is it me or is there just something different about this lamp? (For the good?) the glass looks really shiny? shinier than usual? it just looks more decent to other ventures ive seen?

Ah their not that bad, put on the right ignitor they do a good 10,000 hours.

A big problem with Ventures is that they are selected by people who are ignorant about HID and want the cheapest and therefore runt them untill they fail and not after their rated lifetime has elapsed. I know a garden centre near me that has these in lowbays and they have never been group relamped in over 6 years! As you can imagine they are all *very* dim, flickery and all different colours! A few have blown up and even then it takes a while for them to stick a new lamp in.

And then, most of the time the gears fried!

Five years later, and who would have thought I’d be saying this?: their better than Philips now!