I was shopping for TV’s yesterday and decided on a Mitsubishi 42" rear projection. The sales guy (who kept saying that he is NOT on commission) urged me to most definately purchase the “extended service contract” for $250 because the “guns” in the TV need to be adjusted and maintained several times a year.
Being relatively new to the technology of projection TVs, do these things really require that much maintenance? If so, is it something that I could buy a book for and handle myself (moderately skilled mechanically)? I would think a $1500 TV should last more than a few months with out needing service.
The CRT projectors do not need to be adjusted anywhere near that often. I know many people who never adjust them at all, and the picture looks fine. You might not get quite the high level of detail that you get after a professional adjustment, but it’s a small difference. IIRC, they generally do have some adjustments available to the user, just to make sure it’s all focused correctly, though that info could be a bit old, new models might be more automatic.
I also don’t think a $250 service warranty is designed to give the consumer ‘several’ individual service calls a year to fine tune the TV. Most likely you’d get the guy there saying “yup, it works” and he goes home.
So how involved is the process that the service technician would be performing? Does it involve special diagnostic equipment, and opening the case of the TV?
I can’t even imagine what the heck this guy was talking about. I’ve had a 3-CRT projection TV since 2000. There’s an alignment procedure I can access from the setup menu to set the color convergence (-ance?), but I’ve never had to have a professional technician align anything. A friend of mine has a much newer HDTV rear projection TV and his alignment procedure is much more complex (consisting of a bunch of “plus signs” all over the screen, each of which can be adjusted independently) but it’s still basically the same thing. I was in Best Buy the other day looking at new TV’s and many of them advertised auto-alignment. So I can’t imagine what this sales guy was talking about.
I think it is mostly what pestie mentioned. Some home theater enthusiasts would pay someone to come and set up the TV to acheive maximum clarity and performance. Since the 3 individual beams come together at the screen, if they aren’t aligned correctly, the picture could be smeared or off-color. This is fine tuning, not really necessary to get a good picture from the screen, and certainly not the kind of work a Maintenance guy is going to do. A setup guy will also set the contrast, brightness, etc. to give you the best looking picture. With HTDV, this is probably a thing of the past, but I’m no expert.
By following the instructions in the manual, you can do any required fine tuning you deem necessary, no extended warranty required.
I think the right answer to that kind of sales pressure is “This thing needs to be serviced every few months? What a piece of junk! I’ll stick with my old TV, thankyouverymuch.”
If you’re going to be using a DVD player with your TV, you can get a “TV Adjustment” DVD disc that steps you through all the different color, brightness, contrast, and sound adjustments you need to do for an “optimal” experience. Costs only around $20-$30, and you wouldn’t need to pay it annually.
I got the AVIA Guide to Home Theater when I bought my 55" Mitsubishi rear-projection TV. I’ve only adjusted it once – primarily to turn down the brightness and contrast from the factor settings, which are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high – and have never noticed any problems since.
There is a recommended process called ISF calibration that properly configures your TV for the optimal picture. This is done by a technician who comes to your house with special tools including light meters, etc. and has enough training to safely go into your TV’s internals. You should do this after the break-in period (maybe 100 hours of viewing time) and perhaps every 2 years afterwards.
The DIY DVDs that rjung mentions include such titles as Digital Video Essentials (DVE) and AVIA, which are both available at Amazon. However, it’s worth noting that the difference between this approach and ISF calibration is analagous to the difference between an oil change and an engine reassembly.
The cost for an ISF calibration is around the cost that your salesperson quoted you for the service contract, but is unlikely to be covered in that contract–read it for details.
Why is this recommended? Why can’t the darn TVs work fine out of the box? Because RPTVs are very sensitive to the environment in which they are viewed. If your TV room is bright and open, with lots of windows, you might have trouble viewing the picture unless you turned up the contrast and brightness; then you’d have to adjust the colors, etc. It’s a balancing act. Also, each TV has several inputs (maybe one for DVD, one for cable, etc), and each input has to be properly adjusted.
Oh, and if you decide not to do this, at the very least turn down your contrast level. These are typically set at the highest setting (“torch mode”), and if you leave it like that you’re basically running the engine too hot and shortening the lifespan of your TV.
Check out www.avsforum.com for more info on all aspects of home theater. There’s a Rear Projection TVs forum there that you can search and post questions to.