[PhilipsPhanatic]

Sparkles Problem: Who's had the blue/green sparkle problem ?


And has anybody seen a few white sparkles when the TV is first turned on? I do, but I see nothing after the whole picture fills the screen and the TV is operating.

 

[xandypx]

Well, finally some good news to report.

The new power supply was installed, voltages checked…

And you know what? The Plasma finally does what it is supposed to do.

The tech even took the time to calibrate the FPD... what a huge improvement.


Sears has also offered us an extra year of onsite service at no charge.

Even the tech was happy that everything worked. He said he felt like one of the family.

Another happy ending….

 

[Scmedic]

Sparkles------


I've recently acquired the small lower left quadrant splattering of random red/green pixels for the first 20 minutes or so of startup. No pattern. No mass coverage. Just random flickering single pixels in Red and Green..


This is on a one year old, 50" 9631.. Anyone have this problem or a fix to it? I mean, they do go away, but it's damn annoying.


This unit was properly broken in, and calibrated.

 

[jlppimb]

After not having my plasma for 7.5 weeks, finally got it back Dec 17. Works fine now. The repair shop got a new panel from Phillips and installed it. But here is the story: Talked to a CSR from Phillips named Clint starting on Oct 26. who told me numerous times the repair shop I was using was not an authorized repair center. The shop told me they were, and I have dealt with this shop for about 16 years on various electronics, so I was trusting they were. Phillips calls me one day and another CSR says that the repair shop is authorized and they will be fixing the tv, was hoping for a replacement but oh well. Repair shop calls me couple days later and says the panel is on backorder, and Phillips would be calling within a few days to make some kind of arrangement. Again was hoping for a new tv. Phillips CSR calls and says that the panel has shipped and the repair shop would have it the next day. DAMN IT!!!!! Told the CSR that I was unhappy with the length of time it took and that Clint lied to me about the repair shop. CSR didn't seem to interested in that. Needless to say unless Phillips changes their tune somewhere along the line with me, I will not buy another Phillips product if I can help it. I dealt with the Blue sparkles for a few months and when I decided to get it fixed, that took about another 2 months. Beware!!!

 

[Scmedic]

Yet another great customer service story right here...


After developing the "Sparklies", about a month ago now, I called Philips 3 weeks ago. They told me to go through all the inputs, check this and that, and call back if the problem wasn't fixed. They blamed my cable company, as well as my power strip, and none of that worked.


I called back today, which is 4 days past my warranty expiration, and was told they'd send a local tech out, and he would fix it. I was then informed that it wouldn't be covered by Philips... How bout that? After a very long conversation, my case was sent to Customer Entitlement, and I was told they would call me the day after Christmas with an answer..


Anyone have any input on this? Know any higher ups emails? Frank? C'mon....There has to be something I can do. DakotasMom....Who'd you speak with..Can you PM me the email/phone numbers?



And yes, I should have gotten the extended..But that's beside the point.

 

[PhilipsPhanatic]

Can someone please post the Philips USA CEO/Chmn E-Mail ???


Scmedic, check over on the 9630 thread, too, back within the last 5-7 pages from the end or so (a few months going back) should reveal the e-mail if my memory is correct.

 

[advil_yum]

After reading a lot of horror posts on this thread, I thought I'd chime in and tell everyone about my experience with the set.

I've had it almost exactly 1 year and 3 months now, and every day with it, we still marvel in it's beauty and performance, especially with HD content... Minus one minute.


One day, when turning it on to watch a DVD, we had the very strange blue-ish pixelation occured. My wife called me in to ask what was going on, and I hadn't a clue - I thought our DVD was going on the fritz, but I did recall the post earlier in this thread with screen shots, and my heart dropped. I thought it was the start of the end. I tried different sources with different inputs, and it didn't help. This happened 1 month after the end of the warranty - we did not purchase extended warranty, as we're not a fan of those generally. Anyway, I turned everything off and unplugged the tv from the bottom, left it for a few seconds, to ensure all the power was drained, then plugged it in and retried... and to my delight the blue pixelation was gone, and hasn't been back since. Hopefully this was a one-time thing and never happens again!


We've recently purchased a Playstation 3, and watched a few Blu-Ray movies on it (in 1080i mode), and WOW, what a sight!! I can only imagine how the newer 1080p sets look (from what I've read, not much different, though).

I still worry about burn-in while in the PS3 menus and games, but so far it hasn't been an issue. In my paranoia, I've turned down the brightness and contrast a little which are now at around 45 each -- But these settings seem too dark and I seem to be losing a lot of detail. I need to spend some time with the settings and with my DVD Essentials to re-calibrate.


To speak on Philips Customer Service, I have yet to deal with the electronics dept, but I have dealt with the lighting division (what Philips is known for), and that experience was top notch - the best I've ever had. I had a transformer from an LED deck lights kit blow on me, and they sent out a new one, no questions asked, paid for shipping, no receipt necessary, no serial number needed, no need to return the defective unit.... in fact, there was no way they could have known that I had even bought the thing. Because of that experience, I can only assume that I'll have good experiences with them if I ever need to again for other departments. Maybe I just lucked out, or because I'm in Canada with different customer service centres? Who knows?


But for anyone reading this thread, let it be known that the good sets FAR outweigh the troublesome sets. I feel for those with problems, but unfortunately you just got bad luck with buying a lemon.

 

[Scmedic]

Advil-


I have to agree, my performance, and quality has been top notch as well. Just this random sparkle thing that's been driving me nuts.. Still waiting for an answer on the warranty issue from Philips.. If not, then it's on to the Consumerist!

 

[Scmedic]

Well, I have acquired a top level exec's email from another thread, and emailed him.


In the last few days, I've noticed the problem getting worse. I've also noticed a lot more "ghosting", if you will. The funny thing is, the "ghosted" area's on the screen, obviously highly visible on a black background, are the spots that I see the flickering red/green sparklies now. This is going downhill fast..I need this to be made right by Philips..

 

[PhilipsPhanatic]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Scmedic /forum/post/12586280


Well, I have acquired a top level exec's email from another thread, and emailed him. In the last few days, I've noticed the problem getting worse. I've also noticed a lot more "ghosting", if you will. The funny thing is, the "ghosted" area's on the screen, obviously highly visible on a black background, are the spots that I see the flickering red/green sparklies now. This is going downhill fast..I need this to be made right by Philips..

Keep us posted on your results.


Anyone contacting Philips should be FIRM but POLITE. Remember, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. As many of us are loyal Philips buyers -- light bulbs, shavers, digital picture frames, DVD players, etc -- it's good to remind them of that.


Customer loyalty is a nice payoff for fixing a problem or getting a new replacement set to an annoyed customer.

 

[jlppimb]



Quote:
Originally Posted by advil_yum /forum/post/12577097



But for anyone reading this thread, let it be known that the good sets FAR outweigh the troublesome sets. I feel for those with problems, but unfortunately you just got bad luck with buying a lemon.

While this is true it does'nt take away from the fact that the time period for getting issues resolved is the most troubling part. As in most cases the good far out way the bad, but getting issues resolved in a timely matter and satisfying the customer are what bring people back to a certain brand. Hopefully Phillips takes care of its loyal customers. To the people who have problems, like the Phanatic said, be firm but polite. Good Luck!

 

[Scmedic]

I most definately wasn't rude in my emails. I made it a point how customer service had screwed up, and not documented my first call, and that I expected that a 2k plus dollar unit would warrant some outstanding customer service, not to mention more than one year of use.

 

[PhilipsPhanatic]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jlppimb /forum/post/12602166


While this is true it does'nt take away from the fact that the time period for getting issues resolved is the most troubling part. As in most cases the good far out way the bad, but getting issues resolved in a timely matter and satisfying the customer are what bring people back to a certain brand. Hopefully Phillips takes care of its loyal customers. To the people who have problems, like the Phanatic said, be firm but polite. Good Luck!

Philips customer service in the end seems to be getting better, but the timeframe in getting results is still quite poor. I will try and bring it up with someone at Philips in the next few weeks.

 

[PhilipsPhanatic]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Scmedic /forum/post/12602567


I most definately wasn't rude in my emails. I made it a point how customer service had screwed up, and not documented my first call, and that I expected that a 2k plus dollar unit would warrant some outstanding customer service, not to mention more than one year of use.

Give me a week or two, I'm going to try and contact someone high-up at Philips and see if we can get an ombudsman or something set up that can help us with these problems. Or at least get us faster responses from the existing setup at Philips.

 

[Scmedic]

Sounds good Frank...Thanks!

 

[Scmedic]

Happy to say I recieved an email from a Philips exec, saying he was very sorry for my experience, and would have his team take care of it. 10 minutes later I got a call from Suzanne Young, the Philips Presidential Customer Liazon or something of the sort, and she was very apologetic as well. She told me they'd grant me full coverage for labor/parts, and that she was calling my closest service center right now. She told me she'd be handling it personally, and that they'd call me in the next day or so, and come to my house to see what the problem was, and make it right. She gave me her direct line, and told me to call her at anytime if I had problems!


Score one for top level execs!

 

[jlppimb]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Scmedic /forum/post/12608673


Happy to say I recieved an email from a Philips exec, saying he was very sorry for my experience, and would have his team take care of it. 10 minutes later I got a call from Suzanne Young, the Philips Presidential Customer Liazon or something of the sort, and she was very apologetic as well. She told me they'd grant me full coverage for labor/parts, and that she was calling my closest service center right now. She told me she'd be handling it personally, and that they'd call me in the next day or so, and come to my house to see what the problem was, and make it right. She gave me her direct line, and told me to call her at anytime if I had problems!


Score one for top level execs!

Same woman called me also. Said how sorry she was for my experience and offered to extend my warranty for a year. I already have an extended warranty from Best Buy, so I declined that. Although maybe I should cancel the Best Buy warranty and take up the offer. But I doubt it. Apologized again and said if I had any problems to call her directly and let her know about it. Nice of them to call after the fact, but of course not much could be done at this point.

 

[Scmedic]

She didn't offer me any extended warranty. lol.. Did they fix your set?

 

[jlppimb]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Scmedic /forum/post/12610170


She didn't offer me any extended warranty. lol.. Did they fix your set?

Set was already fixed by the time she contacted me(took 7.5 weeks). So there really wasn't much else that could be done. Not sure if I should have pushed for something else or not but I didn't.

 

[xandypx]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jlppimb /forum/post/12609820


Said how sorry she was for my experience and offered to extend my warranty for a year. I already have an extended warranty from Best Buy, so I declined that.

With all the problems we had, Sears offered an extra year of warranty service. That brought the extended warranty of 3 yrs, with the extra year to a total of 4 years. They mailed us the new extended warranty info.


Do we need 4 years?... probably not... But the extra year was FREE!!!


Also, The Sears tech said that with the extended warranty through Sears, they will come out once a year and check to make sure everything is ok, vaccume dust out of the FPD, make whatever adjustments are necessary in the Service Menu. check and adjust color space/white balance, grey scale... Basically he said recalibrate the set if necessary. Apparantly with Sears, this is part of their extended warranty service on TV's. He says most people don't read the Sears extended warranty on electronics, and that this annual service is part of the warranty, that few people take them up on.


A calibration normally costs $400 to be done once...At least that's what it cost me to have my Panny done by an ISF qualified tech.


Is the Sears tech ISF qualified??? Probably not, but you know what??? He has all the same equipment that is necessary to calibrate the set... apparantly knows how to use it... and did a great job the first time around, after the repair was completed.


So maybe asking for the extra year of extended service wasn't such a bad idea! If the tech comes once a year... hmmm...


I guess the money paid for the 3 years of extended warranty... now 4 yrs.. will eventually pay for itself!!! ...with a few years to spare.