So the repair guys came out and fixed the TV yesterday. First they replaced the lamp, and then I tried to show them the color saturation issue, and the senior tech thought he saw what I was talking about… so he pulled the color wheel out.
It turns out it was a good thing he did. The bearings on the one he pulled out (which was the one that was replaced a year ago) were going bad, and you could audibly hear the grinding and see that the wheel was not spinning freely as it should. Also, it was visibly warped already (probably due to excessive heating from the bearings).
He said that it would’ve most likely disintegrated (like the first one) within a few months.
So I’m now up and running with a brand new lamp (old one had over 10k hours, which is pretty damned good for a bulb!) and a brand new color wheel.
So far, it does look better… but that could be psychological, because I’ve been watching TV on a crappy 32″ 480i screen for the past 3 god damned weeks!
Anyway, I plan on paying quite a lot of attention to any issues I have with the TV from now on, and if I have any I’m going to harp on the support guys to confirm EVERYTHING so they don’t fuck up again.
