Do not buy this TV! (1 Viewer)

[Ed St. Clair]

RCA F38310

This set has all the features you need to enjoy HDTV.

This set has none of the preformance to enjoy TV.

1. The set is unable to produce black on either side on the set. Instead of black, you get gray.

2. The set is tilted to one side, left side is higher than right by 5%, and is not repairable, according to RCA Tech.

3. Set upconvertes all inputs to 1080i. Adding digital artifacts to all sources. Making cable, sat. [except 1080i], & DVD's look worse than an analog set.

4. Set has vertical black lines on left side that RCA does not 'see', therefore will not fix. I have seen this on two sets in my home, two at Best Buy in Dublin Ca., & one set at Best Buy Walnut Creek Ca.. Both tech's that came to my home, saw the black lines. RCA does not!

5. Fan noise. This 'thing' is on 24/7! And you can hear it as soon as you walk into the room. I have to un-plug the TV, just to listen to music. And you will hear the fan when watching TV.

6. Dealing with RCA. You can phone the tech line, just that it will cost you $4.25US a minute. And no department can connect you to the next one you need to talk to. And no department knows what the other one is doing. Do not buy a RCA product and expect any help at all.

Some other stuff, but this should be enough. It is for me.

 

[MikeyWeitz]

After the VERY poor reliabilioty with my 2 older 25' RCA sets, I wouldnt touch another RCA product with a 1,000 ft pole. I opted for a Samsung 32" Direct View HDTV and couldnt be happier.

 

[Glenn Guerra]

A lesson I learned long ago....................

I will never buy another GE product. Then I switched to RCA, being the thrifty man that I am. RCA is crappy to I learned. Then I learned GE makes RCA......enuff said.......Then I switched to Panasonic. Same problem. Then I learned Panasonic uses GE parts. Enuff said...........

I will never buy those products again.

Now I just try to buy high quality equipment, it just makes sense in the long run.

Buyer beware. Cheap products can be expensive!

Glenn

 

[Bill Balcziak]

Aren't the gray "black" bars intended to reduce burn in and therefore a "feature"?

 

[Stephen Houdek]

Yes, the gray bars are intentional to prevent screen burn-in. Black is supposedly the hardest "color" to reproduce.

My Hitachi has Gray bars when I have it in 4:3 mode and I don't mind it a bit.

Sounds like you got a bum set with the tilting etc.....

 

[Chris Hicks]

also don't forget that Proscan is RCA all dressed up for the prom

 

[Carl Johnson]

The only bad experience I've had with buying a television was a 19" RCA set that I got about 7 years ago. After less than a year the thing just died and since it was out of warranty Best Buy wanted like $100 just to look at it. That experience put me on an anything but RCA list.

 

[Dwight Amato]

I too would not buy a RCA set, but I have owned several Panasonics (friends and relatives too) and none of us have had a problem with them.

 

[Ron Shaw]

Then I learned Panasonic uses GE parts

I dont believe this. Panasonic makes everything from resistors, capacitors, oscillators to speakers, and I cant imagine what they would want to buy from GE. I know the older Panasonics used picture tubes from Sony, and this may still be the case, but parts from GE???

 

[Jack Briggs]

* Another serious problem with the set in question here is the oft-reported cases of power-supply failures. This thing is a lemon.

* Thomson Consumer Electronics is the manufacturer of all TVs sold under the brand names RCA, GE, and, now, Scenium (which replaces the old Proscan moniker). In general, I would not recommend investing in any of these brands. GE is not even worthy of discussion here; it's that bad.

* Panasonic is a trademarked division of Matsushita of Japan, makers of everything from Panasonic and Technics. Panasonic makes most of the internals of its televisions, including picture tubes (the same as with Sony and Toshiba).

 

[Elbert Lee]

Not that this has a whole lot to do with it, but GE's laundry washers and driers are rated among the poorest in reliability and most frequent when it comes to repairs. When one or more of a company's product lines are given poor quality ratings, I will generally have little faith in that company at all since it has demonstrated that quality control is not high on its priority list..

On the other hand, I've been comfortable with products made by Panasonic and its parent company, as well as Toshiba. Sony has been a hit or miss as I understand from dealer and friends' testimonies that they have the most out of box problems of the sets that are sold...

Elbert

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Aren't the gray "black" bars intended to reduce burn in and therefore a "feature"?

Bill,

You will indeed see gray bars on the side of this set, and many others [Sony does black bars], when displaying 4:3.

The gray on the sides I am warning everyone about, is seen on 'widescreen'. The tube is unable to produce black on the sides of the screen. Movies like Star Trek:TM, Toy Story 2, Alien, & Predator, are ruined from the get go. Even the bars on the top & bottom of the set show gray on the sides, instead of black.

 

[Ron-P]

also don't forget that Proscan is RCA all dressed up for the prom

My buddy bought a Proscan 34" (or so) widescreen HDTV, (first mistake), he bought it over the net (second mistake). He has had nothing but problems with it and it is still not fixed (a year later). The geometry is all screwed up around the edges and he cannot get it fixed correctly. That is a 3,400 POS.
Peace Out~

 

[Bill Slack]

GE is basically nine seperate companies. They don't make consumer electronics, they just liscence their name for it. A lot of GE appliances are quite good, but over-priced too, I think.
GE makes some of the best MR and CT scanners in the world.
If you have a store credit card, it's very likely from GE capital (which has 2 credit card branches, one with atrocious customer service, and one that is quite good!)
They also own things like autobytel.com.
... and NBC, Rockefeller Center...
My point? I dunno... but I bet you couldn't avoid GE if you tried!
Oh, and RCA/GE/ProScan/Scenium are horrendous in quality, I agree. I've owned a number of them. In all aspects of consumer electronics GE is a _very_ low-end brand.
(and yes, I used to work for General Electric Medical Systems)
Oh, and back in the day GE owned RCA, which is why the liscensing agreement exists today.

 

[Luis M]

I will come in deffense of at least one brand that I own as of right now and that is the 65" RCA Scenium HD projection tv.

As many has said before, Also to me the brand RCA always meant bad quality all around-in and out and I was always very hesitant to get anything displaying an rca logo on it. As it turned out to be, when I went to buy my HD tv I encountered among others, Toshibas,Sony,Mitsubishi and many more popular brands. I was sure I would get a Sony since I have always loved their XBR line but the best picture That I found was the Scenium, Since I had the RCA next to all of these brands in the store showroom I had the chance to compare them side by side for hours and I challenge anybody on this forum to come out with a 7" gun projection tv that looks better than this one. Anybody who has the chance and wants to compare the set in an honest and none biased way will see the difference, Will it die in a couple of months? I don't know, but If I had found a better looking set and was within my budget excluding the Pioneer Elites which were not available for sale in the same store, I would have bought it then but none gave a better picture than this one. When the thx logo comes up on any dvd, The image is so centered and perfectly straight that I went to try to fix geometry on my brother's 65" HD Mitsubishi set. That said most sets I saw give a great HD image and should satisfy most people including me.