Yesterday, as I returned home for lunch, I passed 2 cable company trucks working next to an area with a backhoe making a trench, which was several houses away from mine.

When I arrived home, my cable services were all completely out. I went to the cable company trucks and was told that the construction backhoe on private job had severed the cable line while digging. Several minutes later, the cable service was restored.

When we tried my Panasonic 53" Rear Projection TV immediately after service was restored, it no longer had convergence, had multicolored ghosting, and crooked lines when I tried to use the convergence adjustments on the television. If I watch a baseball game, in different parts of the screen, I may see a normal player with a duplicate image in green next to him or 2 overlapped players instead of one. I cannot move the figures together. On the right side of the screen, the border is crooked and there are 3 different irregularly shaped borders in red, green and blue.

Other televisions in the house are working normally, one of which is hooked up to a non HD, non DVR cable box on the 2nd floor. The damaged TV is on the first floor, closer to the cable source.

I called Panasonic today and was told that it was more than a convergence problem; either the television needs to be degaussed or it has a much more serious problem. He said that there was no adjustment that could be made by the convergence adjustment on the television.

Since the tv was working perfectly before the outage, I asked the Panasonic tech if the cable suddenly being cut by a backhoe could have caused this problem. He said that it was very possible that it caused some type of surge through the cable which could have damaged the television. Does this seem plausible?

The television is hooked up to a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR box.

The television is a Panasonic PT-53TW53G,

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Check a DVD or other source on your set.

Next I would bypass the box and look at your analog channels (look for the same issues)
This would help troubleshoot, the STB as the culprit. do this and report back.

Did they damage the buried power lines, too? That's more likely to be the problem.

Damage to the convergence circuits from any sort of outside influence is very unlikely. Convergence failures are, however, very common problems with all CRT RPTV sets. The only reason a set-top-box would deliver such a symptom would be because the TV was operating in a different mode after the incident. (720p/1080i/480p instead of 480i/analog)

Each picture mode has it's own convergence adjustments and we have seen sets that had never been set up for the HD modes and no one noticed until they finally got an HD signal, several years later. I just had a set in the shop which had all the normal modes correct and the ZOOM modes completely non adjusted.

It is more likely a coincidence of timing, although power/voltage surges can cause almost any sort of oddball failure. First, pull the power cord, wait an hour, plug it back in and check again. (for data corruption correction)

Thanks for the feedback.

The problem exists when the cable box is bypassed; it happens with the DVD input as well.]

AFAIK, there was no loss of power, at least not at my house. Whether anything happened at the site of the break, I don't know yet.

I just disconnected the power and I'll wait an hour.

I'll let you know if there is a change.

Again, my sincerest thanks.

Steven

I unplugged the tv, cable and dvd and reconnected.

No change.

there is no voltage on a cable line (at least from the pole to your TV). cutting a truck/feeder leg down the road cant cause a TV problem. It's either power related or just unlucky that it happened the same day while u were gone.

Is there another TV that you can easily move to that room if so repeat the same test.
This can help to eliminate a few things.

the other tv's in the house work fine; it seems too coincidental that the set never had a problem and immediately after the line was cut, the convergence is completely messed up.

panasonic suggested that it created some type of spike which caused the problem on the set.

what is the likely problem? the red, green and blue cannot be lined up in the convergence, so i have three images for each person, and any writing on the screen is unreadable.

thanks for any input you can offer.

I would say probably just a coincidence. I had a tv that failed with the same symptoms and from what I heard it isn't a cheap repair. I just threw mine out and got a new plasma.

-SG

I would say probably just a coincidence. I had a tv that failed with the same symptoms and from what I heard it isn't a cheap repair. I just threw mine out and got a new plasma.

-SG
It's generally about a $200 repair unless you model uses odd convergence ICs.
The repair will last longer than the original (better soldering, heat sink compound, improved IC versions)
While you might not do the repair after the set is over 10 years old, the lifespan of a CRT RPTV is generally about 15 years or more. Most repairs run in the $100 - $250 range unless it's one of the newer HD sets and the failure is in the digital processing circuitry. CRT RPTVs generally use repairable technology but you will need to get into a shop that does component level repair. A Plasma repair, on the other hand will often run over $600 ($500 - $4000 common) and be impossible after 18 - 24 months when the boards run out of stock. Some of the no-name brands are unrepairable out of the box.

Further, adding a digital tuner to a large analog TV will produce a picture slightly better than a DVD. If you are seated at 12 feet then the difference between SD digital (converter) and HD digital will be almost, if not completely invisible.

Why not call a service tech or experienced ISF guy to look it over?

They could give you an idea of if it's worth saving, and might convince the Cable company to help you get some reimbursement from the contractor that dug up the lines, if he thinks that's what caused the problem. I'm sure the Cable company is "talking" to the contractor.