If you pause the picture on your UHP projector and you see the image flickering between brighter and dimmer it is likely that your lamp is the cause.
As the lamp ages, the shape of the two anodes may change from sharp points to a flattened state. When this occurs, the arc jumps across the gap from varying points. When the anodes are flat the arc will be lost and then reestablished. This is seen as image flicker. The length of time for the anodes to flatten, over which flicker may occur varies considerably and unpredictably. This behavior is inherent to UHP lamps.
It is possible to recondition a lamp to have sharper points once they are flattened. Professional projectors like Christie have a mode for this that will pulse the lamp and restore it in minutes to hours. Consumer units do not have this option, but they can sometimes restore a lamp by operating it in high lamp mode for many hours. I believe some consumer projectors like Sony and Sim2 have lamp driver circuitry in them to recondition the lamp on a regular basis to avoid this because I have not seen this in their units. It is possible other manufacturers may add this feature over time.
It may be necessary to replace a lamp to eliminate this problem.
Question on “they can sometimes restore a lamp by operating it in high lamp mode for many hours. ” How many hours about? And are those consecutive hours, or could the flickering go away after several occasions?
It can take about 100 hours of operation at high lamp to eliminate it. If it does not go away on high lamp this is unlikely to work. It does not need to be continuous operation.
I have a epson 8350 , first bulb lasted 2.600 hr on high ,not bad . Bought new replacement from ,well known seller. exact replacement . after about 300hr i notice that the white on the screen would flicker a little ,just enough to be noticed. But not the red-blue-green colors .So if you watch a animated movie with lots of colors looks fine . Any other movie with normal r-b-g and white in it ,you see white flicker from brighter to little dimmer…So bought another new bulb ,same thing . tried different ,BD player ,hdmi cable , power out let same thing . Well Just my luck ,on Craigslist i found the exact epson 8350 for 200.00 so i bought it ,after seeing it work at this guys home ,look fine . But yep when i got it home ,clean it , replace bulb . fired it up with BD player guess what , white flicker only other colors ok . exact same thing as my original 8350 . Any idea what might problem be . Or am i missing something . Neither projectors have had firmware update ,that i just found (don’t no what firmware update is for ) Mr Double Trouble
Not sure what is going on in your case.
Flickering is more visible the brighter the image is. White is the brightest color making it the easiest to see any flicker with.
I would check any motion processing settings in your Epson and turn off the auto iris if it has one.
My next guess would be some type of power interference. I would check turning things off in your home and powered devices in your theater.