I was playing around with my VPH-2020 and all of a sudden when I turned it back on, I got the same exact symptoms that you had. Powers up, and crackles but no picture... after hours of tracing back what I did, I figured out it was a wire that I somehow puleed out of it's solder on one of the oval transistors near the lenses, and mounted to the metal chassis. I soldered it back, and everything was fine... Just thought you might want to check for any disconnected wires...