OK I realize there are a dozen or so threads about this, but many are filled with arguments back and forth between a select few members and don't really provide much in the way of useful information as a result. Anyway my Sony 34XBR960 is about 1.25 years old or so and has sat in the same spot the entire time with no changes to its surrounding environment (no speakers right next to the TV, etc). As you can see from the picture below, the lower left corner is discolored. This only started happening over the last few weeks or so.

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/crap.jpg
Ouch! Completely unacceptable!

I've tried doing everything like turning the set on and off a bunch of times in a row, unplugging it for awhile and then plugging it back in, etc. I don't think there's really much more I can do that won't cost me an arm and a leg (TV techs are EXPENSIVE I hear). Is this the end for the TV? Time to throw it in the trash? I sure hope not. So I ask of ye, are there any possible fixes for my costly 34XBR960, and what kind of prices am I looking at? The TV is obviously useless the way it is now. Damn CRTs. I wish other display technologies could look as good without the problems.

Damn CRTs. I wish other display technologies could look as good without the problems.

Yeah but unfortunately there isn't anything to compare with a Sony Super Fine Pitch , and, unless SED arrives, there probably never will be.

No need to throw in the towel just yet. You've still got the best direct view CRT in television history. It's just a color purity issue caused by changes in terrestial magnetic fields

Go into service mode and select the parameter "LAND" which adjusts the landing of the electron guns and will remove the blemish in 60 seconds.

Terrestial magnetic fields wax and wane. If u need detailed help PM me.

I've fixed this problem on several XBR's in Australia sans problems. Mind you the trained chimps from Sony , who dare call themselves techs, con consumers into using Landing magnets (a geometry fix)

But at $65 an hour I too would be pulling the backs of XBR's and applying magnets like theres no tomorrow:)

PS under no circumstances should you apply an external degaussing wand to this particular Sony- these aperture wires are so thin there's been cases of the grill being irreversibly wrecked . Your's is definetly a 60 second fix in service mode

Alright, thanks! I adjusted the LB from something like 116 to about 75 and the problem is gone. Should I anticipate doing this again in another year or so? What happens when I can't go below 0?

You are right, it is an excellent TV aside from the geometry problems.

Well the geometry problems can be fixed too but it's getting late here in Oz so we'll tackle that next time!

The earths magnetic field will wax and wane and I've even read that solar flares will cause color purity problems. Certainly power surges can. The larger the electrical current the larger the magnetic field .

From my own experience I adjust purity maybe once every 9 to 12 months . 60 seconds and im done.

I also discovered that older, poorly wired houses will generate net electrical currents in the house and this can cause colour purity problems , as can poorly grounded electrical wiring. Most common cause is fluctuating terrestial magnetic fields.

I've also pulled out internal speakers on XBR's on the theory that poorly shielded internal speakers cause beam defraction. That made no difference whatsoever. It's an electron beam landing issue till proven otherwise.

What happens when I can't go below 0?

.

Unless you move to North Finland you'll never need to go anywher near zero:)

Joe, doesn't the 960 come with a 2 year all around in house warranty? You said yours is 1.25 years old.

Beats me. I'll have to look at the manual.

Beats me. I'll have to look at the manual.
Here ya go...
34XBR960 Warranty Card (http://www.sonystyle.com/intershoproot/eCS/Store/en/documents/specifications/XBR%20Warranty%20Card_04.pdf)

Joe, doesn't the 960 come with a 2 year all around in house warranty? You said yours is 1.25 years old.


BUT WHY TRUST AN xbr960 with the trained chimps at Sony Service? It's something u guys can fix yourself in less than a minute.

You can bet your left nut that most techs would be unscrewing the back of your set and applying magnets to the tube- an incorrect solution but a wonderful money spinner for them.

When I rang Sony engineers in Sydney Australia they were unaware of a service menu fix for this !! Preposterous! With poor communication like this amongst the hierachy at Sony is it any wonder they crashed from their world pre-eminent postion to be overtaken by the likes of LG & Samsung. I think Sony rested on their Laurels and their big head got the better of them

And besides many junior TV technicians are trained ad hoc and are no-where as good as the some of the older guys.

Sometimes in life if you want something done right....

Sorry for being OT.
34xbr960(n) is the only choice for 16:9 SFP tube in US? I tought there were 36".

The Sony 30XS955 and 34XS955 use the SFP tube in a 16:9 format, but as time passes they will become harder and harder to find.

Don't forget about the 36XS955. Although its only 4:3.

I think the 36 is the best choice. You lose an inch of 16:9 over the 34, but gain 9 inches in 4:3.

Is there a service menu fix for the geometry issues near the corners?

My TV also does weird things like display a weird vertical band on the right side of the screen when ZOOM mode is used. This vertical band is a bit brighter than the image and almost seems like a reflection of sorts... that's the best I can describe it.

Sections 2170D-1 and 2170D-2 control horizontal and vertical geometry respectively. For a rediculous amount of information on Sony service codes, read up in its respective thread here in the Direct View section. The search function will be immensely helpful as the thread is up to 37 pages

. For a rediculous amount of information on Sony service codes, read up in its respective thread here in the Direct View section.

Fastidious rather than ridiculous but it's the best thread on the subject worldwide.

Joe can you post some of screencaps of your geometry problem mate?

You should invest in a manual degauser. You can pick one up from Ebay for less then 50 bucks. Place the degauser wand in front of the tv about 1 inch away in the center and slowly go outward in a circular pattern. Three or four minutes should do the trick. I have had a tv that was severly demagnetized and that did the trick the first time. Compared to your set it was alot worse.

That discoloration problem's already solved and I hear degaussers are bad news for TVs like this.

Screen caps of geometry coming soon.

OK here is a pic of one of the corners:

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/corner.jpg

Every corner does this (bow upwards or downwards if it is a top corner), but the lower right corner is the worst offender by a bit. Vertical lines are straight for the most part except on the extreme bottom left corner of the image, which is outside of the image area due to overscan. I'd like to have a bit less overscan, but if I decrease it then the bottom left corner shows and it is really messed up. This issue is not the end of the world, but I'd like to get the visable corners fixed.


Here is a picture of that weird bar on the right I was talking about earlier:

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/zoom.jpg

This happens when on any kind of unnatural mode (zoom, widezoom, horizontal expand, vertical expand, etc). It seems to be the most worst on HDTV channels and not really visable at all on DVD or other 480p sources. Cause?

OK here is a pic of one of the corners:

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/corner.jpg

Every corner does this (bow upwards or downwards if it is a top corner), but the lower right corner is the worst offender by a bit. Vertical lines are straight for the most part except on the extreme bottom left corner of the image, which is outside of the image area due to overscan. I'd like to have a bit less overscan, but if I decrease it then the bottom left corner shows and it is really messed up. This issue is not the end of the world, but I'd like to get the visable corners fixed.


Here is a picture of that weird bar on the right I was talking about earlier:

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/zoom.jpg

This happens when on any kind of unnatural mode (zoom, widezoom, horizontal expand, vertical expand, etc). It seems to be the most worst on HDTV channels and not really visable at all on DVD or other 480p sources. Cause?

Joe,

Looking at these pictures, you should be able to fix or minimize this. Go into the service mode: 2170D-1. Adjust VCEN to straighten those lines keeping in mind the middle of the lines may bow up or down if adjusted too far.

Judging from your pics my XBR960N has the same geometry flaws in the upper right and lower right ,however the upper left and lower left are very straight on mine.

I have the bowing too, as do most people with these sets. It only bothers me in the top left. I tried messing with the VCEN but it threw the center off. I'm thinking of just hiring a tech to come use the magnets on it. I have my VCEN at 14, VPIN at 30. It's an improvement over this picture but still noticable.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/Myke256/bowing.jpg

It's really hard to photograph the bowing corners due to barrel distortion from the camera lens.

Joe,

Looking at these pictures, you should be able to fix or minimize this. Go into the service mode: 2170D-1. Adjust VCEN to straighten those lines keeping in mind the middle of the lines may bow up or down if adjusted too far.
Adjusting VCEN and even VPIN just make things worse. These settings only mess with the middle of the picture, all of which are as good as they're gonna get. The corners remain curved but if I mess with the 2170D-1 settings, so is the center. I need a setting to adjust the corners. Will the warranty cover these magnet adjustments? Do I need Sony to do it themselves, or would any licensed Sony repair center honor the warranty?

Place the degauser wand in front of the tv
.

fine for more robust aperture grills and shadow mask grills but contraindicated for SuperFine Pitch XBR's

Yeah I have this bowing on My Aussie version of the XBR910. Unless I am mistaken, as it has been sometime since I read his comments, kenTech suggested that the horizontal bowing required magnets applied to the corners of the CRT.

Others in other forums have suggested there is a service mode fix for this.

I'll have to read my service manual this weekend and experiment and see if there is a non-magnet fix.

It didnt bother me because after 2 years of looking for a landing fix I was over the moon. Besides LCD, plasma, at least the ones from 2 years ago, made me cringe.

i never noticed the bowing when I first got the set. maybe it was always there and I just didn't notice it

haven't tried VCEN yet but all the other geometry settings(eg VBOW, LBOW etc) don't adjust horizontal line geometry at the edges. There's plenty of codes if your vertical lines are curved. Therefore I think we have to resort to permalloy magnets as was mentioned in the thread "The Sony Service codes"

We'll all laught about this 3 years from now when watching our 55"SED's

Joe, that weird line on the right has me stumped, totally.

1 hour later.... I can see how VCEN could help in some cases but Joe's is definitely a magnet fix.

Adjusting VCEN and even VPIN just make things worse. These settings only mess with the middle of the picture, all of which are as good as they're gonna get. The corners remain curved but if I mess with the 2170D-1 settings, so is the center. I need a setting to adjust the corners. Will the warranty cover these magnet adjustments? Do I need Sony to do it themselves, or would any licensed Sony repair center honor the warranty?

Hmmmm. My VCEN control did straighten out the sides to a certain degree, though they still aren't perfectly straight. I wonder why these sets don't have horizontal line geometry adjustments. Would make straightening everything so easy.

I have a 960 and i have the same corlor distortion issues in the corners. They seen to ber there on day and gone the next. When i look at the sony service menu thread i get confused. Is that thread for all sony tv's or is there a specific 960 thread? I believe i have tried to download the info but one of the files is corrupt or the link is bad. Cold some one who knows the correct thread kindly direct me to it.

BTW, Sony has replacedthe picture tube in my 960 2 timesand has come by multiple time and placed a de-gaussing loop around it. They are now ordering a new board for it to replace the one thay think is defective. I think they are a bunch of morons form what i have read here.

AHammer, I sent you a PM.

The Sony techs have replaced the tube twice for the problem in the first post? Have they gone into the service menu at all?

AHammer, I sent you a PM.

The Sony techs have replaced the tube twice for the problem in the first post? Have they gone into the service menu at all?
No, and they are morons and they take the TV from me every time and leave me without a tv for up to 4 weeks. You would think a tech could work in your house and bring the equipment he needs with him as opposed to moving a 200 pound block of glass into a delivery truck to drive it 30 miles to fix it. Just stupid!

Do you have the tv in your house right now or is it at the shop? If it is at home, try lowering the brightness and picture if you haven't before, see what the landing is set at and adjust it in the SM.

No, and they are morons !

you guys are being conned.

If color purity problems were stigmata of defective tubes then this forum and www.agoraquest.com would be littered with posts complaining of the problem in smaller CRT's.

These posts don't exist. The reason we have this problem is multifactorial

(a) when the Trinitrons abandoned the subtly curved screen in the 1980's. No longer could the electron beam follow its natural radial arc and at the edges of the tube precise Landing becomes difficult.

(b) The push for larger CRT sizes. The longer electrons have to travel the more susceptible the are to the "pull" of the earths magnetic field. The affect of terrestial magnetic field on small CRT's is miniscule by comparison. That's why Loewe and Mitsubishi abandoned their mega sized CRT's many years ago because it was too hard to maintain purity.

(c) the flux in the earths magnetic field- something we didn't have to worry about 15 years ago with our 27 inch trinitrons

Service technicians are contracted on an hourly rate and it is in their vested interests to spend "quality time" rooting around trying to find a fix for colour purity that

(a) they know nothing about
(b) know full well how to fix it in service mode within 60seconds but are playing dumb


SONY corp is like the public Service -the care factor is pretty low and along the various tiers of management, many wouldn't breathe in an iron lung.

Speaking from the perspective of a guy who for nearly 2 years heard every c*ck-and-bull story about why I had green blemishes on my corner, I can tell you that returning the TV for a new tube is ludicrous.

It would be like returning a maseratti for a new engine because the timing is out.

I posted a step by step guide on the fix for color purity on avforums because of the no of people in Australia who PM'd me on their woes.

Its lucid enough for a hairdresser to understand.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2509931#post2509931

Like Joe I adjusted Landing about 10 months ago and I've never looked back.

A small price to pay for the best consumer TV in history.

For someone like Hammer where the problem is there one day and gone the next then other possiblities need to be explored. Does the house have old/ defective wiring? If so this can generate net AC currents which can affect the Tv's purity. Also ask an open minded electrician to see if the house is properly earthed. (a British engineering consulting firm put out a paper on this around 2001)

It is worth nothing that on the XBR960 it is called "LANDING" and it has a whole bunch o' sub categories. The first four are what you are looking for. They are like RT, RB, LT and LB for Right top, right bottom, left top and left bottom. Go to the corner that is effected and adjust up or down until it is gone. There will be no patterns on the screen, just regular video and the service menu itself. MUTE and ENTER to write and you're done!

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2509931#post2509931



Quote from above
"The americans call their 32inch diagonal screen the KD30XBR and their 36 inch diagonal screen, the KD34XBR."

So 34xbr960 is a 36" SFP tube? :)

I measured my 34XRB960 and it is.... 34 inches. There may be an inch of overscan beyond each side, though, technically making the tube 36 inches. But you only ever see 34 inches.

Well if you take the plastic frame off I think the Physical glass tube on an KD34XBR910/960 would measure 36" across.

of course the viewing distance is smaller.

The European and Australian distributors called it the "36" model as a marketing ploy presumably. Americans are less easily fooled:)

While I'm here I wany to Buy some XBR's for parts and I read somewhere that there is a field in service mode that shows HOW MANY HOURS THE SET HAS BEEN ON FOR .

I've searched far and wide for this code but can't find it.

Anyone? Anyone?

It is worth nothing that on the XBR960 it is called "LANDING" and it has a whole bunch o' sub categories. The first four are what you are looking for. They are like RT, RB, LT and LB for Right top, right bottom, left top and left bottom. Go to the corner that is effected and adjust up or down until it is gone. There will be no patterns on the screen, just regular video and the service menu itself. MUTE and ENTER to write and you're done!


this is slightly different to the Aussie XBR910/960 menu parameters.

most will persevere

Mine was made in Japan and has Landing adjustments at virtually every inch of the screen.

These Japanese, I dunno....

you guys are being conned.

If color purity problems were stigmata of defective tubes then this forum and www.agoraquest.com would be littered with posts complaining of the problem in smaller CRT's.

These posts don't exist. The reason we have this problem is multifactorial

(a) when the Trinitrons abandoned the subtly curved screen in the 1980's. No longer could the electron beam follow its natural radial arc and at the edges of the tube precise Landing becomes difficult.

(b) The push for larger CRT sizes. The longer electrons have to travel the more susceptible the are to the "pull" of the earths magnetic field. The affect of terrestial magnetic field on small CRT's is miniscule by comparison. That's why Loewe and Mitsubishi abandoned their mega sized CRT's many years ago because it was too hard to maintain purity.

(c) the flux in the earths magnetic field- something we didn't have to worry about 15 years ago with our 27 inch trinitrons

Service technicians are contracted on an hourly rate and it is in their vested interests to spend "quality time" rooting around trying to find a fix for colour purity that

(a) they know nothing about
(b) know full well how to fix it in service mode within 60seconds but are playing dumb


SONY corp is like the public Service -the care factor is pretty low and along the various tiers of management, many wouldn't breathe in an iron lung.

Speaking from the perspective of a guy who for nearly 2 years heard every c*ck-and-bull story about why I had green blemishes on my corner, I can tell you that returning the TV for a new tube is ludicrous.

It would be like returning a maseratti for a new engine because the timing is out.

I posted a step by step guide on the fix for color purity on avforums because of the no of people in Australia who PM'd me on their woes.

Its lucid enough for a hairdresser to understand.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2509931#post2509931

Like Joe I adjusted Landing about 10 months ago and I've never looked back.

A small price to pay for the best consumer TV in history.

For someone like Hammer where the problem is there one day and gone the next then other possiblities need to be explored. Does the house have old/ defective wiring? If so this can generate net AC currents which can affect the Tv's purity. Also ask an open minded electrician to see if the house is properly earthed. (a British engineering consulting firm put out a paper on this around 2001)

Ok fine but how am /was i supposed to know this was simple fix? When i pay $2000 for a television and have problems w/ it why should i not trust the manufactuer? It just pisses me off. Why did I need to go through all the headache of calling the vendor and sony just to get screwed. I actually considered getting a replacement tv of a diffrent model just because the 960 was giving me and sony so much trouble, when all along it was sony and their auth. servicers that dont know sh*t.

I just started a new thread on 960 service codes to see what other people have done w. their sets so i dont have to read through over 80 pages of posts and dissceminate the pertanant info.

The end result of all my pains is that THIS SITE AND THE PEOPLE ON IT ARE GREAT, and you all know more than any service person or dealer i have ever talked to.'

Thank you again!

when all along it was sony and their auth. servicers that dont know sh*t.

!


Precisely and this would go down in TV history as one of the greatest examples of corporate incompetence/ poor communication.

As I posted before , the number of perfectly fine XBR's 910's and 960's that were being returned in Australia , needlessly , made we wanna tear my hair out, (well what's left of it.)

Having just returned from Melbourne watching pot-bellied middle age men oohing and aahing over the plasmas on display I lamented the imminent death of CRT technology.
They still could have developed a larger CRT direct view( say 60 ") with 3 sets of RGB electron guns side by side. It would weigh a tonne but what a videophile's dream that would be.

Of course you couldn't hang it on the wall.

I hope your's is fixed Hammer if not please PM me

Thank you so much, williamtassone.

Last week I bought an open box 34XS955. The second day I noticed the green on the lower left corner and was really bummed that I may have to return it. Fortunately, I saw this posting and followed your instructions and it looks great now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved me some lifting.

I'm glad I saw this thread, it helps to know I'm not alone with the convergence problem I am having on my 34" KD-34XS955N which I believe has the same tube as the XBR. I didn't think much of this at first, but it is really starting to bug me and I don't know what to do. I was thinking about calling Sony but I thought I would stop by here first. I don't know anything about service menus, but I was wondering if this is even fixable on my own before I start reading up on how to use the service menus. I am not home now but here is a mock up of my problem...

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/2702/convergenceprob4ql.jpg

As you could see I would like my picture to be a perfect rectangle but righ tnow all the corners are bent in a little, I know perfection may be hard to achieve on a set this size, but right now it is kinda goofy looking and really detracts from moves and tv. I'm glad to know its not just me having this problem though. Thanks for any input you can give.

Quote from above
"The americans call their 32inch diagonal screen the KD30XBR and their 36 inch diagonal screen, the KD34XBR."

So 34xbr960 is a 36" SFP tube?

Europe goes by size of the tube, US goes by viewable screen

It is worth nothing that on the XBR960 it is called "LANDING" and it has a whole bunch o' sub categories. !

It appears then that the American and Australian service menu is a tiny bit different .

I think once people get into LANDING the rest comes naturally.

By the way as another example of Sony's disdain for it's loyal supporters I got a PM last night from a kid who had sub-par geometry out-of the box.

When he rang Sony service he was told in no un-certain terms that this was a drawback of CRT technology and that it was something he had to live with.

What I wouldn't give for 5 minutes in a dark alley with that Sony technician...

I guess I'm lucky that I stumbled onto this thread on referral from the fatwallet forums. I have this model, purchased in 11/04. It spent 120 of the first 400 days I owned it in the shop. It has had 3 CRT replacements. All for color distortion at the screen margins. I spent HOURS on the phone with Sony. I finally just wanted my money back or a replacement TV which they refused to provide. I agree with the previous post that if a simple solution like this exists, Sony should tell it to me when I call them, it should be in the owner's manual and the repair technicians should for sure know about this instead of replacing the CRT THREE times, obviously a boon for their bottom line. The problem becomes that I was lucky to find this site but not before over a year of misery. Others may never find this information at all. The blame in this matter falls squarely on SONY. You may be getting a fine TV here (when it works) but you need to factor in Sony service (or lack thereof).
Guy

. Others may never find this information at all.

Guy


Others? More like thousands.

The number one reason CRT TV's are returned , WORLDWIDE, is people complaining of color purity problems. (on a par with geometry issues)

This has been deliberately (or innocently) misconstrued as a sign of a defective tube.

Most of us bought this lie for years, but at least it kept Roger Repairboy busy tinkering with these magnificent sets.

I find it criminal , let alone astounding, that Sharp, Toshiba, Sony etc are all (supposedly) unaware of the problem.

We can have adjustments on our remote for brightness.

Why not a simple adjustment on the remote for beam Landing?

From a Tax deduction point of view Sony makes Truckloads of money on "right-offs" for returned sets. Empire Building between them and the repairers.

By the way , of the thousands of high end CRT's returned worldwide for "tube replacement" for discolored corners how many do you actually think got their tubes replaced?

Get the picture?

When you look at the nightmare Guy and thousands of others went through you start to wonder if so many would have abandoned high end CRT for picture frame TV's had they'd known how simple the soultion is.

With the death of CRT around the corner lets hope SED arrives ASAP

Yeah but unfortunately there isn't anything to compare with a Sony Super Fine Pitch , and, unless SED arrives, there probably never will be.

No need to throw in the towel just yet. You've still got the best direct view CRT in television history. It's just a color purity issue caused by changes in terrestial magnetic fields

Go into service mode and select the parameter "LAND" which adjusts the landing of the electron guns and will remove the blemish in 60 seconds.

Terrestial magnetic fields wax and wane. If u need detailed help PM me.

I've fixed this problem on several XBR's in Australia sans problems. Mind you the trained chimps from Sony , who dare call themselves techs, con consumers into using Landing magnets (a geometry fix)

But at $65 an hour I too would be pulling the backs of XBR's and applying magnets like theres no tomorrow:)

PS under no circumstances should you apply an external degaussing wand to this particular Sony- these aperture wires are so thin there's been cases of the grill being irreversibly wrecked . Your's is definetly a 60 second fix in service mode
william: just came across your note to Joe Redifer & was wondering if you could post the fix you did for him for that landing problem; my 7 month old XBR has develped a similar, though not quite as large a problem; I know it is not due to speakers near the set..thanks,

Marc

heres a step by step way to adjust Landing for the US version of the XBR910/XBR960

Worked perfectly for me numerous times

http://www.agoraquest.com/viewtopic.php?topic=24229&forum=34&keyword2=electronics

Cheers
Will

Does anyone know what the what the landing adjestment is called in the service menu for the older 40XBR700?

Thank you guys for the awesome info in this thread. You saved my TV from those horrid blue blobs that I thought I would NEVER get rid of (had them for like 6 monthes.

The landing settings were such a simple fix.

Man, I'm scared to death to try this. Maybe my problem is different. I think I have some old wiring in the house or something. BTW...I have similar issues but it's my 34XS955. I love this HDTV....GREAT picture except for the blotches...which are RED.

I can turn the TV on it's stand and the RED in the corners either decrease...or increase. If a corner decreases....another corner INcreases. A magnetic field somewhere. Anyway....I applied a few fridge magnets(low power) to the outside of the casing and it helps control the issues. Sometimes however, I have to relocate those little magnets every so often. I keep thinking maybe over time they will damage my HDTV?.

I'm not moving out of my house so I'm not sure what to do. Will I be able to correct this issue in service mode like you all did? Or if it's magnetic...would it even matter?

I'm at a loss. I LOVE the PQ of the tv and really don't want to buy another one.

Should I try the service mode...would it make a difference if it's a magnetic issue?

And is the instructions above the same for the US XS series.

Please help....it's depressing.

gutwrencher, Don't despair! I was having the exact same problem that you are having. I bought my tv refurbished from a Sony Outlet, and it has had this problem since I took it out of the box. I came to these forums trying to get a solution, but I didn't stumble on these LANDING settings in the service menu in time to avoid calling Sony and getting a tech to come to my house.

Let's just say that the techs that came had no idea what they were doing. They had one of those external degausers and just waved it around the tv screen to no result. I read here that this could have done damage to my set, but luckily I don't see any harm yet.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly reccommend you go into the service menu and adjust those four LANDING settings. I was able to fix my problem in about a minute, and I couldn't believe that I had almost let the techs take my tv to their shop where they would have most likely replaced the tube or done some other time-consuming repair. So definitely go into the service menu and fix your problem once and for all. -CK

I do have one remaining question. I have adjusted both the LT and LB LANDING settings down to zero to get rid of the vast majority of the color blotches on the left side of my screen, but there is still about a half inch of discoloration remaining with both values set to 0 out of 255.

Is there any other setting to adjust to get rid of this last remaining eyesore? Should I lower brightness or contrast? Thanks, CK

I am still trying to find a solution to the remaing purity discoloration at the top left of my screen of my 34xbr960. Like I've said, the LANDING settings for both LT and LB are at 0. I can't adjust anymore, so I would really appreciate some help. Even if the help is telling me there is nothing else to be done save calling Sony (which I dread after reading this thread).

I don't want to get my tube replaced because of such a small issue, but it really is annoying. Thanks for the help, Chris

I do have one remaining question. I have adjusted both the LT and LB LANDING settings down to zero to get rid of the vast majority of the color blotches on the left side of my screen, but there is still about a half inch of discoloration remaining with both values set to 0 out of 255.

Is there any other setting to adjust to get rid of this last remaining eyesore? Should I lower brightness or contrast? Thanks, CK

There is some way to "shift" the whole beam, but I forget what in the Landing settings does it. See the Sony service codes thread post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=5687363&&#post5687363

Try EWSP and ENSW, and then readjust the 4 corners.

RWetmore, Thanks for the advice, but I have changed these settings and the effect is pretty miniscule. I just looked at that post you linked to and following his instructions, I used a grey screen from Avia to see how bad the discoloration was, and it still looks pretty bad.

I don't know what to try next, so what should I tell the tech when he comes to my house? I don't want a replaced tube do I? That won't even solve the problem will it? Thanks for any info, CK