Repair CRT tv or buy HDTV?

[rhoelsch]

I'm pasting in an email I sent to a local repair shop this morning (the noise is very irritating):

Hello, Yesterday I Spoke With Someone There Who Said A Model # Might Get Me A More Accurate Quote For A Part For My Tv... For 2 Weeks, My 32" Sanyo Tube Tv, Model Avm-3289 Makes A High Pitch Whistle After About 40 Mins Of Being On, About As Loud As Talking Volume (not From Speakers), Stays For About 90 Mins, Goes Away For Half Hour, Then Starts Again. Unrelated To Channel, Input Setting, Volume Or Any Other Change. At Least, That's What I Noticed Last Night. Not Your Normal Tv Electronics Whine; Louder. Tech Said May Be Flyback Transformer... Can You Provide Cost For Flyback before I Lug This Thing In?  Thank You -- May Be Looking To Sell, Too, If Interested
Thank You!

An estimate is $40 off the bat, plus $125 for labor ($40 gets included in that), and obviously I'm still waiting for a parts quote (if the flyback is indeed the issue, but at least I'll have an idea). Shop said Sanyo is notoriously difficult to deal with and it may be a week to a month until they get the part shipped, and you won't know how long until it shows up on their doorstep.

My other option is to get a new HD set, which I'm dying to do, but I've got a new baby coming in May and, like most people, my job isn't exactly guaranteed with the economy being so poor.  Been looking at Samsungs, as they've gotten good reviews, I'd go a min. 37" 720p for my room size and 40" 1080p is the max I can fit in my wall-long entertainment center. Sammy 40A550 is on sale at Sears this week for $899, should I decide to push the button, that'd be my ideal.

So, do be responsible and get my current 10-year old but-still-looks-really-great set repaired (as long as it'd be under, say, $250), or jump into HD land? The tv's always on when we're home, and the wife says it's 100% my call. Maybe this'll wind up being a single guy vs. married response thing...   ps - their site did that initial caps thing, not me

[Blanka]

Or try no TV for a year. You're gonna love it 
And if budget AND tv is important, shop around, there's always a friend with an unused one to borrow.

[Thenasty]

ppl throw old CRT TV in my area. I pick up a working 34" SONY fom the curve. I used it for DVD/CONSOLE GAMES etc...

I have someone here in Wayne NJ that has a 34" and looking $$$ for it. But I think, He'll take $100 for it if interested but you must come pick it up. I you want me to tell him your asking price, I'll do it.
I'm quessing on the $100 from the way he spoke with about the TV (he said wants to get something for it). But that was 1 month ago.

LMK if it interest you.

[Blanka]

This must be possible in the USA too
If the family is about to enter bad economic weather, delay the purchase of a new TV. Next year all those crappy HD ready-stuff is ancient crap anyway, and all you can buy then is decent 1080p stuff for nice prices.

[richms]

Is it a wide CRT or a 4:3 - from what I am seeing here, the wide ones are still going for good money, but 4:3 are giveaway items nowdays.

[SirPeale]

If it's just the flyback...just replace the flyback.

I used to get a catalog of electronic parts, including flybacks.  I wish I could remember the name of the company, but I can't.  But they were really cheap.

[Blanka]

But it is kind of strange the wide ones do more money. They have horrible stretching, bad convergence in corners, they have old tuners/input circuits (here there was PalPlus for 16:9 analog TV, but <1% of the 16:9 tv's supports PalPlus), HD signals are handled bad (4:3 tv's in 16:9 mode most of the time show DVD-component signals better than their 16:9 counterparts) and they mostly look crap and weigh twice as much as 4:3 examples (how to design a box around 60kgs of glass?). On the other hand, a good 4:3 TV is perfect for all old analog content, can be used for cabs and consoles and uses little energy. In the end a more worthwhile investment than the strange in-between character of 16:9 CRT's.

[richms]

My ones only have horrible stretching in that stupid mode for 4:3 broadcasts where the edges are stretched more then the centre of the image.

No convergance problems because they are not flat screens, Sure, they dont take HD, but really thats not an issue on a screen that small. I have a 4:3 that will take 1080i and it looks a hell of a lot worse then 576p going into the same screen.

A 4:3 tv is no good IMO, because you either set the reciever to center cut and miss out on the edges, and since noone bothers shooting with any regard for being 4:3 safe these days, thats a huge problem, or you set the box to letterbox and have things surrounded by black boarders when showing things off some of the stoneage channels that are still 4:3 like most of the crap filler channels (and for some reason discovery on sky in NZ)

Yes, they are great for a mame machine, playing older consoles on them and some PS2 games that pre-dated widescreen, but as for watching off air broadcasts - not really. At least on a widescreen you can use zoom to crop the black bars off the top and bottom if you are still watching the analog broadcasts. There is still a couple of channels that are broadcasting full frame pal off air here, but the ones with anything worth watching are all letterboxed since so many people complained about missing sports scores when they were centercut.

[rhoelsch]

It's a 4:3.  I'd fix it myself, but a) I only THINK it's the flyback , and b) it could kill me in a bad way. Yeah, me fixing it's off the table. Haven't gotten that parts quote from the repair center yet.
A new LCD will display analog signals pretty poorly until the digital switchover, then I'll be ok, correct?

Anyone have any HDTV caveats, while I'm still deciding?

[richms]

A wide LCD will display analog signals poorly till the switchoveffr, then not display them at all, but it will display the digital signals fine now and after it, so there is no reason to care about the analog display capabilities.

I am glad that they had enough sense to shoot down that crazy idea of Obamas of delaying it because some luddites hadn't gotten their crap together in the past many years to get a box or a new TV. Hope it all goes well so that the rest of the world will have some confidence in doing it.

We don't get ours till 2012 here in NZ, and most of the UHF band is used up by an obsolete sky tv pay tv service that has a couple 10000s of customers nationwide. They wont return the spectrum because that will free it up for more free channels to compete with their proper sky satellite service. All the TV licenses are expiring in 2012 where they will either be told no more analog or get a short term extension depending on how many people are still watching. IMO it should just be turned off regardless. Its crazy that people expect services to go on indefinably when better options are available

[rhoelsch]

Ok, apparently I can't get a parts quote, either:



We cannot.  Since we don't sell parts and research is time consuming, we
only give prices when an estimate fee is paid.

I wish I could provide more information.

Thanks you,

Joe


----- Original Message -----
From: me
To: them
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 10:49 AM
Subject: RE: Sanyo TV


Is it possible for you to give me a accurate part cost for a flyback for my
model? I realize this may not be the issue.

Thank you
________________________________________
From: them
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:57 AM
To: me
Subject: RE: Sanyo TV

Hello,

Unfortunately we cannot give you an estimate without seeing the tv.  A high
pitch whistle can come from any number of components and unless we hear it,
we cannot give an estimate.
The labor will be $125.00 plus parts.

You can bring the unit in with a $40.00 estimate fee.  That fee will be
applied toward your repair if you decide to fix it.  If you decline the
estimate we give you, the $40.00 is for the estimate fee.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.

Thank you for contacting us.

Joe G. MST, CSM