I went down to Sharper Video (the TV repair shop) at noon to verify with my own eyes that the problems I was seeing aren’t there anymore. I took my test DVD along with me.

All that shit is so right there. 100% reproducible.

I pointed it out to Terry (the repairman on the case) and then he finally saw it. With a moving picture on there it’s harder to tell; but when you get something like a commercial where it’s all white background with just the company logo or something like that, BAM! there it is.

Then Terry ran some of his own tests and, sure enough, it’s there. Apparently he wasn’t the one that proclaimed irreproducibility, just the one who was showing me what’s going on.

I don’t know what the next steps are, though, and neither does Terry. He says that it’s a combination of several parts that do what the set is doing and just replacing the tube isn’t going to fix it. He’s going to call Sony to see what they say. If Sony says the TV is still within factory spec (even with the image defect), I’m hosed, because that’s the best it’ll get (even though that’s not how it was when I bought it). However, if it’s not within factory spec and Sony can’t provide a way to fix it… well, then I’m also hosed because I’m going to have to fight the warranty company for a new TV.

Terry showed me that at this point the best they can do is try to adjust the picture with various pincushion and other adjustments to make the picture as good as possible, but every time they adjust one thing, something else goes out of whack. They don’t have the equipment to “refocus” it (or whatever the TV-tech-speak term for “refocusing the TV” is) at the repair shop; apparently Sony does that at the factory with some serious computer-controlled equipment.

In all honesty, I’d just as soon have a new TV and not hassle with this. I’d even be willing to settle for a check (or store credit at an electronics store) for the same amount of money that NEW authorized the repair for. I’ll get one of those DLP sets. I guess we’ll see.

Even though it’s not fixed, I felt pretty good going down there and seeing that I wasn’t just crazy - the problem really is there, and it’s not “environmental.”

I was so stoked (again, not pleased that it’s not fixed, but pleased that it’s reproducible and is something they can now aim to fix) that I went to Target and bought myself a copy of Elektra. While I was there, I saw that 13 Going On 30 (another Jennifer Garner movie) was only $10, so I picked that up, too. Oh, and Star Wars Episode III figures were only $5 so I got Yoda (with “spinning attack” action) and R2-D2 (with “droid attack” action). (I get the Yoda figure from every movie. I just dig Yoda. But I didn’t have R2, and I needed him to fly in my Millennium Falcon, didn’t I?)