Dear Friends... Just a word to clarify.... That article that someone posted this morning about the "Silent CTC's" was written the FIRST time that this problem surfaced.... The article was taken from the archives of "The Speaker" dated June, 2001. The problem went away for a couple years, but now looks like it's back. It is unknown (for sure) if this is the same cause. I Just don't want you to think that this was "New" information. joe sopko, consumer service,s.euclid,oh ============================== Silent CTC's By: Joe Sopko In response to a question by a friend of mine who runs a service shop in Florida, I made an inquiry for further information about the newer RCA TV's which exhibit the problem of "no sound....unplug for 15 minutes to correct." We've known about this problem for some time, but have never had the whole story on it - till now. The person I spoke to would only talk of it with assurances of anonymity and no mention of the company he works for. I felt like I should put on a trench coat and meet him on a street corner in the dead of night.....He is very concerned that anything said would come back to bite him and his company in a court. As for my putting this in a newsletter it's OK as I am only reporting hearsay" since it is not attributable to any person or company, and is not to be construed as the official position of any person or company. Consider it as a chat between 2 technicians. I have paraphrased his words as I was furiously writing while he was talking, so this isn't EXACT and I've deleted any names so this won't cause him trouble.. Question: What Chassis are affected? Answer: CTC203, CTC197, and CTC195 Question: Does it affect only gemstar models? Answer: In a way....those 3 chassis all use the same micro ( not the same part#, the same capabilities ) whether they have gemstar installed in them or not - the micro will accommodate gemstar......easier to build them at the factory that way, rather than different micro's for "with" or "without" gemstar, so all of those chassis are susceptible to this problem whether or not gemstar is actually in the set. Question: Why exactly does it occur ? Answer: It's been identified to a non-standard signal originating in particular "XDS box" in the transmission chain (XDS means "extra digital services" and includes closed captioning, auto clock, program guides, VIR color levels, etc, all broadcast in the vertical interval).... the signal originating in this XBR box made by the "XYZ" company (name deleted) has 2 extra bits...It causes a buffer overload in the micro and mutes the sound....this XBR box does not truncate the data stream and the extra bits get broadcast.....there is pending litigation on this, the FCC and EIC is involved since they regulate what goes out over the airways. Question: Why does it just affect RCA's ? Answer: Well, it doesn't...Sony's Hitachi's and Philips are also affected.....the Sony's dropout video when it occurs...the Philips have the tint shift all the way to green, so RCA;s not alone in this. Question: Is anything being done ? Answer: A LOT ! "QQQ company", (name deleted) is helping the "XYZ" company develop software that will properly truncate the data stream. We haven't been ignoring it. As a matter of fact, we're very near the end, now...you're going to be getting MORE complaints about this in the next few weeks as it's being beta tested - they have to "cause" the problem during the testing to "test" the cure, so during this testing phase the trouble will be occuring often....hopefully it'll only be another 3 weeks.... refer customers who have this complaint to the manufacture's customer relations number 317-415-4151 as they've been trained how to handle it. So there you have it, the complete story of a frustrating problem that is hopefully coming to an end. When those 2 offending bits are stripped off during the transmission process, it'll be all over. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Email List is accessible to the general public through search engines. Remove: http://www.tech-assist.org/remove.htm Set Vacation mailto:ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=set%20techassist%20vacation Lost Password: http://www.tech-assist.org and select "Login Problems?". Email Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/techassist/