Under The Palms

Here's my line-up:
Living room: Panasonic 42" 1080p Plasma
My room: Philips 34" HD CRT

All hooked up to Verizon Fios HD basic package, and Tivo boxes on each tv.

Living room: Sony 50" 1080p
My room: LG 42" 1080p
Parents: Sony Bravio 55" 1080p

Honestly unsure of the specs but in living room Sony Bravia 32''

My room LG 32''

Kids have a cheapy just to watch movies

Samsung HD Flats....50' and 32'

Cris.

52" Sony XBR9 (A.K.A. Wifey)

&

55" Mitsubishi Diamond Series, I don't know the model number, but it's a DLP, that really needs to be calibrated, The image is super fuzzy.

Do the colors look washed out or like solarized? You can tell in fleshtones on faces. Mitsubishi DLPs are known to do that, or some that were made with an LCD chip, instead of DLP chip, can get a yellowish picture. Let me know if your XBR9 starts to drop out audio, or if the pic flashes pink or green on any input that you're using HDMI cables with, because there are a lot of complaints for that right now, and if settings adjustments on the source equipment's HDMI settings don't take care of it, you may have to switch to component cables! I love Sony LCDs, especially those XBR9s. They've got a crisp panel.

Living Room: 50' Vizio 1080p
Bedroom: 40' Samsung 1080p

Don't know the exact model.

The Mitsubishi is yellow on the left, and blue on the right and it's a little blurry in the center. I stole this tv from my grandparents house about a year ago and it's been that way ever since. I don't know if it's an alignment issue or something else went bad. The tv wasn't being used over there. And there's no way to tell how long it's been that way.

So far the XBR9 has been great and I got that on Black Friday last year. I haven't noticed any change in audio or anything yet. Part of the promotion when I bought it was I got a free 7.1 receiver for free. I've been looking off and on for a good 7.1 system. But can't really find anything and everything that I do find already has a receiver. The whole set up is Sony, tv, bluray and receiver and if it's possible I'd like to keep it that way. Can you recommend something for me?

Also since I work for Starbucks part of our perks is we get access to best buys privTe auction store. I just found out about that last week. I've been watching a few things but haven't bid on anything yet. Had you done anything on there yet?

Sony Bravia KDL-52Z5100

re: FTHATIMFAMOUS

I've boughten a refurbished PS3 off the Best Buy Private Auction site, as well as an electric floor heater, when it first opened. Haven't used it in a long time. If you are 100% sure that the tv is a DLP Mitsubishi, then yeah, that yellow and blue pic is an issue we deal with here and there. The yellow is like a faded stain, mostly visible on white, or lighter backgrounds right? And the blue, looks like individual pixels or "stars" right? If the colors look unaligned, like 3D, then you don't have a DLP, and you have an older style 3-CRT projection tv. Not worth it to fix out of warranty, cause it'll cost more in parts than what the tv's worth. Gotta have warranties these days. As far as surround sound systems go, I have no clue. I am a fan of components. Buy each piece separately.

I'm not sure if it's DLP or what, I dont know what DLP is haha, thats just what I was told it was, and assumed it was right.

I never really did any research on TVs until just before I got the XBR9.

But it does look like an 3D image (W/o the glasses) Except yellow for red. I was told there were mirrors inside of the tv that can swivel and be knocked out of alignment. I know this is probably a stupid question, but is DLP a type of rear projection TV? or is it something completely different?

DLP is a type of rear projection tv. Any tv that has a big hollow cabinet, with a large mirror in it, to reflect the image on to the plastic screen, is in a sense, projection. A DLP projection uses a small chip, about the size of an inch...smaller actually, and it has microscopic mirrors for each pixel, and the mirrors move back and forth individually, to turn the pixels different shades of colors, which then gets sent through a magnifying lens, like an overhead projector, then to the mirror, to give you a total picture. LCD projection is the same concept, but instead of a tiny DLP chip, it uses a tiny LCD screen, where light is passed through it, and lights up the pixels. Oldschool CRT projection, has 3 CRT picture tubess, Red, Green, and Blue, which each shoot the exact same picture onto the large mirror, but all 3 must be lined up perfectly (called convergence), in order to give the full color spectrum. If one picture tube becomes misaligned, you will notice a single color that is shifted from the other two colors. I think that's the type you have. You see red on one side, and yellow (blue + green) on the other side. It's shifted the red.

Ok, so we played with the TV a little bit and tried to calibrate it and move it around, it seems like the blue chip is the one that is either broken or just not responding. Is there somewhere where I can buy just that blue chip and can I do the install myself or do I need to have someone come out to help me with it. This TV is way out of its warranty so Im not worried about voiding anything. And how much would it cost me? roughly?

Thanks for your help. TVs are probably the last thing you want to have to worry about.

OK, so by adjusting the blue convergence, it didn't move much right? If only part of the screen is off, then the convergence iC is bad, and needs to be changed. If the entire blue color is shifted, or looks larger than the other 2 colors, then maybe it's just a fuse. I have a feeling, you may not even need parts, just a good resoldering of the tiny pins on the convergence iCs. Mitsubishis are notorious for that. The hard part is disconnecting everything, and flipping the board upside down, to put it in a position that's easy for you. There are 2 convergence iCs, sitting side by side, mounted to a huge heatsink, that's aluminum, and has fins on it. The bottom side of the board has pins on it. Each iC is like a 24pin ic, so 48 tiny pins need to be resoldered, without bridging the connections, or else it will kill a portion of the chip, or all of it, and the colors will all be out of whack. Look up your model# on google, and add the words "convergence ic resolder" tips. Hope that helps!

We have an old Philips TV in the living which is slowly dying. The screen turns purple for the first couple of minutes. At first I thought there was some kind of magnetic field causing the problem, but now I think it probably had it's time after 10 years.

There's a 32' Samsung LCD in the TV room. 3 years old and does the job, but really like to get a new one here as well. Black levels are awful compared 2010 models.