Tag mitsubishi 73733

Last night as I was watching Boardwalk Empire on the 73 incher I noticed a small white dot near the top of the screen.  Hmm that’s odd, I wonder how long that had been there, I don’t recall ever seeing it before.  Of course once I saw it, it stuck out like a sore thumb.  I was annoyed my monster tv had a flaw.

Well as I was finishing up my second episode I noticed a SECOND dot had shown up, lower and to the right.  WTF?? This can’t be good.

So after I finished up the show I jumped on my computer and punched in “white dots mitsubishi dlp” My screen filled with a ton of hits, evidently this is a common issue.

The problem apparently starts as a few dots and grows over time, in some situations people reported having as many as 1000 dots on their sets.  Some people also reported having this issue happen rather early in the TV’s lifespan, less than two years in some cases. Well my tv was bought in May of 08, just now passing it’s 4th birthday.

As I read more I encountered outrageous repair costs for the problem which appears to be in the light engine or more specifically a chip in the light engine.  Some people were quoted outrageous estimates of more than $1000 to fix their sets.  The problem is so prevalent that there is a Facebook group dedicated to it.

Well when I bought my tv from Best Buy in 08 I decided to tack on an extended warranty, something I almost NEVER do.  It was an extra $400, not cheap at all.  I began a search through my files to find all my paperwork.

At first I couldn’t find my receipts but luckily they were in the third location I checked.  On the receipt it showed I purchased a 4 year extended warranty which when tacked on to the 1 year manufacturer warranty should still put me inside the coverage window.

I have no doubt that the process of actually getting the tv fixed under the extended warranty will be a pain in the ass.  It seems that anything at Best Buy outside of swiping your credit card at the register is a pain in the ass with them.  Boy it would be awesome if they said it was too expensive to fix and just gave me one of the newer models that has the upgraded 3D engine.  I could only be so lucky.

Yesterday I resumed production on the Jmo’s World cartoon series.  Unfortunately most of the humor in them are inside jokes that are most funny to a small inner circle that knows us personally.

I also discovered that Xtranormal has released a new desktop app that allows you to create the movies on your own pc instead of doing so via their rather slow and somewhat limited web site interface.

I played with the app a bit.  It is great, allowing me much more flexibility in character control as well as lifting the online 2 character limit.  The rendering happens nearly instantly instead of taking several minutes.  It should open the creative doors even further in the future.

Well I had plans for a fun weekend laid out with Randall coming over to play in a rare near by volleyball tournament in Fort Myers.  Unfortunately he wound up hurting himself doing some recreational activities over the Memorial Day weekend and had to bow out.

I tried to get some last minute replacements(Jeremy/Tabby) but was unsuccessful in doing so.

Tabby said that he was available the following weekend for a tournament that takes place in Siesta Key, a lot farther away but a beautiful beach.  It just happens to be the location I played with Tabby last year, winning the BB division in some of my very limited volleyball play.

So it looks like I will be heading 90 minutes north next Saturday for my first volleyball action of 2012.

This weekend I will be having a dog sleepover Saturday night as Ali has a local triathlon Sunday morning.  It will be nice to have the girls around for an extended period of time.

I also hope to buy and place the 25 landscape castle stones needed to finish the pool border.  That will leave the border around the pond to do at some point but I think that is going to be relegated as a winter project.  For the summer I will refocus on indoor projects like painting the master bedroom and bathroom. AC is my friend.

Late yesterday I talked to Ali to see if she had any opinion yet on the tv thing.  She gave me the green light to move ahead with it.  So I immediately hop on bestbuy.com and get to work.  I complete the process, go to check out and enter my Best Buy credit card to get the same as cash 36 month financing.  It rejects my card.  I try again, thinking I mistyped, no dice it won’t take it. Ok, well I guess I will be stopping at Best Buy after work.

Before I left work I did a quick scan for any online coupons.  I was excited to find one that could save me an additional 12% if they took it.  I wasn’t sure if they would since the TV was already “outlet priced”.  I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going to the store.  To me, Best Buy is like Sam’s Club in that it is great fun to walk around and look at the endless amounts of “stuff”.  However whenever you are required to interact with one of their employees, the experience instantly sours.   So off to Best Buy I went.

Luckily, Tuesdays around 5:10 pm are not very busy at the store.  They had the model I picked out online.  Seeing it in person was impressive, it is just MASSIVE.  I was a bit distressed when I saw the price on it was about $100 higher than what I saw online.  I tracked down someone in the department to help me.  I told him I knew exactly what I wanted as I pointed it out to him.  I immediately mentioned how I saw this on their web site for 100 less.  He said that was no problem, they match the web site price, sweet.  He had to go check if they had any in stock.

He was gone for awhile.  I spent the time looking around, mostly at Wii stuff.  I saw the component video cable for the Wii, something I will need to pick up for it work at it’s full potential with the tv.  I also checked out a bunch of Wii games.  I saw many that looked pretty sweet, but I am thoroughly still enjoying what I already have so I don’t feel a pressing need for more right now.  The kid was gone for a pretty long time which I knew was not a good thing.  My fears were confirmed when he came out and said they didn’t have any in stock, just the display but they can order it and it would be here Friday, not bad.

So we go back to the register and start the process.  I pull out my online coupon and ask the clerk if I would be able to use this as well.  Yep, I can use it, sweet, another 12% off the top!  We get to the point where I swipe my card and it gets denied.  The kid says the card is dead.  He asked how long it had been since I used it last.  I told him at least a couple years.  He said that they deactivate them if they aren’t used in 6 months or so.  So we had to put the transaction on hold while I walked over to the customer service desk and quickly reapplied for a new card which didn’t take long at all.

I head back to the original register where Daniel was waiting for me.  I told him I was getting the extended warranty on the set, something I typically never do but on big ticket items that can have big ticket repair bills, it’s worth the piece of mind to me.  Although I purchased one for my Sony big screen as well and never had to use it.  So the transaction was completed.  The experience wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as I feared it would be.  I will call the store Friday to confirm if the unit is there and pick it up then.  It’s big but not brutally heavy, only 100 pounds so Ali and I will be able to maneuver it pretty easily.

Buying the tv set the wheels in motion for some other things.  I had been floating the idea to mom about us giving her our Sony if we got the new tv.  Now to me, most people would be doing cartwheels over the concept of getting a 61 inch tv for free with free delivery and set up.  However mom in her typical mom way was apprehensive about it, worried it would be TOO big for the space it would go.  I went back and forth with her a few times about it.  I was confident it would work out just fine in her new place and in fact be a major perk.  I even went as far as to look up the recommended viewing distance for a tv of that size and sent it to mom.  The advice was a distance of 10-12 feet.  Mom said she would be around 11 feet.  So I called her back last night to tell her we definitely were buying the new tv and I wanted to make the offer one more time.  To my surprise she agreed to try out the Sony.  It really is a no lose situation.  I told her if for some reason if after we set it up there and she decides she doesn’t like/want it, I will simply sell it to someone else.  It’s no big deal.  So Sunday before we take mom to a Mother’s Day lunch we will be loading up, delivering and setting up my trusty Sony big screen for mom.  It will be a bit tricky getting it in and out of the bed of the truck but I’ll manage somehow.

I continued laying the groundwork for the arrival of the new tv by ordering a refurbished HD Tivo last night.  I could continue to use the old Tivo but it would not be able to record HD broadcasts which would suck.  Once I get a shipping arrival estimate I can try to coordinate it with Comcast.  They need to come out and slap a special card into the Tivo that will allow me to view and tape two HD or non-HD broadcasts at a time.

Even though I was busy making HDTV arrangements after work I still found the time to go out after work with the post bar and rip up the one side section of old landscape timbers by the pool.  Instead of struggling with pulling out the old sections of rebar I simply drove them deeper into the ground, below the surface of the timbers, f it.  Tonight after work I am going to stop at Home Depot to grab 5 or 6 more timbers and then hopefully at least rip out the other side and if I am lucky, start constructing the new sections.  I am considering redoing some of the other landscaped areas with decorative stone borders like we have around the palm trees in the front.  Yes the up front costs are a lot more but it lasts forever and requires no maintenance.

If for some reason you are interested in the all the tech goodness of the TV we are buying, look here.