Hitachi LCD V500 Issues Thread - Page 2

No ****!

Time to find a new hobby :P

I recently purchased a 50v500a that has a crop circle . 1.5 in diameter, green, only visible against dark background, left-center of screen. I cannot return the set, so I enlisted the help of the top-notch Hitachi service network, who showed up at my house last week to work their magic . Their initial diagnosis was that there must be dust somewhere in the light path. I was somewhat encourage by this, since this is what the consensus opinion is on avsforum. So, I was fooled into thinking they might know what they were doing and might be able to help. It was all downhill from there. My v500 was the first one they had worked on, so their next step was to scratch their heads and try to figure out how to get inside the tv. So they popped off the front cover and started taking screws out with a manual screwdriver. I could not take the agony of watching them loosen dozens of screws by hand, so I offered my power screwdriver. This lessened the time spent in agony, but believe me the agony was still there. They took off a dozen or so screws from the front and tried to get the screen off. This didn't work, so they did some more head scratching and started taking screws out of the back. Repeated the head scratching and screw removal process a couple more times until they had 40 or 50 screws removed . If this was not my tv, I would have been laughing my a$$ off, but since it was my tv the humor was smothered by the anger and exasperation. It was obvious that they did not have a clue, so I recommended calling Hitachi tech support to see what they said. Of course this bruised their egos a bit, but they went ahead and made the call. Without much questioning or hesitation, Hitachi recommended replacing the light engine.

I had hoped that the silver lining in this cloud would be that, by not being able to return my set, we might finally determine a reasonable fix for the crop circle problem. Unfortunately, the solution is still to replace the light engine. This is of course no comfort to the v500 owners out there who are worried about getting a crop circle a year from now when the set is out of warranty. Will the fix still be to replace the light engine???

The service manager I am working with locally said that they just don't have enough experience with these sets to know how to fix this problem. Everyone who has the problem is either sending it back under an exchange policy or getting a new light engine under warranty. He felt that within the next 3-6 months they would have more experience with this technology and would know how to fix them. Obviously, this is no help to those of us who want the answers now.

So, now I am making calls between the service rep and Hitachi to try to expedite the process. The service tech said they could buy the light engine for $1700this is considerably less than earlier reports of $4000, but still a huge chunk of change.

Mattysan was going through the same process about a month ago. Last post I saw was that the new light engine was at his house and the tech was coming the next day to install it. Never saw a follow up post to tell if the new light engine solved the problem. Mattysan, if you're out there, an update would be appreciated.

Also, is there anyone out there who has the service manual in pdf format that is willing to share? That way, the next time I have a service call, I can show the tech what to do

I will update as things develop.

bdouble,
Great post. I (and the wife) went through the same exact experience with our 50V500. I got it hooked up this past weekend, we watched in awe, were totally and remain impressed, even with the non-progressive DVD, but a green hue crop circle showed up just left and below of dead center the next day As with you, it may have been there at day one but the beauty of it all may have obscured our reality sensors. It only shows during dark scenes.
I bought this 50V500 from the Sears Retail Outlet here in CT and fortunately purchased the EW, which I may call on eventually. We're not at that point yet, but I'm sure we'll get there. Additionally, the power LED doesn't illuminate when the TV is on.
I'm curious how your story goes. Please keep us updated because I'm in the same boat.

well, according to Hitachi customer service, my new light engine is being overnighted and should be delivered tomorrow. Service tech said he will be out on Friday to install it.

I'll post an update after the installation of the new engine.

btw, for those of you who have the sm....have you noticed the large number of pages and color photographs devoted to detailed instructions on how to remove and replace the light engine??? No other part or issue has one full page of color photos and instructions, let alone 13. Am I the only paranoid soul who thinks the reason they spent the time to do this was because they thought they might have to replace a bunch of light engines? I'm probably just a bit jumpy because of the situation I'm in

hey guys. i actually just started a new thread cause im having problems with my set. i just found this thread so ill post the same message here...

"hitachi 50v500A fuzzy & pixelated..newbie..please help
hi. from the advice of some members on this board i just purchased a hitachi 50v500A from sears. so the 1st thing i checked out was the dvd. i have a toshiba sd2200. it's old but i plan on getting a new player soon. anyway, i hook up the dvd and put a movie in..and the video looks like crap. it's not even regular tv quality. it's watchable but a little fuzzy and pixelated looking. what really makes me mad is that the dvd picture looked awesome on my little 20 inch panasonic, a regular 4:3 tv. the picture with the hitachi just doesnt have that clear and brilliant look to it. now i thought it was maybe because i was using regular hookups..the red white and yellow ones. but i tried the green, blue and red ones and the pic still looks bad. and its not just the dvd..its the cable too. the picture looks the same. i thought maybe it was because i was only about 10 ft away. so i backed up to around 20 feet and still looks bad. does the picture always look like this out of the box? do i have to do some major configurations? i'm not tech savy at all. i paid a lot of money for this tv and i dont know if i didnt set it up right or if i should call hitachi and get someone to look at it. please help me out."

Toys, that doesn't sound right. Take your DVD to the store and hook it up on the display unit. DVD on my 50v500 looks awesome! Of course, HD is better, but I still have no complaints about the PQ with DVD's.

Cheers

How do you have your DVD player hooked up to the TV?
I know when I first looked at the TV at Sears they had Shrek playing and it looked incredibly awful (pixelated). They had the DVD player connected through the composite input. They switched to s-video and things got better. Mine is connected through component and it looks very good.

-Spike

Please say a prayer for my 50v500....the new light engine has been delivered and the tech will start this afternoon on what will be his first light engine replacement on a v500

decided to let them take it to the shop instead of performing the surgery in home. since he is a first-timer I would like him to be able to concentrate. This is difficult to do at our house with 2 90 lb dogs and a 3 year old girl creating havoc.

2 questions - how long did it take the techs to get a replacement light engine, and how long did they think it would take to install?

Looks like I am going to be in the same boat; seems that my green LCD panel died on my 35 day old 50v500... Have a Sears repair tech coming out on monday.

-DrumAnBass

I had mine replaced. Took two techs about 2-2.5 hours. Think they estimated about 3-4 hours. It was thier first LE replacement as well. The tech seemed to be very good (first tech they sent out was a MORON!!! ). As has been mentioned, hitachi goes through great detail on how to replace the engine and so long as you have a good tech it shouldn't be that painful. I think they sent two techs out because the whole screen asembly (top half of the tv comes completly off) needs to be removed.

Good luck!

-Spike

Hitachi recommended replacing the light engine on Monday and the part arrived on Thursday---so 3 days for that part. I had to force the issue with Hitachi a little bit to get them to expedite and overnight the part and made daily calls to Hitachi and service center to check progress. Overall, I would say Hitachi did a nice job on being responsive and expediting. If I had left it to the service center to get the part from their distributor, it would have added 2 weeks.

Since it's his first time, the tech is a bit unsure about the amount of time for repair, he thinks 2-3 hours. There are about 50 screws and several parts that have to be removed to get the light engine out....definitely not a tidy modular plug and play deal. If all goes well, my set should be ready by lunch tomorrow.

good news.....v500 is back at home with the new light engine.....and its working like a champ with no crop circles hopefully this will be the end of major issues....cautiously optimistic at this point.

Great news bdouble! I'm happy to hear that everything is working good.
BTW...that was a pretty darn quick replacement and delivery back to your place. I'm quite impressed especially since you had to deal directly with Hitachi. I don't have any experience dealing directly with them but I expected that it would have been a long drawn out process.
As far as my crop circle and power LED problem.....I called the Sears Outlet center yesterday and talked with the rep who sold me my last TV. I must have done something right because this weekend they're having a 50% off sale on all there TVs! I explained to him the problems I'm having with mine and he said to come in and exchange it because they just took delivery of 3-4 of them on Tuesday.

So, he put one aside for me and I went over there this evening to check it out with remote in hand and everything looks good. The girl who was helping me looked at the price and told me it was 50% off and that after I exchange my other one (which was $650 more), they will honer the 50% off! I nearly busted a nut when she told me. Therefore, I'll be bringing mine back tomorrow morning and exchanging it for this one. As long as this one works without any problems (ie. crop circles, smudges, LEDs), I'll be very happy. Either way, I can't go wrong in picking up a 50V500 for one/six/four/nine.00 along with the 3 year extended warranty.
For anyone living in the CT area, this Sears Outlet has been top notch as far as being friendly and accomodating. I highly recommend them to anyone interested in buying a TV from there. As I mentioned above, all their TVs are 50% off this weekend, and as far as I know, they all qualify for the extended warranty.

I got a replacement for my Hitachi and found new issues. 5 to 6 dead pixels and SDE. I see the SDE mostly on white back ground. This wasn't there in my old TV.

Regarding the DVD player, my old Toshiba DVD player (SD 6109) without progressive scan when connect through the Monster2 component cables produces awesome picture and is no different than HD931 picture quality. I tried all kind of settings with HD931 still I did not see any difference in the picture quality. HD931 with DVI cable was worst as it was very grainy so I returned that set. I bought a cheap DVD progressive player (Cyberhome 300S) which has the same quality and I am going to use it for burnder medea.

Does any body has any idea why there is no difference in the picture quality ?
Please Help.

Can somebody explain if the issue I am seeing with my TV is SDE.

I see a light snow like screen on the surface when the camera is moving against a bright background. This you can notice a lot when you are watching ice hockey in HD.

If this is SDE, did any body got it fixed by a tech.
It is still under warranty, I am thinking to get another replacement.
Please HELP !!!

mnocs-

yeah, I can't complain about Hitachi's responsiveness. from the time they determined I needed a light engine relacement, it took 4 days to get the part there and have the repair done. I actually went and picked it up myself instead of waiting for delivery, which they couldn't schedule until Monday. Not a big deal for me, since the repair center is only 15 minutes away.

sounds like you got the deal of the century on your replacement set....as you said....you must be living right! hope the new set has no problems. good luck!

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by FaxMan
RickGGGGGGG,


BTW, did you know that if the TV is off and it detects a signal via Input2 it will automatically turn on?

=Fax
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I originally posted in this in the general thread since the above quote came from there, but as this is the official issues thread....
Could this be the reason my TV occaionaly turns on in the middle of the night?
My TV also sometimes turns off, then on, then off, then on again all by itself.
And no, I dont have any of the timer functions on.

MATT

I also posted this on the main thread - how loud is the fan supposed to be? I got my set yesterday and am surprised at how loud it is.

Loco Matt,

Does whatever device you have connected on I2 switch on/off at the same time? Can you replicate the problem by switching whatever you have connected to Input2 on/off without touching the TV?

I guess it could be that or errant IR or RF signals bouncing around. Do you have any animals that might step on remotes?

Then again, one of us may be loco.

--Fax

R1ton,

I can only hear mine if the sound is completely off.

Do you have something behind it that may be reflecting/amplifying the sound?

Do you have carpet on your floors?

Without blocking the airflow, you might want to put something soft near the air exit.

=Fax

FaxMan - yes, the fan blows into the wall ... maybe that is reflecting it. Yes, the TV room is carpeted. When you say something soft near the air exit, what do you have in mind?

Sorry for the dumb questions. I assume we're talking about the lower right hand side of the tv if you're standing behind it (where it glows).

No, the first time it happened i thought that a dog steeped on the remote as she was on the sofa, but since then i made it a point to keep the remotes on the side table, so when it turned on in the middle of the night, the remotes were not touched, and the dvd player was off.
The dvd player is hooked up in vid 2. HD box was in vid 1. Does the set turning on if it detects a signal only happen in video 2, or does it hapen on all component inputs?
MATT

I'd say anything... a piece of carpet, a pillow, a padded brassier, ManPig's toupee... that would absorb rather than reflect sound would help. I guess a stray piece of junk bouncing around in the fan blades could cause a racket also.

Can you hear it when you have the volume at normal listening levels?

I'd say I can only hear it if I'm standing next to it and everything else is off.

Yes, I believe you have the correct location.

AFAIK it only happens on Vid2...

Otherwise, this chump is stumped.

I noticed some of you guys mentioned that your sets have smudges. I've had my set for about a week now and have just noticed 2 smudges on my screen. One on the left and one on the right. So I had a tech guy from sears look at it early this morning. He said they would have to order some replacement part. I don't know what part he was talking about though. Is this a common problem with this set? I looked at my tv again just now and now I can't see the smudges. They're exactly where the gray bars are if you set the set to 4:3. But as hard as I tried I can't spot them now. Do these smudges disappear and reappear? It was only distracting in bright scenes, like cartoons. But now I don't see anything. Am I losing my mind?

Crazy MB - Is there any consistency in the times that your set switches on/off? not sure if you've considered this, but there is an event timer (in the setup menu) that can be used to turn the tv on or off at specified times on specified days. Perhaps somehow this feature got turned on.... I realize this is a longshot....just trying to think of anything it COULD be that wouldn't require repair or replacement.

bdouble,
No i thought of that too, not till yesterday though, but all timers are off.
Also, it doesnt happen every day, andat the same time. Two weekends ago it happened friday night, saturday evenng, and sunday afternoon--3 days in a row. Then I had no such problems, until this weekend, it woke my wife and i up at some ungodly hour when it turned on.
also as I had stated above in my second post to this thread, when it turns itself off, after it goes through the 1-2 minute cool down process, it turns itself back on again--and repeats 2-3 times before remianing on.
In conclusion, i KNOW for certain after checking that it is not a timer problem--unless of course it says they are off, but through some glitch, thinks they are on.
Thanks for the suggestion though.
I apreciate any and all help I can get.
MATT

Can't attest to your mental health but most who have them have reported that the smudges do come and go. The theory is that they are temperature-related.....they seem to go away once the set has been on for a bit and warmed up. There was a lot of discussion about this issue at the "Hitachi LCD Rear Projection Owners Thread," which is closed to new posts, but you can still find a lot of good info and interesting hypothesizing about smudges there.