Half of all returned electronics work perfectly... (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, that link worked when I first posted it. They must have moved the story. A number of news sites just reprinted exactly the same Reuters wire copy, including ABC at the link Chu Gai provided. (My post has now been updated with his link, for newcomers to the thread. )

Joe

 

[Scott L]

no no, I meant it was posted wrong, there were two http://[/url]'s in it so it was just bad. But I'm not one to nitpick

 

[MarkHastings]

I'm sure you guys have seen this, but I thought this is an appropriate place to post this link:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/3239/ Ah, but THEN you'll have to deal with creating manuals on how to get the holographic guy to appear. LOL

Imagine, a manual on how to get the manual to work.

 

[Malcolm R]

Do you ever include any "average joes" in your process that would be using the end product? They would bring the end user perspective that most of those involved in the creation, design, production would lack.

 

[MarkHastings]

Very good point Malcolm. I knew an art professor who was a genius when it came to art and design, but he was a HORRIBLE teacher. Everyone got so frustrated because when they took his "Introduction to painting" class, he'd forget that these people didn't understand the basics and he'd start teaching advanced stuff that went over a lot of peoples heads.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Faced with this, you must ask the most important question a student can ever ask a college professor:

"Excuse me, Professor, is this going to be on the final?"

If the answer is "No, but it is an interesting exercise", immediately cease taking notes and proceed to take a nap.

For all the future college students in the audience - No I am not joking.

 

[todd s]

A friend once sent me a story about a guy from a computer tech support. It's probably a mix of true stories. But, the story goes something to the effect that a lady calls the tech line complaining her computer died. And it turned out the power was out. Then the guy told her to return the computer because she is too stupid to own one.

 

[DavidBL]

Sort of. "Average Joes" don't sit in on manual reviews, but they do participate in early pre-release product tests that include 1st drafts of the manuals. If there's a glaring oversight that nobody understands we'll generally catch it there.

 

[MarkHastings]

todd s, I had a similar experience where my bosses wife called me from her home office. She was FRANTIC because her computer crashed and she couldn't get away from the frozen screen.

After having her go through several steps, I finally told her to just unplug the computer and plug it back in.

She did so and it was still crashed. This confused the hell out of me. I went over step by step...she said she pulled the plug and the computer went off, then she plugged it back in and the computer came on, but the screen was still frozen.

WELL, after a while, I finally figured it out! I had her uplug the "computer", then I asked if there were lights still on the computer. She said "YES!".

come to find out, she was just unplugging the montior and plugging it back in.

 

[ThomasC]

Post 7 in this thread:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...59#post2953859

 

[LanceJ]

There is also the fact that some products are just plain not designed well, so no matter how well the manual is written, these things are still a bitch to set up and operate. There are several brands of A/V gear that fit this description that are much discussed here, but I'm not naming names.

There's also the belief that many people are just plain being overwhelmed with technology, especially technology that: 1) has little real use but it's included simply because it looks cool in the commercials; or 2) is being used simply because it *IS* "technology". For example, as many educators are finding out (I'm an Earth Science teacher) most of the time using computers to teach something requires MORE time and especially WAY more money that just an old fashioned piece of paper & pencil or a chalkboard.

So I really can't blame a non-hobbyist for buying a Bose Lifestyle system after he sees what most of us go through to get our (component) systems going. For the same reason I am also not surprised at how well those little Tivoli table radios have sold the past four years: just three mechanical knobs + one LED + good sound = popularity. I own a cherry veneer/blue fascia version myself, sitting right in front of me. I think Outlaw is the one of the few companies to make an A/V version of this concept.

 

[PhillJones]

I agree that a lot of the equipment you get these days is just ridiculously complicate. I can always figure out how to get stuff to work but often it's not easy and certainly takes me longer than 20 minutes.

There's also the fact that often things don't actually work as advertised so I'm wondering in who's oppinion these things 'work perfectly'. Take for example my wireless router and printer. Now I have no idea which one of these pieces of kit is at fault but despite what the instructions say, the printer won't lease and IP from the router automatically and WPA encryption doesn't work. As far as HP is concerned, there's nothing worng with the printer and NetGear insist the router is also fine.

I found ways arround these problems but I had to learn a lot of stuff that would be out of reach of your average consumer, not in either manual and certainly beyond the knowledge of the tech support for either company. The upside is i know the significance of 192.168.x.x and 169.254.x.x IP addresses now and how a router will act like a switch for devices on subnets other than it's own. I mean really, should I need such knowledge to be able to print wirelessly?

 

[Eric_L]

Oh come on now, lets be nice to the technologically naive; many of the devices we use are over stuffed with an abundance of unneeded and often complicated features which often obfuscate the features people really want to use.

Here; Imagine this TV commercial;

Mike - Hey BOB, check out my new big screen.

(presses one button on remote)

Bob - Whoa! That is impressive!

Mike - yup, surround sound, built in satellite receiver.."

Bob - That's incredible!

Mike - picture in picture, high definition, hyper..

Bob - (picks up remote) You are able to watch TV with only one remote? Amazeing! Where can I buy one?

 

[MarkHastings]

Well, again, the problem with technology is, a lot of it depends on other forms of technology. Often, you need to be reading a couple of manuals together (at the same time) to figure out how to get something to work.

Many people blame post-installed equimpent on the equipment they just installed, when it could very well be an issue with the equipment they just hooked it up to.

Computers are notorious for that. The manuals will only help you if your system is working properly. Other than that, the device may not work exactly like it should and there may be nothing wrong with said device.

 

[Andrew W]

No. What we now incorrectly call "Quality Control" is only manufacturing consistency control. If the product is cheap and poorly designed, we still end up with a million cheap, poorly designed products. Six Sigma is all about making them the same, not about making them good.

And David, I'm surprised your company is still paying tech writers in the US. All of our documentation is now written in India.

 

[PhillJones]

That may well be true but in this example, a little research amongst user groups of the products found that both of them are now known to be problematic, and not to work robustly. This isn't just people complaining that they couldn't get them to work but people who know what they're doing documenting the design flaws. Still if you took either thing back, the store would no doubt say that the products work perfectly when in fact they work as well as that make and model work. In other words, many consumer electronic goods are poorly under engineered and manufacturers refuse to acknowledge it.

As it turns out, both items will work under slightly different conditions but in their out of the box configuration, if you follow the instructions to the letter, they won't talk to each other. This, I would imagine is not an uncommon cause of returned electronics.

I've actually got an annoying issue right now with the same router, the thing resests itself periodically. There's a thread over 50 pages long on the netgear user forums about the issue, people were checking the power supply, installing fans, messing with configurations, upgrading and downgrading firmware, all sorts. Many people just took their products back. Again, the manufacturer never admitted that there was a problem with the unit.

My brother had a similar problem with a sound card he bought. It just didn't like his motherboard, worked in my PC just fine, in the end, he took it back, got one from a different manufacturer, and it worked fine. Actually, the guy in the computer shop swapped it out after not being able to make it work. Again, there was nothing wrong with the card itself, an nothing wrong with anything else in the PC, apparently.


Surely, I'm not the only one to come across this phenomenon? I'm guessing it's due to sloppy adherence to standards and protocols.

 

[MarkHastings]

That's definitely the biggest problem with computers. That's also why I hate when people go around saying things like "(insert computer or accessory here) SUCK because it didn't work for me at ALL!"

I bet that 80% of the time, it doesn't work because of something else. People are so quick to blame the product when it doesn't do what they think it should do.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I may run into a slight "idiot" situation soon myself.

See, i'm currently looking into getting my very first upscaling dvd player, the OPPO DV971H, which has it's own setting's for color, black level and white level and I am still trying to figure out what to do with them.

I calibrate my projector using AVIA and I don't want to use anything on the player end that may give me a less than NTSC-calibrated result.

In short, i'm not entirly sure how the hell the two (player and projector) interact! But, since i'm into this stuff i'll figure it out, although don't be surprised if you see a new topic pop up from me concerning this issue. :b

 

[Steve Schaffer]

John,

Simple solution--if you're happy with the pq from your other sources put AVIA in the new player and adjust only the settings on the player. That way you won't be messing up the pq for your other sources.

I have had multiple players connected to my set, usually one with no player-adjustable picture settings and one or more with that feature. What I do is put AVIA in the player with no adjustments and use the set's adjustments, then put AVIA in the players with adjustments and use only the players' adjustments so they will all match.

 

[LanceJ]