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Just thought I'd mention that mine did the reset thing today. I was sitting there watching a DVD and all of a sudden the screen went black and the green power light started flashing like it does when you first turn it on.

This is the first time that it's done it to me - about 200 hours of viewing so far. It's by far the hottest day that I've been watching the TV so maybe it's heat related??

Got our replacement SXRD 60 last Tuesday. Thought I’d wait a few days before posting any comparisons and observations:

1. Not quite as sharp (focussed?) out of the box.

2. Screen geometry not quite as good (horizontal framing bars are not perfectly straight with letterboxed movies).

3. Cooling fan about the same.

4. Over the last week, colour impurity becoming more pronounced. Not magenta this time. Rather a green cast along the bottom quarter spreading up both sides; becoming slightly bluish at the top; with a “neutral” shade in the centre screen area. No improvement after warm-up.

The green can be very distracting when there are pale areas such as light coloured clothing, and drought ridden, parched paddocks appear to have grass at the bottom of the screen. Getting worse, day by day.

Those of you who have followed my earlier comments in the long thread may recall my saying, “Better the devil you know”. Overall, the previous SXRD was better.

To top it off, on Sunday night, about 9.00 p.m. it powered down by itself. The screen went black. The green LED on the bottom of the frame flashed for a while before the picture resumed. No deep purple this time.

For those who have not followed my posts in the other thead, I have now had TWO 60” SXRDs, both of which have shut down by themselves! ! :P

There is no heat problem in the room; ducted A/C throughout.

The UPS was connected via surge protection and battery backup.

There was no “squawk” indicating transfer to backup.

No flicker in the mains power. No clocks, etc. to be reset.

I ‘phoned Sony yesterday but could only speak to Customer Service who had to go and get comments from Technical.

Came back with 3 options:

1. Return the unit and request a replacement. Made the comment that the unusual coincidence of shut down would be unlikely to occur again. :blink:

My earlier mention of other reports of similar “shut down” events was poorly deflected by the usual “millions sold - very small number of problems”. (I would be very interested to know just how many Australian SXRD 60s have been purchased. There have been only two in our area.)

2. Get an electrician to check our mains supply. :P

3. Contact our local Sony Service Centre.

I said I would speak to the local Sony Centre but also established that if the problem could not be traced within a few days, I would insist on either a replacement or a refund. Customer Service agreed.

I ‘phoned the local bloke who scoffed at the suggestion to have the mains power supply checked. He is going to get back to me after he’s discussed with Sony.

Any other owners out there with more reports of similar events?

Not wishing to put a damper on proceedings, folks. Just reporting as it is. :P

But wait, there’s more!

Last night, when the SXRD was switched on, there was practically NO GREEN CAST! ! !

Don’t know if it is permanent but the improvement is incredible. WHY, WHY? ? ? - has something been reset since the power down? All my settings are still there.

Constructive comments and suggestions are most welcome. :D

Regarding the cooling fan noise, as reported by some. I have observed a difference in noise level depending on seating position, in our room. Also, when I stand up the noise almost disappears (not a comfortable viewing position though :P ). As well, the fan noise subsides if the set is moved further away from the wall (could try some wall fixed damping material). From my point of view, in our circumstances, the fan noise is not a high priority at this stage.

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If its shutting down by itself it's heat. If you can hear the fan while sitting in your room are you sure the fan isn't too close to a wall restricting airflow? I have my 60 in a small room and the only time I hear the fan faintly is when it is running at its higher speed with every other noise in the room shut off. And this is when the room temp was 30 degrees. (and it didn't shut down because of heat)

Then again it could be the harmonic riddled triangle waves coming out of the UPS.

The colour cast changes seem to be coming from the bulb as it ages. Mine did that in the early days of operation but has now settled down to be perfect across the screen. This has been reported by a couple of people.

Funny that you have had two and had similar things happen when others are fine. Is this a pattern appearing?

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Got our replacement SXRD 60 last Tuesday. Thought I’d wait a few days before posting any comparisons and observations:

1. Not quite as sharp (focussed?) out of the box.

2. Screen geometry not quite as good (horizontal framing bars are not perfectly straight with letterboxed movies).

3. Cooling fan about the same.

4. Over the last week, colour impurity becoming more pronounced. Not magenta this time. Rather a green cast along the bottom quarter spreading up both sides; becoming slightly bluish at the top; with a “neutral” shade in the centre screen area. No improvement after warm-up.

The green can be very distracting when there are pale areas such as light coloured clothing, and drought ridden, parched paddocks appear to have grass at the bottom of the screen. Getting worse, day by day.

Those of you who have followed my earlier comments in the long thread may recall my saying, “Better the devil you know”. Overall, the previous SXRD was better.

To top it off, on Sunday night, about 9.00 p.m. it powered down by itself. The screen went black. The green LED on the bottom of the frame flashed for a while before the picture resumed. No deep purple this time.

For those who have not followed my posts in the other thead, I have now had TWO 60” SXRDs, both of which have shut down by themselves! ! :P

There is no heat problem in the room; ducted A/C throughout.

The UPS was connected via surge protection and battery backup.

There was no “squawk” indicating transfer to backup.

No flicker in the mains power. No clocks, etc. to be reset.

I ‘phoned Sony yesterday but could only speak to Customer Service who had to go and get comments from Technical.

Came back with 3 options:

1. Return the unit and request a replacement. Made the comment that the unusual coincidence of shut down would be unlikely to occur again. :blink:

My earlier mention of other reports of similar “shut down” events was poorly deflected by the usual “millions sold - very small number of problems”. (I would be very interested to know just how many Australian SXRD 60s have been purchased. There have been only two in our area.)

2. Get an electrician to check our mains supply. :P

3. Contact our local Sony Service Centre.

I said I would speak to the local Sony Centre but also established that if the problem could not be traced within a few days, I would insist on either a replacement or a refund. Customer Service agreed.

I ‘phoned the local bloke who scoffed at the suggestion to have the mains power supply checked. He is going to get back to me after he’s discussed with Sony.

Any other owners out there with more reports of similar events?

Not wishing to put a damper on proceedings, folks. Just reporting as it is. :P

But wait, there’s more!

Last night, when the SXRD was switched on, there was practically NO GREEN CAST! ! !

Don’t know if it is permanent but the improvement is incredible. WHY, WHY? ? ? - has something been reset since the power down? All my settings are still there.

Constructive comments and suggestions are most welcome. :D

Regarding the cooling fan noise, as reported by some. I have observed a difference in noise level depending on seating position, in our room. Also, when I stand up the noise almost disappears (not a comfortable viewing position though :P ). As well, the fan noise subsides if the set is moved further away from the wall (could try some wall fixed damping material). From my point of view, in our circumstances, the fan noise is not a high priority at this stage.

Reading this (and I'm sorry to hear of your continuing problems) makes me think yet again I should put up with slight convergence problems rather than let someone fiddle and maybe end up with weird colours, or having to get a replacement that could have further issues. As I have stated before my screen is very evenly lit, there are none of the strange colourations, and in fact (after 70-80 hours) the colours and PQ generally are living up to my expectations.

I have noticed the same thing about the fan noise. If I sit forward in my chair the noise reduces, and the same with standing up. Is it some sort of standing wave? Experimenting required.

BTW has anyone got round to looking at 7's tennis to see how clean the white lines are? Funnily the coloured edges seemed less yesterday at a different venue though I know that doesn't make sense.

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On a personal level Kendrew I am sorry to see your having such problems with your new display. I know the pain it causes.

What is interesting with your reports is that now you have a UPS that rules out power issues. You've previoysly confirmed in testing you can go offline from the mains the and the latch time for your standby modified square wave UPS is all fine with powering the Sony.

Whats twisting my noodle now is why the fan isnt auto kicking into high - you can definatly hear high if you manually set it via the options. The sequence is supposed to be normal -> high -> forced shutdown.

As for calibration demanding enthusiasts like us in my view should really get a pro calibration. As it comes from the factory it will be variable. Personally I am waiting to get mine done as there is outstanding things pro calibrators need to learn for our displays and there is confusion over how a US pro calibrator, UMR, actually achieved some things he claimed he achieved.

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Boy did I speak too soon.

My SXRD has started turning itself off constantly as of today (and it's not very hot today) The red light on the front is flashing 9 times which apparently means that it needs to be serviced.

I was told by Sony that I would need to courier the display to the nearest service centre (at my expense) since it's outside of the onsite service area of that centre.

Great stuff.

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I was told by Sony that I would need to courier the display to the nearest service centre (at my expense) since it's outside of the onsite service area of that centre.

Great stuff.

Is there anything specific in the warranty terms about this ?

I was given a warranty reference number by Sony in relation to the convergence correction on my unit to quote to the third party warranty service provider.

Have Sony given you a similar number and the contact details of your nearest warranty service provider ?

With a little luck, when you contact the service privider and you just quote the warranty reference number they may not mention the transport distance and simply add any extra transport charge to the amount they charge Sony for the repair under warranty.

If there is an additional transport charge due to distance, it's better if Sony pay it through their warranty if you can successfully argue a case.

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As for calibration demanding enthusiasts like us in my view should really get a pro calibration. As it comes from the factory it will be variable. Personally I am waiting to get mine done as there is outstanding things pro calibrators need to learn for our displays and there is confusion over how a US pro calibrator, UMR, actually achieved some things he claimed he achieved.

I would be very happy to have a professional calibration but it seems that the local calibrators don't have access to the service manual. To me they would obviously be the ones to do convergence, geometry etc.

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Boy did I speak too soon.

My SXRD has started turning itself off constantly as of today (and it's not very hot today) The red light on the front is flashing 9 times which apparently means that it needs to be serviced.

I was told by Sony that I would need to courier the display to the nearest service centre (at my expense) since it's outside of the onsite service area of that centre.

Great stuff.

I wonder what it is about the 60" that causes this problem that the 70" doesn't have?

HD tuner perhaps?

Different globe?

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I know "what ifs" are a bit pointless, but since convergence errors seem to be pretty even across the screen, why couldn't Sony have designed a simple "user convergence". A white cross in the middle of the screen with the ability to move the 3 colours up and down or sideways. A simple variation on the way we used to do it on the CRT RPTVs....I wonder if it is feasible?

Seeing that before people actually started buying these sets the consensus seemed to be that SXRDs didn't have issues with convergence, maybe Sony actually believed their own publiciity.

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Reading this (and I'm sorry to hear of your continuing problems) makes me think yet again I should put up with slight convergence problems rather than let someone fiddle and maybe end up with weird colours, or having to get a replacement that could have further issues. As I have stated before my screen is very evenly lit, there are none of the strange colourations, and in fact (after 70-80 hours) the colours and PQ generally are living up to my expectations.

*Adjustment to convergence and geometry has not had any adverse impact to the picture on mine.

*Disclaimer: I have not turned it on yet today.

I know "what ifs" are a bit pointless, but since convergence errors seem to be pretty even across the screen, why couldn't Sony have designed a simple "user convergence". A white cross in the middle of the screen with the ability to move the 3 colours up and down or sideways. A simple variation on the way we used to do it on the CRT RPTVs....I wonder if it is feasible?

Seeing that before people actually started buying these sets, the consensus seemed to be that SXRDs didn't have issues with convergence, and maybe Sony actually believed their own publiciity.

I don't see convergence as an issue, unless any error is beyond the range of adjustment available in the service menu.

Interestingly, the tech that adjusted mine made it very clear to me that he was of the view that there are too many user adjustable settings on TV's in general. His attitude suggested that he had had a lot of callouts that were a result of people doing silly things with the settings on their units.

From my perspective however, I too am of the view that it would be better if convergence was available through the user adjustments rather than the service adjustments.

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Interestingly, the tech that adjusted mine made it very clear to me that he was of the view that there are too many user adjustable settings on TV's in general. His attitude suggested that he had had a lot of callouts that were a result of people doing silly things with the settings on their units.

I must admit though that from my perspective too, it would be better if convergence was available through the user adjustments rather than the service adjustments.

I would happily forgo half the picture adjustments for 1 convergence adjustment.

I remember reading of several people in AVS forums who had a worsening of the picture after convergence adjustments....green faces etc. Whether or not the adjustments were professionally done I don't know.

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I would happily forgo half the picture adjustments for 1 convergence adjustment.

Actually you need 6, one for each colour for both vertical and horizontal. :blink:

I remember reading of several people in AVS forums who had a worsening of the picture after convergence adjustments....green faces etc. Whether or not the adjustments were professionally done I don't know.

Did those who got a worse picture know what they were doing ?, who knows!

How are you going with the laptop ?, Have you got any test patterns on your unit yet ?

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I would happily forgo half the picture adjustments for 1 convergence adjustment.

I remember reading of several people in AVS forums who had a worsening of the picture after convergence adjustments....green faces etc. Whether or not the adjustments were professionally done I don't know.

The convergence adjustment on the Sony is a lot easier then on your old Toshi CRT.

You managed to do that ok so the Sony will be a breeze.

The good thing is that you will not have to do it again ever. :D

Seeing as its not difficult, I don’t understand why Sony did not get it right in the factory. :blink:

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The convergence adjustment on the Sony is a lot easier then on your old Toshi CRT.

You managed to do that ok so the Sony will be a breeze.

The good thing is that you will not have to do it again ever. :D

Seeing as its not difficult, I don’t understand why Sony did not get it right in the factory. :blink:

Do you think so? I am very nervous of going into the Sony service menu, but I suppose I was the first time I went into the Tosh as well. Have you seen a step-by-step guide anywhere of doing it and saving it? I remember I got one with diagrams for the Tosh from the internet.

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You are in Perth aren't you, so I'm not sure about your programming. But in the east tennis is on 7/Prime from 7.30 pm.

It's on here at 7:30pm tonight as well so I'll take a look. Most likely a delayed telecast if they do the same thing as nine do with the one day cricket.

I'm looking forward to the pictures of your convergence with the test patterns and a pixel count on any error.

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If its shutting down by itself it's heat.

It is NOT heat - read my and others' posts.

If you can hear the fan while sitting in your room are you sure the fan isn't too close to a wall restricting airflow?

I am SURE the fan isn't too close to a wall, etc.

I have my 60 in a small room and the only time I hear the fan faintly is when it is running at its higher speed with every other noise in the room shut off. And this is when the room temp was 30 degrees. (and it didn't shut down because of heat)

Our room NEVER gets above 26 degrees.

Then again it could be the harmonic riddled triangle waves coming out of the UPS.

What about the owners who have had SXRD (60") shutdowns - BUT - do NOT have a connected UPS?

The colour cast changes seem to be coming from the bulb as it ages. Mine did that in the early days of operation but has now settled down to be perfect across the screen. This has been reported by a couple of people.

Did your colour cast change INSTANTLY - or has it been a gradual process?

Funny that you have had two and had similar things happen when others are fine. Is this a pattern appearing?

FUNNY? ? So I've had two which have shut down. I really wish I hadn't. However, all others' are NOT fine. - Perhaps you could elaborate on the Pattern - but try to avoid saying that there is something wrong with our setup - when you haven't got the foggiest. :blink:

On a personal level Kendrew I am sorry to see your having such problems with your new display. I know the pain it causes.

What is interesting with your reports is that now you have a UPS that rules out power issues. You've previoysly confirmed in testing you can go offline from the mains the and the latch time for your standby modified square wave UPS is all fine with powering the Sony.

Whats twisting my noodle now is why the fan isnt auto kicking into high - you can definatly hear high if you manually set it via the options. The sequence is supposed to be normal -> high -> forced shutdown.

As for calibration demanding enthusiasts like us in my view should really get a pro calibration. As it comes from the factory it will be variable. Personally I am waiting to get mine done as there is outstanding things pro calibrators need to learn for our displays and there is confusion over how a US pro calibrator, UMR, actually achieved some things he claimed he achieved.

Thanks for your sympathy Bathrone. Amazingly (to me), I am much less concerned with the problem than I was when it occurred with the first SXRD. It is very mystifying but hopefully will be sorted out eventually. There must, surely, be a common cause for shutdown with all owners who have experienced it.

The fact that in our case the fan neither engages in high mode, nor does the set switch to standby, perhaps suggests there is not a heat problem?

Boy did I speak too soon.

My SXRD has started turning itself off constantly as of today (and it's not very hot today) The red light on the front is flashing 9 times which apparently means that it needs to be serviced.

I was told by Sony that I would need to courier the display to the nearest service centre (at my expense) since it's outside of the onsite service area of that centre.

Great stuff.

Very sad. Yet your SXRD may be entering the next phase of the self-shutdown phenomenon. If so, the cause may become simple to diagnose.

It is unfortunate (and unfair in my opinion) that you should have to pay for freight to a service centre.

Let's trust that drsmith's suggestions and rationale are successful. They seem eminently reasonable.

Please keep us posted.

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Do you think so? I am very nervous of going into the Sony service menu, but I suppose I was the first time I went into the Tosh as well. Have you seen a step-by-step guide anywhere of doing it and saving it? I remember I got one with diagrams for the Tosh from the internet.

If I ever get around to buying one of these things, I’ll write a “how too” guide. :blink:

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It is unfortunate (and unfair in my opinion) that you should have to pay for freight to a service centre.

The service centre flat-out refused to pay for courier charges (about $140) They said that I should cry foul to Sony but when I did, the Sony rep said that they don't cover transport costs for warranty claims.

A similar thing happened to my father who had to pay a hefty 'travel expenses' sum for a tech to come and fix his air-conditioner under warranty. It's a bit of a raw deal for the consumer in my opinion. It should be stated clearly when you buy something that your address is outside of a service area and that you'll need to pay these sorts of fees.

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If I ever get around to buying one of these things, I’ll write a “how too” guide. :blink:

I was hoping you'd say that. What are your current thoughts about purchasing one?

The service centre flat-out refused to pay for courier charges (about $140) They said that I should to cry foul to Sony but when I did, the Sony rep said that they don't cover transport costs for warranty claims.

A similar thing happened to my father who had to pay a hefty 'travel expenses' sum for a tech to come and fix his air-conditioner under warranty. It's a bit of a raw deal for the consumer in my opinion. It should be stated clearly when you buy something that your address is outside of a service area and that you'll need to pay these sorts of fees.

Living 50km from the service centre I feel strongly about this issue as well. It is stated in the warranty that it covers only up to 15km, but with a brand new set that has problems surely any charges should be waived.

It could be worth making a stink direct to Sony. It's cheaper for them than going through the replacement routine.

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The convergence adjustment on the Sony is a lot easier then on your old Toshi CRT.

You managed to do that ok so the Sony will be a breeze.

The good thing is that you will not have to do it again ever. :D

Seeing as its not difficult, I don’t understand why Sony did not get it right in the factory. :blink:

The convergence settings on my 60" SXRD were arguably correct, as set at the factory.

However I was able to achieve a modest improvement by adopting a different compromise to what was chosen at the factory. This improvement is particularly noticeable when using the SXRD as a computer monitor and displaying dark text on a light background. (As per my post #89 above).

Fortunately, I am not experiencing any of the adverse issues reported by others (noisy fan, self-induced switching off, marked* colour variations).

* When the set was first used, the colours did not appear quite right. Acceptable, but not earth-shatteringly good. However, on the second day there was a slight improvement, and by the third day, the colours were achieving the unncanny realistic look that makes the technology so distinctive. So in my case, the UHP lamp needed a settling in period of use of around 25 hours.

Yesterday I viewed some high bit-rate high definition demo footage on my 60" SXRD: philips.demo.colors.of.miami.1080i.tp, which I displayed using VLC player. The colours looked very realistic. This is a 787MB file that is obtainable using Bit Torrent software. I presume that as it is a promotional demo file there are no issues with downloading it. Here is a reference to how the demo was made.

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Owen,

Have you decided to wear the Toshi out with those 2 terrabytes of DVD's first ?

Hitachi mate, not Toshi.

The 8800 card has given the Hitachi a new lease on life.

I’m quite surprised how much of an improvement it is over the 7800, and it addresses my only real concern with the Hitachi which is noise rejection.

The Hitachi does no video processing what so ever, so the PC has to do it.

I have been able to handle video noise for SD content via FFDShow for years, but 1080i is difficult, especially true interlaced content which needs deinterlacing which cant be done well in software.

The 8800 with do it in the drivers in VMR9, where as the 7800 only did it in Overlay, which is not quite as good quality wise.

Not may DVD’s on my server, mostly good stuff. :blink:

I was hoping you'd say that. What are your current thoughts about purchasing one?

As for the SXRD, I’m still keen on the idea, but it requires me to get off my lazy butt and go out and hassle some retailers, something I don’t enjoy, plus I’m busy with other things at the moment.

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