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tuner, washed out color, not clear picture, tuner soldering problems

I spent a fair amount of money for this 35-inch tv for our family room. Now all the sudden it started making noises like a motorboat and the picture gets snow and then disappears. I thought it was the cable company, no, then the cable, no, now I know it's in the tuner. My kids touch the cable where it goes in the back to stop the noise and restore the picture, but I'm afraid they might be shocked or worse. How can they put this product on the market? I called around and found an immigrant repairman who will charge me $85 to fix it, but who knows?

Similar Products Used:

Sony Trinitron I bought in 1983 is still working like the day I bought it which is great.

Large tube, accurate color

Tuner, built-in speakers, birghtness stability, sharpness, number of inputs, power supply problems

I've had this television for five years now, and it is on its last leg. It was, at the time, the cheapest 35" tube on the market.

From the very beginning, I noticed the brightness stability was questionable. Whenever a bright object such as a flame appears in an otherwise dim scene, the scan lines to the left and right of the object go dim compared to the rest of the screen. This problem is lessened by lowering the contrast setting, something that needed to be done from the factory presets anyway.

The image overall is also very soft. This is not a problem with DVD's, which suffer excessive artifacts from too high a sharpness setting, but LD's and cable broadcasts suffer.

Another problem is only one set of video inputs. It does have S-video, but this input is part of the set. It overrides the composite if a signal is sent. There is no way to switch between the two without pressing "input", not a problem per se, but rather counterintuitive.

The built-in speakers are just about a cheap as they could be, but I seldom use these anyway.

The tuner has been deteriorating over the past three years or so. It never did match the quality of the VCR's tuner. It has single tuner PIP, which is a bit of a hassle to operate. Now the T.V. tuner is virtually unwatchable, making PIP totally useless.

But the worst problem started occurring about six months ago and has gotten progressively worse. The television will suddenly lose its signal and then turn itself off and on uncontrollably for over a minute. I checked all the sleep and timer settings. They're all turned off. I bought a very good surge protector. I checked all the video sources. None of these factors made a difference. I suspect that the T.V.'s power supply is giving out.

I'm currently looking at the Toshiba CZ36V61 to replace it. The RCA may get handed down. It served adequately over these few years, but was never a champ.

Similar Products Used:

Sony 27", Toshiba 36" CZ36V61