Looking to sell old Barco projectors and replace with more modern and efficient ones

[Cody Kish]

I'm looking into replacements for the three DP2K-10S and one DP2K-19B projectors in my theatre. The houses have 38, 54, 67, and 94 seats.
Would it be worth it to sell and replace those projectors and replace them with more modern, quieter, more efficient projectors? And would that be possible to do, either with used or new projectors, and break even or make some money back?
Any advice or direction would be very valuable, we're really struggling to break even financially and we will take anything that could bring operating costs down and help us get a bit more money.
Thank you!

[Leo Enticknap]

We (a major Barco dealer) work with customers in this situation all the time. I'm more comfortable with the technical side of it than the financial one.

The bottom line is that you would be looking at a major upfront investment, but which could pay dividends in reduced operating costs, enhanced reliability, and an improved customer experience.

Assuming that your current projectors are between 10 and 15 years old, have the card cage hours on them that you would expect at that age, have been reasonably maintained, but are now out of warranty, you're in an equivalent situation to if you rely on a '99 Civic with 300K miles on the clock for your daily commute. You could get several more years of trouble free service out of it, but with every day that passes, the risk increases that the timing belt will break and you're stranded until you cough up $6-7K and wait several days. In the meantime, your maintenance costs are higher (especially if you have to pay a shop by the hour to do that maintenance) ... but .. the car is fully paid off, so you're winning there.

Assuming that your current projectors are fully paid off, your ownership costs consist of maintenance, repairs, consumables (i.e. lamps, mainly), and electricity. The equation works out as follows:

Keep current projectors

Pros - fully paid off
Cons - cost of maintenance, repairs, and consumables; image quality could be improved by replacement (especially brightness, if the optics are getting old and worn); reliability vulnerability and sudden, major costs if a projector breaks down with pricey part failure (e.g. a $20K light engine)

Replace

Pros - (assuming an upgrade to Series 4 laser) - lower maintenance and electricity costs, no more lamp purchases, likely better contrast and brightness, better resolution if upgrading to 4K; reduced reliability vulnerability during the warranty period (apart from lost business waiting for parts and/or a tech to get to you), plus an option to extend the parts warranty and make this a predictable cost thereafter
Cons - direct cost of ownership (either loan payments, or up front loss of liquidity)

If you would like to explore this further, I'd suggest discussing with two or three dealers to get some ballpark figures (and, if needed, financing options).

[Cody Kish]

Yeah, I would absolutely love to upgrade to Series 4, but that's just way more money than we can put in right now. Are there any cheaper options, especially used? I really don't know how long this theater will last, I just want it to go as long as possible, and that's a huge upgrade just to maybe lose the theater in the next couple of years

[Steve Guttag]

I highly doubt you will find anything that is both used and financially any cheaper than what you have.

The DP2K-19B, in particular, is a very efficient projector, lamp wise. You could put a 2.2KW lamp in that 10S and it still wouldn't be anywhere near as bright as the 19B with say a 1.6KW lamp.

The potential costs of running an older projector (any), as Leo pointed out, are, really that light engine. With Barco it is an all or nothing sort of thing. Bad formatter, replace the light engine. Bad DMD, replace the light engine. There are very few parts on a light engine that they allow mere parts replacement (light pipe is one that comes to mind). They do have a "swap" program (they send you theirs, you send them yours and you're done...and it is significantly cheaper than buying a replacement outright but it is still VERY expensive.

Cost/hour, you will never get a return on investment on changing the projector. That is, yeah, a new laser projector is, typically ⅓ the cost of electricity and you also get to skip on exhausting conditioned air as well as the cost of lamps...but the cost of lamps + electricity compared to the cost of the new projector has a never-payback chart, unless you are in the 4KW and up range. 3KW is sort of on the bubble. You'd be better served, cost wise, on those by only running the lamps when there are paying customers seated. I have one client with a 12-plex and we implemented Eprad's "Nano-Host" that gets a copy of the schedule from the POS and if no tickets are sold, the lamp never turns on. If a ticket is sold after the show-start, it will turn the lamp on. This has saved them a bunch during the slow times (which have been too plentiful in 2024 and 2025.

There are laser-conversions for the older projectors that can bring most of the benefits of laser without the cost of a new projector...BUT, you are still using your old projector and its light engine, ICP...etc. The only thing that would be warranted would be the new laser system. I doubt that on smaller lamps that there is a good payback for the conversion. It would definitely take years.

[Harold Hallikainen]

In radio stations, we'd buy a new transmitter and keep the old one as a backup. I wonder if it would be worthwhile buying a new projector for one screen and keep the old one as a spare. When you are down to two old working projectors, get another new one keeping one of the working old ones as a spare. As in radio broadcast, I think reliability is very important. A new projector will be more reliable than an old one, and having a spare allows for the show to go on with the failure of any of the projectors.

I tend to only replace stuff when the old stuff becomes unrepairable. Then I buy a new replacement to avoid further reliability and obsolescence problems.

By the way, where are old projectors going after they die?

[Cody Kish]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was expecting.
How do you get Nano-Host? That would be nice so the lamp doesn't have to run for a while before I manually turn the movie off. And how much does it cost, if anything?

[Cody Kish]

And we haven't had a projector die in the 10-15 years since we switched to digital, keeping a backup like that is a good idea though

[Frank Cox]

One money saving suggestion you could consider is reducing your screen count.

If you currently have four screens, closing one of them will give you an instant spare projector and you didn't spend anything to get it.

And depending on what you're doing now, closing a screen (or two) will save you money on electricity, maybe staffing...

[Cody Kish]

Well, one of them is down at the moment because of a dead Doremi server, and I'm running it mostly alone for the winter

[Rick Cohen]

Given the state of the industry and level of business, I would be reluctant to buy new laser projectors for your location. If you have the resources, maybe upgrade one screen per year over 4-5 years. Otherwise, your best option is most likely going to be maintaining what you have. Over time, the ICP and IMB boards will require replacement. Fortunately, you appear to have series 2 equipment which is still supported by Barco for replacement parts, if needed. If your Doremi IMB goes down, I'd replace it with a Dolby IMS-3000 for around 8K. If the ICP goes down, you can get an ICP-D from Barco for around 7K. That's not too bad when compared to the cost of a new laser projector.

[Cody Kish]

Yeah that's most likely what's gonna happen, I can't see any big upgrades happening soon.
And how about that Doremi ShowVault-3 with dead power supplies? I found a couple of the whole units used for pretty cheap. Do they all have to stay Doremi, or could it be replaced with something else that might be cheaper?

[Rick Cohen]

Yeah that's most likely what's gonna happen, I can't see any big upgrades happening soon.
And how about that Doremi ShowVault-3 with dead power supplies? I found a couple of the whole units used for pretty cheap. Do they all have to stay Doremi, or could it be replaced with something else that might be cheaper?

My philosophy is to avoid buying used IMB or ICP boards, as they are prone to failure if older than ten years. So it's a bad investment in the long run. New IMS and ICP-D boards should be good for at least the next ten years, if properly maintained. I try to stick to the same platform along the entire complex. Since you have Doremi servers, I'd stick to Dolby. If you have GDC servers. I'd stick to GDC. It simplifies things if you are training new managers to have similar platforms on all your screens.

[Cody Kish]

Yeah that's fair. Since I found the same model used, I can keep the same IMB board, plus it comes with one that can be a backup. Does that seem like an okay way to go?

[Rick Cohen]

Yeah that's fair. Since I found the same model used, I can keep the same IMB board, plus it comes with one that can be a backup. Does that seem like an okay way to go?

Depends how long the replacement power supplies hold up. Two weeks, two months, or two years. Also depends how much you acquire the used equipment for.

[Cody Kish]

Yeah, it's really hard to decide. Doremi doesn't support or make supplies for them anymore and Film-Tech quoted us $13000 to replace it.
The used one of that same unsupported model that I found is $3000.