I got a call from a friend yesterday, asking if I would help him set up his new Sony plasma TV and surround system. Sure, no problem. My friends used to call me “Mr. Wires” because I know how to hook things up.
First thing: read the manuals. What happened to instructions? The booklet was a series of confusing pictograms and diagrams with lines and arrows and legends and hints in bubbles and we all went and sat on the Group W bench.
Next thing: try to figure out how to attach the rails to the back of the flat panel. They give you three packages, containing about a hundred different screws, washers, spacers and dimpled locker plates for every conceivable TV you could buy, except for this one. “If your model is not listed, see Pages 8 and 9.” Pages 8 and 9 are life-sized drawings of each screw, washer, spacer and dimpled locker plate. They supplied a plastic stir-stick, which you are supposed to use as a screw socket depth gauge. You mark how deep the socket is on the stir-stick with a marker. Then, you have to find a screw that is shorter than, but not longer than, your mark. And it has to be the proper diameter screw. Two of the sockets are the same depth. The other two are not.
So you go back to the Group W bench and get the screw packages. None of the screws is labelled. You have to figure out which screw is the right one. The first few times, even after comparing them to the diagrams on Pages 8 & 9, you select the wrong screw. So, you get the right screws and you screw the rails on. They’re uneven. So you have to unscrew them, and straighten them. Then the book says to put the dimpled locker plate under the screw and make the dimple fit in a socket on the rail. This is after you’ve already put in the screws. So you unscrew the screws, put the locker plates in the middle, refasten the screws. The rails are on! Now you test it with the wall-mount. Slide the bar onto the guides, and it’s crooked. Line it up and make an adustment. Then find your studs and drill pilot holes for the mounting bracket. Put that on and screw it in. Now you can hang the TV. It was straight and true the first time. Number of screws and accessories supplied: about 100. Screws and accessories used: 12.
Elapsed time: three hours.
Then we got the surround speakers wired up and hung on the wall. Connected up the equipment. The digital cable TV worked, although it didn’t look great. I expected it to look great; it only looks fair. At least they can watch TV on it, and the sound comes out of the TV. It does not, however, come out of the surround speakers. We have to leave that for another day, because the elapsed time was now five hours. My friend’s wife is going to read all the manuals and see if she can learn anything she needs to know about any setup or other stuff we haven’t done yet.
I think we’ll have to split the cable into the digital cable box and the surround unit. It’s a 5 DVD/CD changer and surround amplifier and source switcher. They both do TV, and the surround unit probably requires it. But as I said, another day.
If the instructions were the least bit clear, or if they made it intuitive, it wouldn’t be a hassle. But those pictograms and things are useless without text to describe what you’re supposed to do. Not to mention that the manual’s printing is so small, I had to ask for a magnifying glass so I could read what it said the sockets were for. My friends wouldn’t have been able to assemble the system by themselves, so they called me because they figured I’d have some idea where they had none. I got them up and running, but it was so confusing! And time-consuming! It’s a wonder anybody can get their own system together. It’s not as straightforward as it looks.
Well, there’s my rant about it. Has anybody else had such an experience with your own systems?
