Another TV, another problem (PT43LC14)

[hansmike]

2 weeks ago I bought a panasonic PT43LC14, after a little while i noticed that the audio was out of sync with the video. The audio usually lead the video between a tenth and a half a second, which made watching tv or movies unbearable. I bought a new dvd player with HDMI output and the audio and video seemed in sync, but the cable was still hosed. I called panasonic, told me to bring it back, so I called Circuit City, they said to bring it back as well, so I had the only person I know with a truck drive 2 hours to my house, then another half hour to circuit city to exchange it. When I turned the new TV on, it came up for about 2 seconds, then promptly shut down and now the power light is blinking 9 times in a row, then pausing and so forth. tryed unplugging and waiting and everytthing, wont come back up. So by now I am thoroughly pissed :shootout: I called Circuit City again and they agreed to deliver a new TV for no charge. I know its not circuit cities fault for the defective TV's, but I dont think I will ever buy another panasonic product. Keep this in mind if you're planning to purchase one. The picture quality is great, and all together its a good TV, but what are the odds that I have 2 different problems in a row?

[hansmike]

So i got the new TV, and it has the same audio out of sync problem as the first one, I'm starting to think that its panasonic, unless circuit city is just screwing with me and gave me the first one back. So, any other sugestions of a TV in the $2k price range thats comparible?

[57U]

The synch issue may be from another source than your TV. See post 2 of the following thread.

http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/showthread.php?t=8014

[hansmike]

well, I would believe its from a different source, but considering I have 3 seperate sources going into the TV (analog cable, component video from DVD player, and HDMI from DVD player) and all three are acting up. I think I should be somewhat suspicious of the TV. The HDMI didnt act up before, but while I was watching a movie earlier this evening, it was almost 3/4 second out of sync. It gradually got worse, then when I couldnt stand it anymore, I switched to component, which was fine for about 20 minutes. As with cable, some TV channels come in sync better than other. I.E. History Channel comes in near perfect picture/sound quality in sync, but then MTV2 usually comes up a half a second off and looks like garbage. Other channels vary as well. I also never had these issues on my old regular TV. But I have definitely made up my mind, spending $2000 on a TV is not something I should take problems lightly.

[scherer326]

Hansmike, I had the same tv as you. Returned it to Circuit City and got the Sony KDF-42WE655. So much better. Better HD picture and no fan noise (the reason why I returned the PT-43LC14). Go with the sony, you wont be disappointed.

Only drawback is that I wish there was another component output, but I just switch 1 with dvd and xbox. Not a big problem at all.

[hansmike]

Thank you for the suggestion, I looked at the Sony and liked it, especially with the built in HDTV tuner, and it was only $150 more. BUT, circuit city obviously gave me a hard time for apparent reasons. One sales clerk told me that the reason for the out of syncness was from "dirty electricity", that power that came into the house was full of noise and needed to be cleaned with a mere $50 monster power strip. So i was like F-you guy i got one at home. Given I have a BSEE (bachelor of science in electrical engineering degree) I am quite aware of the unregulated noisy power coming from my crappy electric company. The clerk was trying to explain to me that if one of the lasers (on a 2 laser DVD player) was off by a little bit due form this noise, that it could cause audio problems. But I was thinking that since DVD players are purely digital, run off of DC voltage, and they all have regulated DC power supplies, how would noise from an AC signal cause all of this?
So i put on the surge protector (with noise reducing transformer) and so far, I have watched one movie with no issue, and I have noticed very few channels out of sync. Now this leads me to believe that panasonic actually does have crappy engineers. What kind of company would sell a consumer product that costs thousands of dollars and doesnt operate correctly without additional 3rd party equipment? Nonetheless, if I do experience any additional problems, I will post another response and surely give Circuit City hell.

[stshipley]

Hansmike,

When I purchased the PT-43LC14 for myself, that was the first thing I noticed. I sat around for weeks obsessing over this fraction of a second delay, and even posted to this forum about the problem. I was mortally convinced that it was the TV, because I could see the problem on cable, DVD, and my PVR.

Well the bottom line is that whille I still think there is a slight delay where the audio is in front of the video, I think the real problem, is in fact, the source material. The DVD 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' exhibited the same problem on another persons's TV, a regular CRT. All of the sudden I started to notice audio/video sync problems at TVs all over the place, in sports bars, friends homes, and thought "hey, it's not just my TV."

Then I got HDTV working, and you can hardly notice the problem at all. Now I believe, (and anyone is welcome to support or refute this belief) that the better quality of the source going in, the less sync problems you have. The worse the source is, the worse the sync problem is. My rational for this is that the set wants to play HDTV signals (720P). 480i or 480p signals need to be processed up to 720p and processing takes time, which I account for the delay, because the processing of the source happens at the TV, and not before. Standard cable and my PVR are the biggest offenders. DVDs less so, partly because my DVD player allows for slight delays in the audio to account for speaker distance.

I hope this helps. I love my PT-43LC14, but acknowledge that standard cable programs aren't very good. It's not what the TV wants to do, which is do HDTV. In that area it excels.

I welcome more commentary on this topic.

-STS

[oman321]

How you doing St.
I agree with your argument about it being a broader problem attributed to something other than any specific model. I had an audio problem with a Koss 6.1 HTIB system. Digital cable stations were delayed by about 4-5 seconds at times, HD less so about 2 seconds and analog actually qued up pretty good. Delay also occured with X-box. Dvd's sync'd up fine but the DVD player was part of the HTIB. In this case I believe it is the equipment as this problem was exhibited by another poster some time ago.

I believe the Koss used a Texas Instrument digital processor to handle the sound for the Koss. The sound was being fed via, optical and coax. Analog (red & white) did not exhibit this delay.

[hansmike]

Actually, since I put the surge protector on, I havent seen any problems yet. except the analog cable sometimes goes in and out of sync. I even watched movies that I knew had a out of sync problems and they came out great. But i just ordered HDTV (for the big game!!!) and should be installed tomorrow! I'm very happy with my TV now, but something still doesn't feel right with it... I guess its just the whole fact that I had to go through this. Thank you for the responses.

Mike