OT. I think our TV is about to go pop.

Get what you pay for with those.... I'm still running a 7 year old 32in panny wide-screen, still perfect.

Basically I'll be running it till it blows as I hate plasmas...

Surely finding a CRT that somebody's chucking out to be replaced by a TFT/plasma has got to be the best value? Especially since you can probably find quite a posh one for bugger all cash, which will have a decent picture and life.

cheers, clive

I think ours was =A3199 when we bought it. We had a Schneider from ASDA previously. That just gave up totally with=20 no notice but was under warrenty, so I took the money back and ran.

Nobody had anything like the price of the old Schneider, so it was find=20 something suitable. Problem I find with second hand TVs even good ones=20 is, they can be fine right up until they pop, and it might last 10 years=20 or 10 days and if it goes you are screwed.

If another Aldi/Lidl one comes up they tend to be pretty good=20 picture/sound quality for the money and have a 3 year warranty.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

My sister is giving away their 28" widescreen CRT, you can have it for nowt if you come to Teesside and collect it ;)

Look in back at electrolytic smoothing capacitors. If and are bulging at the top or bottom then thats probably the cause. About 20p to fix.

Scarts I cant help you with...

The old one hasn't blown up yet.

Nah, I'll just wait until it gives up. Then I'll do my bit for the economy and buy a new one.

I'm not running an old Panasonic like you, that I can say is still reliable, but my approx 5 month old Panasonic 1080p full-HD 42" plasma is really the bees knees. It replaced an LG that was 18 months old, and faulty, and LG kept sending out the same dumb-f*ck engineers who couldn't see a fault (they were a contracted non-LG company from York), even when I showed them it when they arrived to pick it up one time.

The fault was that very often when you had had it turned off a long time (say, over night), if you turned it on and had left it on AV1, it just froze, had to pull the plug. Also if you turned it on on the normal DTV built in freeview channel it fired up everytime - then if you flicked to AV1 it just did the same thing. I kept telling the engineers this, and they kept bringing it back saying "It's been on AV1 all day, and it's never gone wrong.....". Not to mention they damaged the edge of the built in swivelly stand and stuck some hugely sticky stuff that was insanely hard to shift on the surround... Did LG care? Nah. We even told them the, true, circumstances I was in where I was pretty much bed bound on treatment at the time - not looking for special treatment, just explaining why we were ringing so often and so keen to get it fixed. But no, nothing helped, we just gave up in the end seen as all they were willing to offer was the same repairers, who clearly had MASSIVE problems reading what THEY wrote on the job sheet when they came to pick it up....

Anyway, when I got the bad diagnosis, I thought wtf, and just bought a much, much better TV to replace it. The Panasonic picture, even displaying the output from the same freeview PVR as the LG was, is much better. To the point where people actually comment on how good the picture is unpromted. And when playing a Blu-Ray of a film (new films on BR seem to be better than older films converted to BR, presumably as they were recorded in higher quality or something?) they look really awesome, I never thought it would be that noticeable over DVDs but it really, really is :-)

So, in summary, Panasonic TVs have really good pictures, and this one came with a 5 year warranty - hoping after the LG joke I never have to use it... But surely they can't be *as* bad...? And, on from that, LG TVs have pictures that aren't as good, when displaying from the same scart connected freeview box as the Panasonic.[1] And also, the customer support is truely beyond useless, as are the people they 'hire' to 'fix' (supposedly not damage...) your TV... Also, mine was unreliable at just a few months old. I could be unlucky of course. I'd never buy an LG again, or recommend one to

There are often 28" or bigger widescreen CRTs on Freecycle.

My current TV is a Panasonic 36" CRT - £120 when four years old off a local seller on Fleabay. You don't want to be paying postage on 90kg+ of TV(!).

Hmm. from £1700 to £120 in four years. Reminds me why I'm not an early- adopter...

Another vote for picking up a Panasonic widescreen CRT here.

Bought ours from a Granada ex-rental sale at least 6 years ago (we rented out car park space to them when I worked for Safeway - so got a nice discount - still cost me £300, though) - and it has been faultless since.

Great picture quality, loads of inputs (4 x SCART - a couple RGB and a couple S-Video) plus front composite and S-Video and Dolby Pro-Logic.

I've looked at Plasmas and LCDs for years now, but just can't justify replacing such a good CRT - even if I had to, I'd probably look around for a cheap or freen Panasonic CRT to replace it.

Had Sony CRTs for years and unlikely to replace them until I find a plasma / LCD with a picture anywhere near as good. Yet to find one.

We've got a Sony CRT that was a mad price new, picked up cheap just over a year ago. My plasma is unarguably a better picture - it's a 42" and I'm not sure what size the CRT is, but pretty huge, I'd have thought 36" or so like Steve's.

TBH I've never rated any Sony stuff made in the last 10 years, the picture isn't as good as my old Panasonic CRT used to be either I don't think.

Possible fault with the flyback transformer? (I'm assuming you mean the whistle isn't coming through the speakers here).

Grappenhall TV & Video, Knutsford Road - near the Springbrook - may be able to help you out with repairs or a replacement second hand CRT. They some with a 6 month warranty (at least mine did).

Cheers.

Recently done an install in a new house - all HDMI throughout. Panasonic

The Sony did not like being at the end of a slightly delayed HDMI signal, and the Technika had a better picture. The Panny though is the business. Must admit though I have a now aging LG plasma that apart from not having a large colour gamut (you get banding on graduations) and being SD (848x480) is still going strong. It'll get replaced when it's broken and not before - I don't currently have any HD sources to drive anything better and refuse to give Sky any money.

Had similar eperiences to Dan with LGs customer service too but all it takes is a few calls and faxes, with most companies the trick to good service is getting past the call centre and getting to the executive office.

Panasonic are the best of the bunch at the moment, unless a Pioneer Kuro is in your budget - that is real PQ.

Mine's a 32". Any bigger would be overkill in here.

As for picture quality - unless you're watching HD channels, you don't need the resolution of Plasma or LCD. Sky compress the signal so a massive extent on normal channels, meaning a really good quality CRT is all you need.

Yep, exactley.

Going to wait until it pops before doing anything. No sense in spending the cash before it is needed.

However, it would be worth keeping an eye on Freecycle to see if a nice widescreen CRT is being given away.

Might be worth spending the cash before it damages itself beyond repair/goes on fire?

I don't watch much telly. My 20" Bush is sufficient.

Keep an eye on Freecycle. I've had 2 28" CRTs off there - a Sony and a Panasonic, both perfect working order. There seems to be loads of them about as well.

Mike P