanks!

I have been using a Sharp XV-H37U in my nightclub for the past 11 years - yes eleven! It has been a absolute workhorse, with the only parts replaced being bulbs and one LCD panel. I chose the XV-H37U because of the excellant air filter on this unit. I'm convinced this is why it has performed so well. This is a very smokey enviroment - the filter needs to be washed every 2 weeks. Does the XV-Z3000 have a similar washable filter or can anyone suggest a model in the $2-3k price range that does?

Just curious if anyone has heard anything about the release of the XV-Z3000 and what the street price of this projector may be.