Got a brand new Sylvania 37" LCD Hi Def yaddayadda at K-Mart two weeks ago. Haleluja, the Payne house has joined the 21st century. So we were watching Heroes monday on our (then) 1-week old set. And the picture started getting "snowy." yes, good ol' fashioned analog-broadcast-TV snow! I'm thinkin', how can a digital picture even GET snowy?! It got snowier and snowier until I got up and smacked the TV, and BANG, right back to a perfect picture. This went on for the next two hours, on all channels we watched. That tells me it was the TV, not the signal. We checked our other TVs to make sure it wasn't the signal, and they were fine. I'm all ready to return the set for a trade-in. But it hasn't repeated the problem in three days, which is confusing me.
Oh - wiring: Cable from the world in to the cable box; Coax from the cable box to the VCR/DVD unit pass-thru; Coax to the antenna-in on the TV.
My first thought was that Sylvania was maybe a no-name budget shit-brand. On inspection however it turns out to be a subsidiary of Funai, a Japanese OEM that also supplies to Toshiba, Sharp etc. So you should have no problems there. I'm not sure what it is. Have you ruled out sources of nearby RFI?
Are you viewing an analogue signal or a digital one? My plasma had a setting where you can boost power to the aerial. Might be worth having a look to see if yours has the same.
I think he's using a cable box, which means he doesn't have an aerial. I wonder if it might be the cable itself? I know at my house, the cable that was routed in from outside was total crap. At the time I had cable, my neighborhood supposedly had "fiber optic" cable, which was supposed to provide a much better picture, but it looked like shit on all of my teevees. When I switched to satellite, I was blown away by how great the digital images looked, even on my regular old teevees.
Yes, what is this "aerial" you speak of? I may give it another week before I return it. My friend the electronics tech said it may be the VCR tuner intefering and suggested an alternate wiring scheme, but his idea won't work with the way I have my receiver linked to everything. My only other thought is that I rotate the TV on its shelf every night to face the dinner table while we're eating, then rotate it back. Maybe that little bit of yanking on the cable loosened something inside. But, in a week?!
The only way to figure this out is to investigate the problem yourself. How often is it snowy? When it's snowy can you switch to a DVD and it's STILL snowy ? If you switch from the cable to the over-the-air reception is it still snowy ? If you pull or shake the cable connection wires can you make it snowy ? We need more info.
Shit happens. I bought a Samsung LCD 32" in June, and the picture was gone after four weeks. The TV turned on, and there was sound, but from the picture you'd think it was turned off. Got a refund, thankfully.
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Once, Monday night, for about 2 hours. When i turned it back on for Castle at 10, the problem was gone. Didn't think to try. What is this "over the air" of which you speak? Yes! But only during that 2 hour period on Monday. Jiggling the cable or smacking the TV made the snow stop. But doing that now that it stopped being snowy, doesn't it make it snowy.
Sounds like intermittent signal noise introduced by the VCR, or from some outside source. I suggest shooting it with a flintlock.
Good be. - Next questions... Were you doing something with the vcr? DVD? BluRayPlayer? Which cable did you pull ? the cable to the cable box? the cable to the tv from the box? Did you recently add cable to another room? Do you have digital cable? Seriously don't joke. That doesn't help me figure out a problem I can't see. Did you buy an HDtv with or without a receiver ? I've heard of cable being split so many times (to different rooms/different houses) that the signal quality goes to crap. My advice is to try your hardest to reproduce the snow. If you can't I'd do a yahoo search of failing tvs to see what happens when one bites it. Personally I wouldn't expect snow from a failing HDtv, I'd expect black or miss colored dots, but I don't know that much so.... Snow seems to me to be a problem with an analog source - ie your cable reception.
I thought your name really was Forbin. At any rate, I'd take the TV back for exchange. If it was problematic right out of the box, I'd take it as a warning sign.
I have digital cable from Cablevision. The cable being pulled is the coax coming from the VCR/DVD pass-thru. By "tv with receiver" I assume you mean a recevier in the TV? It has a channel selector, so yes, I guess it has an internal recevier. But it's always set to channel 3 to use the cable box signal. I joked about over the air, 'cause I've used only a cable box for the last 25 years! I don't think I've even seen broadcast TV in all that time! And it still hasn't repeated the problem!
Hmm... the snow was on every channel right ? I have no idea what your setup is. Is the cable going from the cable box to the DVDplayer then from the DVDplayer to the tv ? or does the cable go straight from the cable box to the back of the tv ? If you cable is running through the DVD/VCR combo player then the problem could be there. Some HDtvs are cheaper because they don't have over-the-air-receivers in them. They market them as 'HD monitors'. If you get the snow again try an over-the-air channel and see if the snow is there too.
You know I just remembered that when my grandmother turned her vcr/dvd combo on it would produce a statically looking picture on the cable. Is your player on now? If not try turning it on to see if you can get the snow again.
There's your problem right there. Get high definition multimedia interface or HDMI cables (don't pay more than $5 for them) from the Cable box to the HDTV. I'd also see if your DVD has an HDMI output. If not, I'd consider upgrading. It won't cost more than $40 nowadays. If your HDTV is 1080P, I'd highly reccommend getting a Blu-ray player. they will play all of your old DVDs, but Blu-ray is really the medium of the future and 1080P is just so rewarding, IMHO. The nuTrek is to be released on 11.17 and the trailers in Blu-Ray look spectacular!!
I have cablevision too... you have to make sure that you have an HD cable box.. they'll swap out the one you have for free. Once you get the box, you have to tell it that your TV is capable of getting HD signals. To do this, turn the box off and walk over to it and press the GUIDE and INFO buttons simultaneously. Press the blue "B" button on your remote to tell the box that you want to go into advanced settings. Press "B" to tell it that you now have a 16:9 HDTV. Next, it should go through screens to test if your TV can view the 1080i, 720p, 480p widescreen, 480i widescreen, 480p standard, and 480i standard format. Your TV should be able to view them all. Follow the onscreen directions. If any of this is unclear, call your cablevision operator and he should be able to walk you through it.
I wonder if it was picking up interference from a microwave oven or a cordless telephone or something.
When I first got my HDTV, I hooked it up through coax because that was all I knew. I got the same sort of intermittent interference too. The instant I hooked up the HDMI, I haven't thought about it since. HDMI is shielded from such interference.
Hmmm. Maybe I'll give it another week. I'd probably feel safer trading it in, but it's gonna be a bitch to repack and cart all the way back to K-Mart.
BTW the hdmi cable is like 80 bucks. Do you have hd? I don't have digital cable (I enjoy being ripped of by directv) so I'm not sure if that's standard or not. If not, try something cheaper like an s-video cable or heck just use the red-yellow-white cables. And don't run it through your vcr.
^ I actually paid 0 for my cable. I just know my cousin paid 70 and some change for hers. Alphman's link seems to be a good deal, but you might want to consider the comment below....
