[Ashy]

Hi

After complaining to Sony about the scrolling bars issue on my KV-32FQ75 and threatening them with trading standards unless something was done I got a phone call and an email from them.

Not too sure if this is going to fix the problem but they have admitted where the problem has arisen from finally.

(Apologies if this is old news, just thought it may help some people having problems)

Here is the email:

Dear Mr Ashcroft

Thank you for your recent e-mail. We do have a solution for the "scrolling bars" that you describe. This involves fitting a modified circuit board to your set. This will be carried out free of charge by a local Sony authorised Service Centre. In order to arrange this I should be grateful if you would provide me with the following information:

The name, address and telephone number of the retailer from whom you purchased the set

The serial number of the television. This will be found on the rear of the set and is a 7 digit number beginning with "6".

As soon as I receive this information I shall make the necessary
arrangements and will let you know the name of the service centre who will contact you.

The "scrolling bars" cannot be completely eliminated as they are a
characteristic of the 100Hz DRC-MF technology, however the modification should reduce their impact, hopefully to a point where they become invisible.

Please accept my apologies that we have not dealt with this matter sooner.


With regards

Adrian Pearman
For and on behalf of
Sony United Kingdom Limited


I'll let you know how I get on with this and if this mod makes any difference, hopefully it will and other users plagued by this can get the fix too, fingers crossed....

Cheers
Ash

ashy

from what i can remember about this issue, some people had this circuit board fitted to their FQ75 and it made no difference!!!!

shaun

[Ashy]

Hi mate

I dont know bud, can only try it and see

Ash

I hope it works for you. I had 8 tvs before I found one I was happy with. ie fault free. One of them was the FQ75. I had scrolling bars, blurred left side of screen and a picture that twitched.

good luck matey
shaun

Hi there

Glad SUK have at last put their hands up when confronted with this problem.....but I see you needed to threaten them to do this.

Get it done and let us know the result.

As far as I know it cannot be cured completely, SUK have only suppressed the intensity. The scrolling bars were still there and visible on certain pictures with low contrast even after the new board was fitted on mine. They tend to be more visible at this time of the year - dark and short days I suppose.

Good luck and be presistent ! Hope you don't have to endure what many of us with FQs went thru last year.

Regards

fwan

[mij]

I had this modified board fitted, all it did was made the picture look softer.
It look's a right mess with loads of wires soldered to the connections, make sure you can have the original board refitted if it does not work, I found it totally ruined my viewing experience.

mij

[Ashy]

thanks mate, if it looks ****ed up when he does it ill tell him to put the older one back.

Hi Ashy

When did you get this FQ ? If it was recent, i.e. after early summer, according to SUK (officially) all new sets manufactured should not have this s/b problem as the problem had been "fixed". If you got your set in the last 6 months, then it just proves my point made in my earlier post - SUK have not found a 100% fix to the problem and another inaccurate statement from them.

As mij suggested, make sure you are around when the engineer calls to do the board replacement and test the set after - all inputs. Also close the curtain to that the viewing environment is dark, that's when you notice the s/bs. Try adjusting the contrast up and down - heard of one engineer use the trick of masking the s/bs by playing the contrast and brightness controls !!!!

Good luck

Rdgs

fwan

[Ashy]

Hi Fwan

Got the TV on the 16th Sept 2002.

I also got one of those Thor scart leads you recommended which has improved the pic quality but unfortunately the bars are still there.

As they are only really noticable on the DVD AV channel, They do go almost totally when I remove the scart from the TV that is connected to the digi box so hopefully something can be done in this case.

From the email that Sony sent saying the problem couldnt be fixed completely due to it being a characteristic of the DRC MF technology then by the looks of it the best I can hope for is to get the scrolling bars reduced like in the above paragraph but still have the scarts plugged in.

Ive sent the details they require anyway so hopefully should soon be getting contacted by the Sony repair place soon. They also said they would sort out the firmware problem with my DAVS550. Im going to ask the tech guy if I can take a copy of the disc and I can upload it somewhere then so all the other people with this hugely irritating bug can download it.


Ash

Originally posted by Ashy


From the email that Sony sent saying the problem couldnt be fixed completely due to it being a characteristic of the DRC MF technology then by the looks of it the best I can hope for is to get the scrolling bars reduced like in the above paragraph but still have the scarts plugged in.


Ash

Characteristic of DRC MF technology ???? well I am at a total loss how this could be called "techonlogy" when it affects the quality of the picture and spoils the viewing enjoyment !!! If what they said is true, I have a few baffling questions :

1) Where is the s/bs are still there even with the DRC 100 hz scanning switched off ?
2) What are other Sony models with the same "technology" do not have the the s/bs visible ?
3) Other manufacturers also use the 100 hz scanning technology but no one has reported the s/bs on these sets ?
4) Why do Sony use this "technology" when it causes so much grief and anger ?
5) Are we expected to pay a premium price for this "technology" to see the annoying and infamous s/bs on the FQs ?

To me, it seems that the s/b problem is a design flaw in the first instance which they don't know how to fix but hope to fob off owners with such ridiculous reason to support the presence of the s/bs. Selling a defective product ??

Perhaps someone can enlighten me on this reasoning.

Cheers

fwan

[Ashy]

Im only telling you what he said to me mate

He said the reason it happens is due to DRC MF technology although it shouldnt be visible.

I couldnt really say "your a liar" without having someone have a look at the set first and seeing if the problem could be rectified.

I did actually turn off the DRC and the prob didnt seem as visible, but im not too sure if it was just my brain trying to kid myself into thinking my TV was better

[Ashy]

UPDATE:

"Dear Paul

Thank you for your recent e-mail. I have asked H&H Video and TV to contact you in due course to arrange to fit the modified circuit board. They will also attend to the firmware upgrade for your DAV-S550 at the same time.

Do not hesitate to contact me should you have any queries.

With regards

Adrian Pearman
For and on behalf of
Sony United Kingdom Limited"



Lets see what they can do then....

[Ashy]

Well, Ive got the Sony repair geezer coming round tommorow (24/01/03) so I'll let you know how I get on....

[Merlins]

Hi,

BOY are SONY ever going to learn..

FWAN nice to see your still around.

Basically a whole load of us had this issue last year and so did I.
They first advised me that the newer stock should not have the
problem which was a lie as I still got the issue when I got the tv
late last year.

I then went ahead and had the modified board fitted which fixed it for the scart connections but was still there on the Aireal
and front sockets and the picture quality was not great.

Funny to see that letter as that is the person I spoke to
originally then spoke to his maneger a Martin Foan.

To cut a long story short I got him to replace my TV with the FQ80
model and that does not have the scrolling bar problem and the picture is a lot better then the old set.

I think they will only offer this is you have the board fitted first so go through the motions then complain and ask for Martin directly
and he will most probably replace it.

[Ashy]

Hi mate

Thanks for the info, so do you think if the problem still occurs they would actually offer to replace it with a newer model?

The thing I was concerned about was that I would have to a TV that wasnt as good as I got told that they had stopped making this model.

What do you think?

Cheers mate
Ash

Hi all, I've had my FQ75 for 11 months and have the SB problem all that time. Finally took it in to get the SB problem fixed. They called me today for me to collect it from the sony repair Centre and told me that had replaced the J-board with a modified one. I insisted I test it before I took it off the premises which they where reluctant. Good Job I did, as not only did I still have the SB problem but now only had black and white thru all the scarts! AS today is the first day I have read these forums, I'll think I'll ask for a replacement as it is quite obvious this problem is still not sorted!

[Ashy]

ITS FIXED!!!!

He replaced the scart board which improved it a bit, then mucked about with something and changed an audio wire and its gone. completely

Then he updated the firmware for the DVD player and thats now subtitle bug free

JOY!!

Then he recommended an SVHS to scart lead to go from the dvd player to the tv and some new audio leads.

It seemed on mine that the audio leads were playing a big part of the problem.

Hi

Glad to hear you are one of the very few people that got the s/b completely fixed.

Just a word of warning , speaking from my experience, the s/bs do come back to haunt you as time goes by. Look out for them.

It is sad to hear that those sets that were manufactured after summer (after SUK's statement release) still have that problem despite SUK have arrogantly issued the statement that they would not entertain any repair/replacement on set produced after then. Unless............those many returned sets with s/bs had been put back to the retailers for resale !!!???????


Regards

Fwan

Ashy
Glad you had a result with your scrolling bar prob.I have had my j board changed to NO effect.any chance you could be more specific as to what else was done to your TV ie audio wire change ? etc..

Ta

[Ashy]

the problem was to do with audio leads i was using to get the sky tv sound through the DAV, it turned out they were causing interference to the tv and thats why it only occured on the DVD AV slot.

the engineer suggested a few other things also, moving the DVD player down to the bottom on the shelves of the tv stand, shielding the bottom of the tv with tin foil to stop the interference, and using svhs leads and scart to phono leads.

he changed the scart board and it had very little difference. then he started exploring the possibilities of interference with the DVD player and concluding its from the audio setup on the dvd, and sure enough - when he took out the leads from the dvd player the lines stopped.

he basically said that its **** all to do with the scart board at the back of the TV.

hope that helps

Hmm, Sounds like you were Lucky Ashy. When I had my telly on the workbench at the Sony repair centre, all I had plugged into the telly was the Dav-800 S-VHS out to telly scart and nothing else, and I still had the SB problem (and thats with the modified (J-Board). You should had seen the technicians face! especially aswell when It showed he had lost all colour aswell as a result of putting the board in. The Dav was sited at the time to the side of the telly on another Bench. The Technician then mumbled on that he had to get back to their QA dept. What a laugh 'Quality Assurance'

Martin

Originally posted by Ashy

the engineer suggested a few other things also, moving the DVD player down to the bottom on the shelves of the tv stand, shielding the bottom of the tv with tin foil to stop the interference, and using svhs leads and scart to phono leads.

he basically said that its **** all to do with the scart board at the back of the TV.

hope that helps

Hi

Your DVD player is a Sony, isn't it? Hmmm, see their own products are giving to each other problems!

It seems strange that you can't put a DVD player on the top shelf without using "tin foil". I don't think the manual states that no machines should be placed on the top shelf under the set !! Sony should have sheilded the TV if it is picking up interferences so easily, esp from their own products.

The sb's may be caused differently in your set but on mine, the sbs were still there even with everything disconnected and connected directly to the aerial.

Rgds

fwan

[Ashy]

Hi mate

Im not sure what answer you want from me here, cjb just asked how mine was cured. It appeared to be from using dodgy audio leads from the DVD Player to the sky box. Once they were removed the SB's went completely. On every single AV channel. Im not saying this is the cure for everyone, im just saying it fixed mine.

Can't really say anything else can I?

The audio leads im talking about are ones I bought separately to get the sky tv sound out of the DAV speakers.

Before buying them I cant recall the SB's. So maybe my TV set was in fact fine and I actually caused the problem by using crap leads....

[mij]

Very strange, mine had scrolling bars with nothing connected apart from the aerial and viewing terrestial TV.

mij

[Ashy]

hi mate

i only ever got the scrolling bars on the DVD AV channel

[hulkhead]

I only seem to get SB's from the xbox on the rgb connection AV1(xbox advanced scart with optical to amp). NTL digital is on av2 and no bars. DVD (american) is conected via s-video (ext4 front of tv) and no scrolling bars. Dreamcast is connected via aerial socket and no bars. It's not rgb connections is it?. Cables are ixos scart \ s-video

Went to the Sony repair Centre today to test it again. I was very sceptical and was not prepared to take it back unless the SB was fully eradicated. I was extremely surprised to find it was! The technician then showed me another modified J-Board and explained that the video lines printed on the PCB was subject to picking up noise. The modified boards have these lines deleted (or broken at the start and end of the line) and instead have screened wire soldered in its place. Furthermore, he said (like in ashy's case, noise can be picked up anywhere from poorly screened scart leads or audio leads plugged into DAV's and this will show the same sympton. The only suggestion I have is to prove if you have a duff J-board, have only the svhs out from the Dav plugged into the telly, and nothing else into the telly or Dav. If you the SB's, you most likely have a duff j-board. If you dont, then start adding leads in, like audio into the Dav from sky box, then video scart into telly, and start building it up slowly until the SB's come back. Last leads added when the SB's come back are your culprit. I Forgot to mention, I used a DVD 'Alien' that I paused at point in the film where the SB's were most obvious, around 200 on the counter, near start of the film. Good Luck!

Martin.

As you have 3 scarts at the back of the telly, you have 3 video lines on the PCB. If you have the SB on 1 or more scart i/f then you can still have a potential J-Board problem as only one of the lines are picking up noise. For me I was getting SB's on all AV scarts.

Martin.

[Ashy]

nice one mate, glad you have got it sorted, I ordered a QED Squart lead to link the dvd to tv the other day, so hopefully that can improve things more

[andrewmellor]

Hi Ashy and smartboy,

Due to signal leakage between AV1&2 scart connections I'm due to have a new Jboard fitted (just been ordered) and I'm very sure I have the scrolling bar issue that I've read about on this post, (horrible wispy kind of lines rolling across the screen but only really noticeable on dark/black backgrounds) this was mentioned to the dealer and he said that the new Jboard should fix the leakage (replacement of the scart connections) and that the upgraded board 'should' resolve the bars.
Do you have any reference number or revision level of the board with the modified tracks..it seems that they have been attempting to fix this problem for a while and I would really like to get it put right on the first attempt!!
Are Sony only fitting the one version of Jboard or do you think they have different units as mine is on order for the scart problem only and not specifically for the SB problem
Any help/advice greatly appreciated...would really like to get this resolved as I love the set

cheers...Andrew