New TV Sets
A lot of people are completely clueless when it comes to buying
a new TV.
Take this neighbour of mine who just bought a new TV and VCR.
I was called to install them at 6:30pm last night. "But
all I can do is sit and follow the instructions which you can
do just as easily! If you haven't managed by tomorrow call and
I'll come round and help", I said.
Tomorrow arrived and I was called. "We stayed up till
midnight trying to tune in the TV but we failed...please come
and help".
The set was an imposing silvery coloured Hitachi, 28 inch
widescreen with an Aiwa VCR
Much talk about digital followed and I was interested to see
reception of On-Digital which is reported to be not possible for
our postcode.
I'm surprised you didn't get a 32 inch I said as your old
set was a 28 inch. That was their first mistake... it turned out.
They should have got a 32 inch not a 28 inch.
I flipped through the pages of the instruction book. No mention
of digital. "This isn't a digital set", I remarked.
Second mistake!
"This instruction book is dreadful", I said. "Here's
another", was the response. Seemingly the manufacturers had
produced a simplified copy on a separate sheet. "This is
just as bad", I said I can't understand it.
So I tried by trial and error to tune in the various local
stations and tune in the VCR and set its name from "BBC1"
to "VCR" and tune in the satellite and set its name
to "SAT" instead of "DISCOV". Name setting
was awful and why on earth can't manufacturers use teletext to
determine channel number settings as well as station names. Round
here BBC1 and Channel 4 are always reversed when "AUTO TUNE"
is used and the sorting feature supplied is beyond most people.
Most families rely on a youngster to do this for them.
I moved the SCART from 2 to 1 because there was no colour
and a lot of patterning. "That's OK", was the comment,
"You just press "DISPLAY" on the satellite zapper
and the colour comes back. "No it doesn't", I said all
you're doing is switching off the SCART and seeing Channel 4.
Presumably SCART 2 was set to SVHS but I didn't have all morning
to find this out in the instruction book.
Changing to SCART 1 resulted in colour satellite pictures
(analogue versions and all free ones of course) and a decent Channel
5 picture because terrestrial is hopeless in this area.
Next I tackled the job of tuning in satellite on the new VCR.
This was quite easy except I kept getting "LOCKED ...TYPE
IN THE PIN". "That came up last night", was the
retort.
"What are these VCR buttons on the TV remote?",
I was asked. "Sorry you've got an Aiwa VCR and these buttons
are only good for Hitachi VCRs", I said after checking in
the instruction book. "Some manufacturers allow you to set
these for a range of VCRs, but unless it's a feature hidden in
the instruction book, Hitachi don't allow it", I explained.
I then thought I'd get rid of unwanted preset stations on
the TV but the set either doesn't allow this or the manual had
disguised the fact.
The moral I suppose is to never buy anything without a bit
of research and just because the box is very big doesn't mean
the picture will be any bigger than your old set. The word "digital"
is the latest buzz word and can mean virtually anything. Some
old sets use this to describe their stupid microprocessor driven
circuitry and computer monitors are often described as "digital"
but they're not they're, quite definitely "analogue".
Digital monitors went out with the Ark and the old EGA designs
of the 80s.
Finally 16:9 widescreen. This is REALLY DREADFUL. It is impossible
to get a decent picture without little squat men and women running
around the screen or just the top bit of subtitles if you stretch
the height. The number of lines in the stretched mode is a lot
less than 625 and therefore the definition suffers so why should
we put up with this! Setting the picture to "AUTO" won't
help because, I understand, there isn't a consistent way for the
set to determine what is best. When I set this Hitachi TV to 4:3
there was of course an objectionable black bar at either side
of the picture....more objectionable than they might have been
because the EW correction was poor and the sides of the picture
were bowed in and at this setting the picture didn't seem as big
as a normal 24 inch one. I must admit to listening out for fizzing
noises as these usually accompany lost width in an ordinary set.
The TV was also able to be set to 14:9 but this also showed
black bars. If loss of height when the frame chip is feeling poorly,
resulting in horizontal black bars makes people rush off to get
their set fixed, surely not only are vertical black bars totally
unacceptable but when we're watching widescreen on a 4:3 set it's
a poor show on the part of the broadcasters to make us watch our
TV as if the frame circuit is broken!
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