i have had this 50" dlp for less than 2 years. so far i have had 2 bulbs go bad and the ballist was changed just in case. now for the past week when i first turn it on its starts going dark and flickers occasionally. after maybe an hour or so it works fine. before when the bulb went out i had no warning...it just went black. could it be something else than the bulb? both bulbs i had lasted about 6 months and now this one is only 2 1/2 months old. the tv is on alot but i dont turn it off and on throughout the day. i usually just leave it on if i am home and turn it off when i go to sleep or wont be watching for a few hours. what could be blowing my bulbs so fast? does it sund like something else might be wrong?

Hmmmm. I have had a 50" Samsung DLP for a few months short of 5 years and have replaced the bulb once, and that is pretty much it. What you describe sounds like a ballast problem to me. You may want to post over on the AVS Forums in a thread specific to your TV and see if any one can offer something more specifc.

Could be the color wheel...I just changed mine:

LINK

Very easy to do, just have patience.

interesting update. i think it might be my dvr. today when it went dark i pressed the tv menu button and it was nice and bright. then i switched over to my htpc and i was very bright also. switched back to the dvr and it was dark. later i will try the dvr through another input. maybe the tv's input is bad.