My mum bought a new VCR yesterday from a local independent electrical retailer. She asked if they could set it up with the television for her and they said they would, for a small charge, which was fine with her.

A young lad came up, took everything apart, made a bit of a horlicks (she's got a sky system as well) and left. After some complaining phone calls another technician came up and fixed everything.

Today, when she turns on her TV it's in black and white. She phoned again and they told her to press a certain button on her remote control and that turns the picture back to colour again.

They claim it's nothing to do with what they did and that her TV set is so old it's not storing the settings any more. They've said they'll take it away to their workshop and fix it - for a fee of course.

Does this sound plausible to anyone out there with a bit of tech knowledge? The TV set is getting on a bit but it's always worked perfectly and there's never been any problems hooking up the old VCR or the Sky system.

I'm just a bit wary since mum's an elderly lady who lives on her own and I hate to think she'd be forced to pay out money for something that could be fixed very simply. The way the guys were acting yesterday (long story) doesn't really give me much faith in them to have done the job properly in the first place.

[David (2)]

Sounds like a wind up to me. What you need to do to "test" the tv, is to remove everything, and just plug the main aerial into the tv, and see if the "black + white" problem is still there. If not, then its not her tv at fault.

On a similar note, some years ago my folks bought a new front loading VCR. Until that was installed, the tv picture (or the old top loader VCR) had a fine snow free picture. After the new VCR was installed, all the tv channels and video channel were very snowy. They were told that they needed a signal booster, but when I showed the engineer the tv picture was perfect without the new VCR plugged in, they relented and changed the VCR for another, identical model. This one worked fine, no snow at all. So it was a fault with the new VCR. Problem is many installers just plug things anyhow. I know of people with Sky Digital that only have a scart between their tv and Sky box, and not between the Sky and VCR. One person I know who has a tv with scart was only provided with an aerial link between the equipment! Another repair engineer had repaired somone's tv (an older type with twisty channel buttons) then brought it back and tuned the tv into the wrong tv stations. There is a strong set of signals and a weak set of signals (these being all snowy), and they had only tuned in the wrong ones - I guess it was due to the weak channels being lower down the tuning scale, they just stopped when they found them, and said that was as good as they could get it - strange how when I looked at it I had it re-tuned to the strong signals within a few mins.

Dave

Thanks Dave - I'll be at her house tomorrow so we'll do that then.

[fat controller]

If the TV is a Philips, it is possible that it has developed a fault. Bit of a coincidence, I grant you, but a lot of the older Philips sets used a memory 'battery' which is a re-chargeable battery soldered onto the main board. It may have been getting close to failing anyway, and asking it to store the new tuning settings for the video has pushed it over the edge. Its not a major job to fit a new one, providing they've got the part it should be done inside the hour. To be honsest, I never bothered taking the sets into the workshop, I did them in situ.

Most small independents won't rip you off, its not worth their while - these people survive on word of mouth and repeat business.

Hope you get it fixed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fat controller

If the TV is a Philips, it is possible that it has developed a fault. Bit of a coincidence, I grant you, but a lot of the older Philips sets used a memory 'battery' which is a re-chargeable battery soldered onto the main board. It may have been getting close to failing anyway, and asking it to store the new tuning settings for the video has pushed it over the edge. Its not a major job to fit a new one, providing they've got the part it should be done inside the hour. To be honsest, I never bothered taking the sets into the workshop, I did them in situ.

Most small independents won't rip you off, its not worth their while - these people survive on word of mouth and repeat business.

Hope you get it fixed.

I know for certain it's not a Philips because my brother had so much bother with a Philips TV the family never bought the brand again (although I'd a Philips midi system that went for years).

Would something like that fail on another brand of TV?

I don't know about ripping off exactly but the standard of service was awful from beginning to end and the staff are pretty rude and overbearing. I rang them myself this morning to see what was going on and from the way they talked to me I wouldn't have a lot of faith in their services.

There's only the three electrical stores in our local town. That one, one branch of Currys and another independent - but both the independents are pretty large stores.

To sum up, if it's something that does need to be fixed and paid for I'd rather she got another repairman out to do the job rather than going back to the original people.

Just got some more details. The TV is a Mitsubishi if that's any help - and the new video doesn't work at all.

[Jimmy Connors]

Edna. I had a very similar problem a few years ago with a new video machine that seemed to make the TV turn B&W etc, The same problems your Mum is having. I took the VCR back and they replaced it for a new one. That machine (and the TV) worked fine (still works today)

Luckily for me I bought it from Argos - so no problem changing it. Sounds like your Mum's machine is faulty as well. Ask them to replace the machine. Are you going to be there the next time they call? I'm sure your Mum is up to it, but some repairers seem to think the elderly are a push over. They won't make that mistake if you are there.

Good luck Edna. I hope your Mum gets her video/TV working soon.

Oh, just noticed you only have the 3 electrical stores in your town. Have you considered buying one on-line? John Lewis are very reliable! (I don't work for them I swear)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Connors

Edna. I had a very similar problem a few years ago with a new video machine that seemed to make the TV turn B&W etc, The same problems your Mum is having. I took the VCR back and they replaced it for a new one. That machine (and the TV) worked fine (still works today)

Luckily for me I bought it from Argos - so no problem changing it. Sounds like your Mum's machine is faulty as well. Ask them to replace the machine. Are you going to be there the next time they call? I'm sure your Mum is up to it, but some repairers seem to think the elderly are a push over. They won't make that mistake if you are there.

Good luck Edna. I hope your Mum gets her video/TV working soon.

Oh, just noticed you only have the 3 electrical stores in your town. Have you considered buying one on-line? John Lewis are very reliable! (I don't work for them I swear)

Ha! Good idea - I'll take our own video in with us tomorrow and give that a try too.

Personally I'd have nipped round to Argos and got her a VCR but myself and the better half have been laid up with the flu and typical of my mum she said she didn't want to give us any trouble (some day I'll get it into her head that we never mind doing anything for her, but you know what mum's are like )

I know what you mean about the attitude towards the elderly. That's why I advised her to hang back until we had a chance to call in with her and I said I'd ask about it on here.

I'll keep you all posted on how the saga turns out

[alanwarwic]

take it back and get a refund if you can.

VCRs £33 in ASDA, £32 Argos

[rifleman19]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edna

Today, when she turns on her TV it's in black and white. She phoned again and they told her to press a certain button on her remote control and that turns the picture back to colour again.

That just may be correct if the scart socket on the tv can also accept a SVHS signal,

All standard vcr's output a composite signal and though a scart socket set to SVHS the picture would appear in black and white,

Might be worth checking if the tv setting for av input has not been altered.

[David (2)]

Thats a good point. Ony most recent Sony tv's, if you press the scart button too many times, you can "bypass" the real signal and end up with an alternative one (S-Video) which is sort of black & white (still just a bit of colour in the picture on the sets I have seen), and a number of fine lines over the picture, sort of a mesh effect. In such cases, you have to press the scart button again and again until it finds the real signal again. What I find is that if you get to the right scart then return to normal tv, then next time you use that equipment the tv should jump back to the right scart setting automatically.

Dave

[fat controller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edna

Just got some more details. The TV is a Mitsubishi if that's any help - and the new video doesn't work at all.

VERY long shot this, so don't hold me to it!!! If the video is connected via SCART, I'm inclined to agree with David, so it might be worth playing with the remote. Once you have selected AV (SCART input) on older Mitsubishi's, you then used the coloured fastext buttons to change from normal composite video to s-video, or between the AV inputs (AV1, AV2) etc. Once you had selected something like S-video, or AV2 the TV would then default to that selection every time the initial AV request was made. Try selecting AV then using the fastext buttons whilst playing a tape and see what you get - it won't do any harm to either TV or video.

If the video is connected by RF, then it gets a bit deeper. Some older Mitsubishi sets were prone to problems with the IF strip - although most of these faults showed up as black and white squiggly lines on the picture that might even settle down as the set warmed up. On some TV's there was a section on the IF strip known as the VCC (Video Compensation Circuit) and this usually only came into play when a specific channel was selected (usually 8 or 0). If the installer isn't old enough to remember TV's that had this, and has tuned it into any old 'spare' channel, then this might (just might) cause your problems. But, and its a big but, it was my understanding that the VCC became obsolite many years ago, and the only sets to have it were the old 'wooden box' type.

As for the service you have recieved, that is very dissapointing to hear. I worked for small family businesses for my entire time in the trade before I hung up my iron and changed career entirely, and we would get so much business purely on recommendations by word of mouth that we often had more than we could really cope with.

Hope you find a solution soon.

Well here's a very weird ending to the story.

My brother poked around last night and got the video working OK, but the problem with the TV coming on in black and white was still there.

We all arrived in today and my partner had a quick look around the back to see the set-up, pushed everything back into place and we were just chatting five moments before the work would start.

Mum turned on the TV to show us.......and it was working perfectly. We spent most of the day in there and kept checking it all the time but it's still working perfectly.

All we can think of is that there was maybe a loose connection somewhere. My partner's getting a lot of teasing that he should take up TV repair for a living since he seems to have a magic touch

Thanks for all the advice - sorry I can't seem to come up with a better answer as to what was actually wrong but I'm glad I told mum not to send the TV off for expensive repairs.

She's going to get herself a new TV anyway very soon - but I think we'll be shopping somewhere else

[asdigi]

Its sounds like the shop may be right to me im affraid. My neighbors have a mitsubishi tv who moved down from london and asked me if i could re-tune the tv as they couldn't recieve any channels as there on different frequencys obviously, i had re-tuned bbc 1 and 2 and ITV and then i went to do 4 and it would only store it on number 8 so it switched it off and on and the picture when the tv was switched on was really dark, looked black and white and the only way i could get colour was to press a button on the remote called 'Optimum', after that it now wont store anything so channel is on 8 and every time you switch it on you have to press Optimum. Sounds like this has happened to your mum's mitsubishi too but i may be wrong..........

[asdigi]

must type faster

glad its sorted now

[Jimmy Connors]

That's good Edna. Glad it's all sorted and Mums happy.