Post by: Xairbusdriver on November 03, 2009, 05:54:33 PM
History: Sometime Saturday, I heard my wife ask me to come fix the TV in the den. But almost immediately she said "Never mind, I got it working." Of course, I was greatly relieved!
Equipment set up: The set up is complicated because the cable input now goes through a HD converter box to the DVD player and then to the TV. Except for the converter box, all this equipment is analog. The converter box is usually OFF and the signal is "passed through" to the DVD/TV.
Problem discovery: Last night I decided to change channels since Judy is not feeling well (cold, sinus infection or impending flu) and left the room for bed rest. Switching to the PBS station, I saw the usual good image but absolutely no sound!
Problem solving attempts:
1. At first I thought I might have turned down the volume accidentally. This would be difficult as there is no "Mute" button on the remote, so going from normal volume to silence would require holding a button for a few seconds (with the usual visual indications on screen). But I increased and decreased the 'volume' with the correct visual indications but absolutely no audio effect.
2. Assumed that the TV's sound functions had decided to leave, but to confirm, I changed channels. HAH! That channel had sound! OK, back to the PBS channel. No change, no sound. OK, the station must be having technical problems and will soon have a 'scrowler' stating same. With my usual abundance of patience slowly leaving me, I went to another room with a TV and selected the PBS station. Normal sound! I guess they fixed the problem while I was walking from one room to another! So I went back to the den to view the TV. No sound, again! Back to the other TV. Normal sound! Back to the den. No sound. I discounted the idea that, unbeknownst to me, someone had installed a muting switch between these two rooms. The problem must be in the TV.
3. Found the remote for the TV. Entered its menu functions, selected the Sound control screen and saw that nothing was amiss, as far as I could tell. Of course, not! Three steps is way too fast to solve a problem!
4. Back to the TV and selected channels with the TV remote. Selected the PBS channel heard the sound as expected! Aha! The TV is functioning normally!
5. Checked the operation of the TV with the signal coming via the set top box alone. Everything is fine!
6. That could be the end of things, except I can't get Dirty Jobs this way! So I must press onward in my quest!
7. Set everything back to the 'normal' arrangement. Using the DVD controller to operate the TV along with the volume. Still no sound from that channel...then I noticed something that I'd never noticed before. Each time a channel is selected/entered via the remote, there is a little box that appears displaying the channel number as expected. But the new info was that there was also the sound source being displayed! All of them indicated "SAP." But I had just verified that the TV was set for no SAP and no Closed Captioning. But then I noticed something even more strange! I found that the PBS info indicated "CCSAP"! What in the world was that?
First of all, the TV should not be doing that. Secondly, the text was not especially sharp and the "CC" looked more like "((" but I decided that it really was for "Closed Captioning". Of course, there was no captions showing on any channel.
A second discovery was even more interesting. I was now finding several other channels without sound! Many were channels I never view or immediately skip when surfing stations sequentially. But some were channels I've viewed and now they had no sound!
8. Doesn't this indicate that the problem may be in the DVD player? Seems logical, but why do different channels show different audio sources and captioning options? Finally, where are the settings functions for the player? No settings menu on the remote. Only settings seem to be for recording a DVD, which ceased to work many months ago!
Player and TV are Panasonic models. TV at least 10 years old. Player probably only three years old. I'm off to the Panasonic site to see if there is any help there. Otherwise, I'm planning on disconnecting the DVD to save one remote! But this weird behavior is just a challenge I hate to ignore.
"Can you hear me now?"
Post by: Jack W on November 03, 2009, 08:22:12 PM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Nov 3 2009, 06:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
All of a sudden, possibly Saturday, Oct. 31, my favorite (local PBS) TV station stopped providing sound!
Player and TV are Panasonic models. TV at least 10 years old. Player probably only three years old. I'm off to the Panasonic site to see if there is any help there. Otherwise, I'm planning on disconnecting the DVD to save one remote! But this weird behavior is just a challenge I hate to ignore.
"Can you hear me now?"
Player and TV are Panasonic models. TV at least 10 years old. Player probably only three years old. I'm off to the Panasonic site to see if there is any help there. Otherwise, I'm planning on disconnecting the DVD to save one remote! But this weird behavior is just a challenge I hate to ignore.
"Can you hear me now?"
Could this possibly suggest to you that it's time to replace the 10 year old TV?
You can get a pretty nice small flat panel for a very reasonable price now. Or, for a little more, a larger LCD flat panel, and most come with HDMI capabilities. You'll love it. And you'll be happy you did. I sure was.
What size tv is it?
Here's a 24" Viewsonic, full 1080 P LCD TV for $260 from Amazon with free shipping. I have a Viewsonic 22" LCD monitor for my Mac that I love. It also has HDMI input, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-VT2430-24-...2818&sr=1-1
"Can you hear me now?"
- Jack
Post by: Xairbusdriver on November 04, 2009, 08:48:57 AM
Total time for TV watching for me and my wife would be less than 15 hours a week, excluding commercials! Adding those could easily bring the total up to 30! Thus, the channel button (both of them) are wearing out! As for "flat screen," that's what we have. A 36" flat screen CRT. Because of the flat screen, the CRT is about two inches think on the front! It requires renting a small fork lift to remove the TV from its five foot high shelf!
Nope, plenty of other goodies we can think of to spend what I've seen for those new TVs, thank you very much.
The problem, as I suspected, was solely in the DVD. What is so terrible is that my wife took the remote from me and said ever so matter of factly, "Well, this is the button I saw lit up when I thought I had a problem. Have you tried using it?!"
There is a very small button labeled "AUDIO" on the remote, never used it before, always assumed that one would usually enjoy having audio along with the video.
Anyway, each press of the button steps through three choices: Mono, ((Stereo and SAP. If the station also has Closed Captioning available, the SAP changes to ((SAP. Obviously "((" stands for "CC" or Closed Captioning. But even with ((Stereo selected, no Closed Captioning appears. But with SAP selected, it will change to ((SAP and the sound is blocked but still no Closed Captioning. I don't know why it works this way, it just does.At least we now have sound with Nova, Nature, Masterpiece Theater and This Old House!
BTW, I have set up a web site where anyone can donate to a fund to buy us a new LCD TV. When I buy it, I will post images of us happily watching it. Thanks for your generous contributions!
Post by: krissel on November 07, 2009, 01:53:49 AM
They have a CRT analog TV connected to a digital converter. When it was first set up I told Mom to put the TV controller aside and just use the controller for the converter but apparently she accidentally pushed one of the buttons on the TV controller and lost the connection to the converter. Before they called me attempts were made to fix it which involved pressing all kinds of buttons.
Long story short... it took almost an hour over the phone to get the two pieces of hardware to talk to each other, turn off closed captioning and readjust the sound to eliminate a hissing. Not having the controllers in front of me made it rather difficult to explain which button to push and when. At least with a computer problem I can often walk someone through it by looking at my own computer. Not so in this case.
PS: Second call to complain that an odd black box appeared in the middle/bottom of the picture obscuring 2/3 of the screen on several channels, then later disappeared. No clue for that one but will be visiting them tmrw so at least I can troubleshoot in person.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on November 07, 2009, 08:20:46 AM
Our youngest granddaughter seems to be the one whose address we need to keep nearby! 