Psst. Want to access your TV's service mode?

[charlaph]

http://members.accessus.net/~090/awh/how2adj.html#5

I accept no responsibility blah blah blah, but I know several people have asked how to do this in the past.

[beecee]

good if you have a sony tv.

i've mucked around in my service menu. and its quite safe.
but you have to take notes of the default values.

great for getting the correct geometry on a 4:3 immage on a widescreen tv

[Adrock]

Why the hell does my TV have to be a philips? To get service mode i have to open the bloody thing up, how useless.

[amorenod]

5.7 HITACHI
Read the _ SERVICE MODE WARNING _ before proceeding.

All the available geometry and grayscale tracking adjustments are done by manual controls located inside the set. They may be labelled. A service manual is required to make any adjustment.

That's not true, I have access to a service menu in my Hitachi, long before the last update in the site.

[amorenod]

Why the hell does my TV have to be a philips? To get service mode i have to open the bloody thing up, how useless.

Which model do you own?

[Lyris]

I managed to screw up a TV with this once. It was a Philips one, and the code it gave me DID give me some service info, but with no selectable menu. After pressing some buttons to try and get some menu up, I exited service mode, and found I'd squashed my TV into some sort of pincushioned image with the bottom cut off. Luckily it was new and hadn't been working too well anyway, so I just had it exchanged

However my Panasonic flat-screen has some overscan I'd like to fix, so I might be able to get the balls to try it again.

[amorenod]

Indeed, using a service menu can be a very stressing experience.

I read lots of warnings before using mine (My TV had a severe pincushion problem & the usual RGB shift), I managed to correct both problems, but didn't exit the menu properly, there were some strange rotating characters on the screen, even after switching off and on the TV.

When I was calm enough, I noticed that some of the characters were telling me how to exit the service menu properly, but the option was one that, according to every site mentioning Hitachi service menus, was going to factory reset my TV. "It's ****ed anyway", I thought, so I did a leap of faith and followed the screen instructions. Thankfully, it worked.

[Lyris]

It's a wonder they don't just include basic screen alignment options in the TV's initial setup for consumers to change. Can anyone tell me a technical reason as to why they don't?

[charlaph]

I did it once on my Sony about a year or so ago. I thought I might be able to fix the left shift that happens for NTSC RGB consoles. Once I got the service menu I totally bottled it as it was just a load of numbers with no indication of which did what. No way was I going to risk doing damage by just guessing.

[amorenod]

It's a wonder they don't just include basic screen alignment options in the TV's initial setup for consumers to change. Can anyone tell me a technical reason as to why they don't?

Technical? I can't think of any reason.

But we need to support the engineers that will charge us 30 € just to correct the horizontal shift.

[MD]

The main reason is because you can damage and it can be potentionally dangerous if you change some of these settings. The same chips are likely to be used on a 14" TV to a 32" one and some of the settings are in different ranges for both of them.

Some of the adjustment change large voltages across the tube and you could hear a crack, bang or pop if it's adjusted to an extreme setting. If the TV starts to whine then it's likely your heading to an extreme....

[amorenod]

But surely they could include easy access to the options within range, specially when you pay hundreds, even thousands of € for your new fancy set and then you discover geometry problems.

The cheapest of computer monitors has the option, I fail to see why TVs haven't.

Of course, they can keep flags, white balance, that sort of things hidden.

[beecee]

you can actually buy service manuals from the manufacturer
which engineers use when they fix (ahem) your tv.

i inquired about one for my sony tv, they said no problem and gave a number to phone if i wanted one. they cost about ?10 -?20

[Stebbo]

Why the hell does my TV have to be a philips? To get service mode i have to open the bloody thing up, how useless.

Which model do you own?

Hijack alert ...

http://www.consumer.philips.com/global/b2c/ce/catalog/product.jhtml;jsessionid=PWAIGTABLWKAWCRQNE2RYVIKGBUCWHD0?divId=0&groupId=TV_GR&catId=STANDARD_TV_CA&subCatId=20_24_CONVENTIONAL_TV_SU&productId=21PT4457_05

[Gluecifer]

That guy has a really nice site, shame there isnt a euro guy that does one as it is mainly for ntsc users. One sepcifically for pal scart/rgb users would be fantastic.

Also a shame that he dosent have the codes for the Teac EU series, I desperately need to tune out the annoying white horizontal line i get in 16:9 mode.



Gluecifer