Grrr . . . my TV broke

[shmokes]

I have a 40" rear-projection HDTV that stopped working last night.  If I leave it unplugged for a long time and then plug it in and turn it on it will fire up, but the convergence of the three lamps is WAY WAY off.  Everything is also wigging out a little and it progressively wigs out more and more until it's like something overloads and the TV shuts off.  Anybody have any idea what the problem is and what it would cost to fix?  The thing is enormous for a 40" screen and it only does standard def and 1080i and has no tuner, so it's not worth a whole lot working.  I don't want to sink $300 or $400 into fixing the thing when I could buy a considerably nicer set for not much more  than that.  I've had the thing for seven years or so, so it's definitely out of warranty.

FWIW it's a Toshiba 40H80

[danny_galaga]

too late for santy to help i guess?

[shmokes]

Unfortunately he's not real.   

[billf]

Unfortunately he's not real.   

What!?!  Really?? 

[grantspain]

i am not sure about your model number but i have done a number of repairs to toshiba rptv as used in sega dedicated cabs.
i have had to repair 4 p502sg chassis in the last year,all had convergence problems and one would also cut out after a few minutes.
these particular chassis have 2 chips(stk 392-020) that control the convergence,if 1 or 2 colours are out it is likely one of the chips is dead(also there are protection resistors and pico fuses to check),if all the colours are out then one of the voltages must be missing and it that case you would need to check the power supply board pico fuses and diodes

[hypernova]

I, on the other hand, am awaiting one of my two TVs to break down.  My Toshiba 32" CRT is about 10 years now, and I have an old 19" Magnavox color TV  in our bedroom that, after nearly 20 years, still displays a nice picture.  WHY WON'T YOU DIE, MAGNAVOX?

Magnavox...that's a weird looking word.

And in case you're all wondering, I'm too cheap to buy a new tv unless one actually breaks down.  I don't replace something that works perfectly fine.  Which is why one needs to break down.

[ChadTower]

The 27" tv in my living room is from about 1998 and is dying now.  Repairable but not worth paying to have done.

The 19" tv in my basement is probably from 1975.  Fully analog, screw terminals only, dial tuners only to 13.  Still works perfectly.   

[Level42]

Rear projection sucks big time anyway. Dump it and get a nice CRT TV 

[ChadTower]

In 40"?  He'd have to reinforce his foundation to support the damn thing.

[Level42]

Bigger is NOT always BETTER.

Seriously, a rear projection looks like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---. Period.

[shmokes]

LMAO . . . Level42, you need to leave your basement and head to your nearest Costco or Best Buy.  Rear projection TVs look fantastic these days.  A good DLP rear projection looks better than most or all LCD/Plasma flat panel.  A good CRT rear projection might look even better than that, if you could even find them any more.  Rear projection has pretty much looked great since they turned rectangle.  The picture on my seven-year-old set was pretty great, though the viewing angle was fairly lousy. 

[Level42]

Well that could be it shmokes. Rear projections were only used here for bars, cafes etc. Almost no-one had one in their home....we have small homes here in Holland
So I haven't seen any of the really new one's in all honesty......they just seem barely to exist around here.

[MikeQ]

LMAO . . . Level42, you need to leave your basement and head to your nearest Costco or Best Buy.  Rear projection TVs look fantastic these days.  A good DLP rear projection looks better than most or all LCD/Plasma flat panel.  A good CRT rear projection might look even better than that, if you could even find them any more.  Rear projection has pretty much looked great since they turned rectangle.  The picture on my seven-year-old set was pretty great, though the viewing angle was fairly lousy. 

DLP looks like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- if your brain has a high refresh rate.  I can't look at them without seeing rainbows.

[boykster]

DLP looks like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- if your brain has a high refresh rate.  I can't look at them without seeing rainbows.

I agree.  I looked long and hard at DLP projectors for my theater, and the only ones I could stand were the 3 chippers....the single chip DLP's with the color wheel give me a headache and I 'see rainbows'.  Even the newer high speed (5x or 7x) ones.  The RP's are a bit better, but why would I want a huge cabinet for a display I can get much thinner and hang on teh wall (plasma or LCD). 

I also disagree that DLP rear projection is <better> than plasma, but I'll leave that one alone. 

[shmokes]

Samsung's new DLPs use LEDs.  No more color wheel.  No more rainbows.  No more lamp replacements.  Better color saturation.  Far lower power consumption.  And so on.

[shmokes]

We have small homes here in Holland

Heh . . . not likely you'll be heading to a Best Buy or Costco any time soon, I suppose. 

Didn't realize you were in Holland.  But yeah . . . rear projection is fine now days.  And don't listen to MikeQ and Boykster about rainbows.     In reality only a small minority of people see rainbows with DLP screens and even then it's only when you pass your eyes from one side of the screen to the other very quickly.  The vast majority of people have no problems with them.  They make a great quality picture.  But like I said in my last post, the rainbow problem has been permanently eliminated anyway in sets that use LEDs in place of the usual lamps.

[Ed_McCarron]

DLP looks like ---Cleveland steamer--- if your brain has a high refresh rate.  I can't look at them without seeing rainbows.

So most of the folks around here should be OK?

Seriously, I thought they fixed the rainbow thing?

[Jdurg]

I've got me a 42" LG 1080p LCD TV with ZERO dead pixels.  The TV looks incredible and much sharper, cleaner, and brighter than the comparable Plasma TVs at the store I bought it at.  (A local TV/Appliance Store).  HD TV and DVDs look incredible on this thing.  Best purchase I've ever made. 

[shmokes]

From what I've read recently the new Pioneer Kuro plasma is the best TV in existence . . . besting the best LCD on the market.  That doesn't really say much about whether plasmas are typically better than LCDs, of course. 

[boykster]

From what I've read recently the new Pioneer Kuro plasma is the best TV in existence . . . besting the best LCD on the market.  That doesn't really say much about whether plasmas are typically better than LCDs, of course. 

It really is an amazing panel.  As for plasma vs lcd typically, it really is a personal preference and a matter of where it's to be installed.  I'm a big fan of plasmas, but LCD's are nice too, depending on where it's being installed.  I'm not knocking DLP, I think it's a really innovative and quality product, but I've never seen a DLP that didnt' give me a headache.  Sure, rainbows require the eye movement, but the headaches come no matter what for me.  I haven't seen an LED DLP yet, so that's something to check out.  I doubt that a FP LED DLP projector would put out the necessary lumens either.  Might be ok for RP though.

I HAVE seen several nice 3 chip DLP projectors that I would gladly have in my theater, but I'm not willing to drop the cost of a new toyota prius to upgrade my projector    When 3 chippers drop into the sub $5k range and have screen offset and a decent zoom range (for installation ease) I'll consider one.

[ChadTower]

And when it drops into the $600 range, I'm all over it.

[Level42]

Plasma's and LCD's are still not an option for me. I watched (another)one (LCD, an expensive one, Philips with ambilight) the other day for some time. Black is still grey. When there's a lot of movement it's still shaky. And the digital noise filtering is terrible (although that's because the friend I was watching still has analogue cable, go figure....) And the colors...........the colors.........they're wrong....

I'll stick with my Philips 16:9 CRT for a some more years. I still hope that Canon SED development will come into production (probably not), or that Australian laser TV....

[tommy]

I posted a long time ago that I found a 42" Sony projection screen TV and all that was wrong with it was the mirror that was inside that bounces the colors onto the screen was broken, so it got thrown out. I replaced that mirror and It still works and looks great.

Nothing wrong with projection TV's.

[grantspain]

the only real problem with crt rptv's is burn in,which can be severe

[shmokes]

It can be, but like I say, I've had mine for seven years and I've played A LOT of video games.  I've also come home after being gone for hours only to realize that someone had left the TV on, sitting on the Xbox Media Center menu screen -- meaning there was white text just sitting in one spot on the screen, unmoving.  No burn-in. 

[Guaranos]

When my projection TV's convergence went screwy, I was quoted $250 to fix it.  Instead, I found the part number for the convergence board, bought it for $70 shipped, and installed it myself.  It had 4 connectors and took all of 5 minutes.

[ChadTower]

It can be, but like I say, I've had mine for seven years and I've played A LOT of video games.  I've also come home after being gone for hours only to realize that someone had left the TV on, sitting on the Xbox Media Center menu screen -- meaning there was white text just sitting in one spot on the screen, unmoving.  No burn-in. 

Most of the reports I've seen of that type of burnin have come where the TV is in high light places - and on all the time.  The brightness is set way up to compensate for ambient lighting and it's just hours upon hours upon hours of still time.  Places like TV showrooms (ironically).  I can't say I've ever seen noticeable burn-in in a home application.  Not even on a CRT.

[Jdurg]

I'm just happy that we have options now.  When I was a kid you only had the choice between the massive CRTs or a projection TV that suffered from burn-in and was also not of a very good quality.

I got my 1080p LG 42" LCD TV for a few reasons.  One was that the LCD TV used less energy than the equivalent Plasma that I was looking at which is a big thing for someone who just bought a house and has to pay electricity bills.  Another thing was that I don't like stretching out my Standard Definition TV images to fill the screen.  I find that to be as offensive as Pan-and-Scan is on movies.  I keep the initial aspect ratio and watch a lot of regular TV.  Therefore, with a Plasma I'd have to worry about the vertical black bars burning in to the Plasma TV.  With LCD, burn-in is just not possible. 

Another thing that brought me to the LCD was that at the size I'm looking at, the big differences between Plasma and LCD aren't really that noticeable.  I watch football on Sundays and absolutely love the clarity and smoothness of the image.  I drool when watching High Definition baseball games now.  I'm ecstatic that my cable company is dropping their two-tier High Def service and just making it one tier without upping the price.  (This means I'll get ESPN in HD, the NFL Network in HD, etc).  We're also getting more HD channels which is nice.

But honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with all the choices we have.  No matter what your situation is, you'll always have an option available which makes TV and Home Movies these days sooooooooooooooooooo much better than when I was a young one. 

Edit:  It's also kind of funny because my dad, who isn't technologically capable at all nor does he know anything about technology, saw my TV when I finally calibrated it properly and said "Oh my god, this is the best thing I've ever seen.  This is what HD is?!!!"  He then kept asking me advice on TVs since he wanted to buy one for the den which used to be my bedroom (before I moved out).  He ended up getting a Sharp Aquos because his work had some deal where he paid only 75% of the price.  It's not a bad TV though.  I went over a week or two ago to calibrate everything and my mom now says that my father is glued to that TV.  Can't wait to see his reaction when baseball season starts.  (Like me, a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE Yankees fan and our local Fox station has an HD feed and is doing the non-YES games this year.  So every Yankees game will be in HD for us!   

[divemaster127]

TV's are something I know a few things about.   I provide several thousand of these a year to the military thru the service since I work in supply.  Once a year as part of our bonus program the miltiary provides us with a TV of our choice both so I can learn the technology more & its a good incentive. 
1. The old projection TV's are a dead technology I would not repair, esp. when you can get a 40 lcd or 42 inch plasma for under a grand if you shop.
2. LCD TV's are great as long as you purchase a 42" or small once you break over 42 inches the pictures become blocky.
3. Depending on the dlp you purchase some models the pictures are just as good as plasma look at the Mitsubishi DLP's these have the best picture for a dlp available.  I have a WD65734-65" medallion its 1080P.  I also have a Toshiba HDA-30 hooked up & the picture beats my 37" Toshiba LCD, my 32" lcd, my Toshiba 50" plasma 1080i & my 30" hd tube.  Check these out as bestbuy the picture is amazing.  You can pick up a 57" mitts dlp for around $1577.46
4. Plasma's are good TV's but the pictures do degrade over time, the new models are not as bad.  Some of your best plasma's are the PDP4280HD these are very nice 1080P but they start at $2048.00, for the money LG makes a very good plasma starting price around $1048.00 for a 42"
5. Plasma TV's are not made under a 42 inch model so any size smaller than that get a lcd.
thanks

[billf]

...my 37" Toshiba LCD, my 32" lcd, my Toshiba 50" plasma 1080i & my 30" hd tube.

Damn, you own all of these?

[ChadTower]

Makes sense if he gets a new one, free, of his choosing every year.

[divemaster127]

The only reason I have these units is its part of my military bonus.  For the money the mitts dlp is(in my opinon) the best models available esp. since these are 1080p.
dm

[MaximRecoil]

SED (combines the benefits of CRT's with the benfits of flat panel displays like LCD and plasma) should be better than anything out there currently, assuming it is not "vaporware".

[shmokes]

I got no money for any of that.  I'd love to replace the convergence board and have done with it, but I don't have the skills to diagnose the problem and can hardly just start replacing bits and pieces at random.

[ChadTower]

For the time being you can probably snag a (don't all gasp at once) regular CRT off of Freecycle.  They're not hard to get.

[boykster]

SED (combines the benefits of CRT's with the benfits of flat panel displays like LCD and plasma) should be better than anything out there currently, assuming it is not "vaporware".

yep, looks like great technology.  It will be interesting to see how well it scales.

[divemaster127]

I was in a meeting about 2 months ago, with execs from mitts & toshiba, I was told the technology is already a dead(its not going to be developed or supported except by cannon & a couple of others) right now the next TV tech being worked on is called HD2
dm

[MaximRecoil]

I was in a meeting about 2 months ago, with execs from mitts & toshiba, I was told the technology is already a dead(its not going to be developed or supported except by cannon & a couple of others) right now the next TV tech being worked on is called HD2
dm

What is HD2 exactly?

And I'd take an SED even if only one company made it. A thin and light CRT with no potential convergence or purity issues, that uses less power than either LCD or plasma displays? Sounds perfect to me.

And what about OLED (organic LED)? They've been making small OLED displays readily available since about 2000 (usually on car audio head units; Pioneer was the first company to use them that I ever heard about), but I heard they were developing larger displays. I've heard those have some impressive specifications compared to LCD and plasma displays. For example (from Wikipedia):

OLEDs enable a greater range of colors, brightness, and viewing angle than LCDs, because OLED pixels directly emit light. OLED pixel colors appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90 degrees from normal. LCDs use a backlight and cannot show true black, while an "off" OLED element produces no light and consumes no power. Energy is also wasted in LCDs because they require polarizers which filter out about half of the light emitted by the backlight. Additionally, color filters in color LCDs filter out two-thirds of the light.

OLEDs also have a faster response time than standard LCD screens. Whereas a standard LCD currently has an average of 8-12 millisecond response time, an OLED can have less than 0.01ms response time. [25]

And how about a reported 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio?

At the Las Vegas CES 2007, Sony showcased 11-inch (28 cm, resolution 1,024×600) and 27-inch (68.5 cm, full HD resolution at 1920×1080) models claiming million-to-one contrast ratio and total thickness (including bezels) of 5 mm. Sony plans on releasing a commercial version of this television in Japan in December, 2007.[29]

I hope something comes along that represents true progress over a CRT in all respects, rather than one step forward and two steps back.

[shmokes]

I know that Sony has released an OLED flat panel in Japan at least 11" big.

[MaximRecoil]

I know that Sony has released an OLED flat panel in Japan at least 11" big.

I guess they had one at the CES that was 27" too.

I'd like to view one to compare to a good CRT display. I've only seen the small, low resolution ones on car audio head units; which do look good for what they are (bright, good color, and no viewing angle issues). I've never cared for the look of any LCD or plasma display I've seen.

I don't care if it's OLED, SED, or something that hasn't yet been announced—as long as it meets or exceeds the best CRT displays in all relevant areas, I'd be pleased.