I bought a 50" plasma TV about 3 years ago and it’s generally been great, but I’ve noticed a weird problem I have never seen on a plasma before, and no, I didn’t purchase the extended warrantly that Best Buy tried their darndest to sell me. I can be watching any one of the 500 channels on my Direct TV DVR and whenever it shows an image that is predominently white, like anything on a white background, it displays a rainbow effect with a variety of inappropriate colors flashing across the screen. When the image then switches to a mostly non-white background the colors return to normal. 95% of the time you don’t notice it and then all of a sudden it behaves in this strange way.
It works perfectly with my DVD player, that is, I never have the problem watching any DVD, and it had the same problem in my previous house, which was a cable signal and used a different component RGB video cable. That leads me to think it’s something to do with the DVR, my Sony receiver, or the RGB video cable I am using (the TV doesn’t have an HDMI interface) or the TV itself.
The problem seems to be getting a worse over time, and it happens regardless of whether the TV is fully warmed up or not. I tried adjusting the color controls but that didn’t really help. Any thoughts besides trying to find a shop that can work on the darn thing?
The cables are cheap enough that replacing them should rule them in or out. After that, doesn’t your provider have a service department? In other words, if we were to have a similar problem on our big-screen HDTV (58" Panasonic), then a quick call to Time Warner gets a tech out here in a day or two, and often on the same day. Your provider, assuming it has a similar service setup, could help diagnose the problem. Especially if you go ahead and swap cables to rule them out.
Good point… I will contact the provider after I swap out the cable.
Can you record a scene that causes the problem on the DVR so you can reliably recreate it? That will help with troubleshooting and showing any tech who comes out.
Assuming that the Sony receiver you mentioned is an A/V receiver, and that the component video signal from the DVR is passing through it, possible sources of the problem are:
[ul]DVR
[li]component cable between DVR and receiver[/li][li]Receiver[/li][li]component cable between receiver and TV[/li][li]TV[/ul][/li]
As Liberal says, it’s simplest to rule out the cables first. Since you say that the problem never shows up with DVDs, we can assume that the cables between the the DVD and the receiver, and between the receiver and the TV, are good. For the same reason, we can probably rule out the TV.
So if you switch the DVR cable with the DVD cable and the problem starts showing up on DVDs, you’ve located the bad cable. To be completely sure it’s the cable, you have completely exchange the two cables, not merely cross them so that the DVR and DVD have switched inputs on the receiver.
However, crossing them could reveal a problem in the receiver. Assuming that you’ve proved the cables are good (i.e., the problem shows up on the DVR regardless which cable it’s connected with), if you cross the cables and the problem shows up on DVDs, then it’s that input on the receiver.
My guess is that it’s none of these things, and that it’s probably a problem with the DVR. In my experience, most cable systems will happily exchange set-top boxes on request, and you may be able to do it without requiring a service call (assuming you know how to disconnect and reconnect it yourself). When I had Comcast, I could just go to their office with the old one and get a new one. With Verizon FIOS, they mail me a new one and I use the same box to mail back the old one.
Good luck.