Not only do they cost a bundle but reliability is a real problem too. We have an Infocus 7000 projector, it's a high end, 2000 lumen unit with lots of inputs and cost a ton of money (almost $7k). We purchased it for court room presentations and we've used it maybe 150 hours total since new.
In that 150 (or less!) hours we've blown 2 bulbs and are now on our third. And I do mean BLOWN, as in shattered, as in pieces everywhere, as in turning it over and watch the glass bits pour out. One of those blowups happened in the court room with smoke pouring out of the projector. It completely trashed the attorneys closing argument. He doesn't trust me to run a presentation again and prefers to do without them despite their effectiveness.
These bulbs cost over $500.00 bucks each!!, and we get crap life from them. We brought this to the attention of Infocus and sent the projector back for a checkup but got what amounts to a shrug, a bill for the checkup (nothing wrong) and a new bulb. I simply don't have the budget to replace a $500.00 bulb every 30-40 hours or as happened with one of the bulbs, 8 hours.
When I'm doing a presentation in court, things have to work, period, no BS. If I blow a presentation, the attorney is going to fry me. There's no such thing as "not my fault", to an attorney when his presentation get screwed up by equipment failure. Everything's my fault if something goes wrong.
This is the last go around for the projector, we won't use it in court again, just for training and when this bulb blows, it gets scrapped. It's also the last go around for Infocus the company, we wouldn't buy from them again.
They told us that they don't make the bulbs, and that may be true but their support is poor and with the projector only a couple of months old, they should have replaced the first bulb at no charge. When the second blew after only eight hours we got the same "don't care" treatment.
I have since purchased a 40" plasma panel for presentations. It may be expensive and big, but not as expensive as a ruined presentation to the jury and not as big as the problem I'd face if the projector nukes again.
I wouldn't buy another projector.
Al