out with the old...

in with the new....

My old tele has been acting up for over a week now. First, there was no red. Then, there was no yellow. Over the weekend, it came down to just black and white. I was toying with the idea of waiting for pay day to get a new tele but the thought of the tele breaking down during the week where there are a few good programmes that I want to watch, was just unbearable.

So, I caved in and forked out a few hundred dollars to get myself a spanking new tele to replace the old boy, who has serviced me since 1995. My new tele is a Toshiba 20 inch LCD flat screen.

This new toy should be the highlight of my week.... but no. Man, I was having issues, technical issues. If you are not keen on technical stuff, skip the next 3 paragraphs.

TECHNICAL ISSUES
I plugged special cables, which I paid $75 for, from the DVD player to component connection on the tele. I understand that it would give superb quality picture. However, the moment I plugged in the last of the three component cables, the picture on my cable channel would disappear. But no indication that the DVD player is actually connected. After a few tries, I gave up and revert to the regular video-out connection with regular video/audio cables.

So now the DVD works but my DVD remote is conflicting with the tele sensor. When I press buttons on the DVD remote, the tele would switch functions like as if I have pressed the tele's remote and vice versa. I switched of the DVD player but the sensor issue is still not resolved but worse happened...

Now, most of the functions on the tele's remote is not working except for the power on/off button and a few other buttons which I don't need to use. The menu function is totally out now and thus, I cannot adjust the brightness, colour, contrast of the picture on my tele.

I gave up fixing it. I may bring the remote back to the shop to test it with the same tele on display to see if it works. When I regained my sanity, I will sit down and figure it out again. In the meantime, you experts with the video components/remote control functions, do provide me with some pointers.

Apart from all the issues, I like the look for my spanking new state-of-the-art tele. However, the services of my old tele and VCR are not forgotten.

Long Service Award goes to:

NEC Color Television - providing good video image services since 1995 (left)

Mitsubishi Video Cassette (what is that?) Recorder - providing recording & playback services since 1990. (right)

Your years of good service are greatly appreciated!