swampyjack

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $1799.00 from Basic Electronics

Summary:
I purchased our RCA MM52100 in 12/ 27/01. I even bought the extended warrenty. Almost immediately it was sent to the authorized repair shop in our area due to it turning itself on and off. It was not fixed the first time, sent back and kept another 2 months. This unit has never worked properly. Yesterday it turned itself off and will not come back on. When I try to power it on, it will stay on only a second, then go on and off for a second each time for @ four times. It will not power back on. I expected much better from a unit I paid so much of my hard earned money for. And the "authorized" service technicians were obviously clueless as to the knowledge in how to fix my problem. I highly discourage the future purchase of an RCA product.

Strengths:
Fireplace fire makes a nice reflection in the large non working black screen.

Weaknesses:
Durability. Quality in workmanship. Education in the technicians required to provide repair.

Price Paid:  $1869.00 from Rex

Summary:
MM52110 manufactured 4/2001 purchased 6/2001 nice unit but about 9 monys out started turning off buy itself. Did not think much of it as stray ir can do that. But 5 months after the 1 year warrannty is up this does a hard shutdown i the middle if the night. Still waiting for the results of the Authorized service center. The Place of purchase REX Lake city Florida told me they only repair products they they sell an externed warratny on and now they tell me that the unit I opurchsed is expected to need service within 3 to 5 years after purchse and thet is why they sell the extended warranty. I have a Toshiba that is 10 Plus years old and still playing ie 48 inch projection. Big mistake buying the RCA unit especially Form REX ie no serice. I will let you know if RCA/ Thompson does anything.

Strengths:
reliability is poor

Weaknesses:
remote and automatic shutdowns for no apparent reason Fair deal rating would be approiate if the unit worked all the time

Similar Products Used:
Toshiba, Zenith

Price Paid:  $2000.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
After years of owning Sony and Panasonic sets with no problems, I bought this unit "on sale" at Circuit City as a store display. After 1-1/2 years of use as a regular TV, I added an RCA High-Definition receiver recently. I then quickly discovered that the VGA and composite video inputs did not process the signal properly (bad convergence). This was ultimately diagnosed as a bad component after discussion between the video repair service and Thompson. RCA/Thompson's response to my plight (that why would a 1 year warranty limit apply to a component that could not have been discovered by me within a year) was that "a 1 year warranty is a 1 year warranty". This will now cost me $355 to fix on my own, and I have still waiting for the repair after 3 weeks because Thompson took a week to diagnose the problem and I am still waiting for the part to arrive. Consumer beware: the initial cost is lower than Sony or Panasonic, but the future costs will probably exceed the other brands' costs.

Strengths:
VGA and component inputs

Weaknesses:
Poor reliability

Price Paid:  $1900.00 from Incredible Electronics

Summary:
I bought the Proscan PS52800 which is the dressed up, slightly upscale version of the RCA MM52100. The features are identical and the video projection is the same in both units. The Proscan is better looking in my opinion having more black finish than gray and the stereo components internal to the unit are slighty upgraded (but who cares if you're going Home Theatre...).

The unit enjoys the same excellent reputation as the more popular RCA cousin and on first set up I was particularly impressed with the ease of set up and tuning. After reading dozens of audiophile articles that lectured on the tricks of fine-tuning a RPTV, I was pretty intimidated, but the Proscan sets up straight out of the box with a programming guide that is close to brain-dead easy. I did find that reference to the manual was helpful to get clear on what brightness, contrast, sharpness, warmth and all those video terms really mean, but basically, follow your eyeballs on set up and if the picture looks good to you, you've probably tuned it right.

Now for the horrible frustration and customer-service hell that followed. Within days of the TV arriving, I noticed that it intermittently powered off all by itself, then turned back on a few seconds later. Sort of irritating. The problem got worse in terms of frequency (up to 3 times per 30-minute program) so I called the warranty number and was referred to an authorized RCA/Proscan service shop called AAB Tech Electronics, in Toronto. They sent over a mutton-head who had never seen the unit in his life and spent the better part of an hour peering into the back of the unit while listening to (his boss's?) directions on the phone as to how to diagnose it. He ultimately pulled out a huge mother-board-looking assembly about the size of a PC computer without the case. He took it out to his truck (swinging it like a lunch pail with no anti-static protection or wrapping) and buggered off for a week. He returned a week later with a replacement part for the one he took and spent another hour installing it while getting coached over the phone as to what screwdriver to use. The problem remained. More guts yanked out of the unit and off again. Two weeks later, returns with more parts, installs them and says "yer all fixed" and whistles off. I try the TV out and the picture is totally FUBAR. White lines all over the screen, horrible grainy texture, all dark colours running together and giant vertical bars showing. But the intermittent powering off was indeed fixed. I call the dude back and show him the picture which is close to unwatchable. He looks at me like "I don't see no problem, but I'll play around with it anyhow." He does, says it's fixed and beetles off (this is visit #4 and 30 days after the original call). No improvement to picture. I call Thompson Consumer Electronics (Canada) head office and get to the national marketing manager who refers me to another repair shop called Mazotta Electronics. Nice guy named Giulio comes over and is shocked at how poorly the TV is working. He says "you could fiddle the settings all you want on this but it ain't gonna work. The whole calibration internal to the unit is off and can only be set up in the shop." He tells me that the AAB Tech guys followed none of the proper repair procedures such as using a portable signal generator to test the picture and also tells me that RCA procedures mandate a factory re-calibration anytime boards are replaced. I'm stunned. He sends movers over to take the unit out of my house and back to Mazotta for inspection and re-calibration. They call back in a week with bad news. Several boards are fried inside the unit and one of the video projection units inside is damaged by (apparent) AAB Tech incompetence. They order a whack 'o new parts from Thompson. From here, I go into a week by week series of delays as parts take forever to come to Canada by truck (and everybody loves to blame 9-11 for the slow delivery across the border...like I need another reason to hate Osama's guts!). The parts that do make it up are 3 times defective and more parts are ordered. This chews up TWO MORE MONTHS (no fault of Mazotta, who says, they are helpless waiting for Thompson RCA to deliver good parts.)

I will spare my patient readers the voice-mail, push-button hell that RCA customer service puts you through as they assign well-meaning-but-useless clerks to track your "case" and tell you what they can't do to hurry anything up.

It is December 14 at this writing, and I am 3 months without my TV, waiting for more parts.

My conclusion and advice? ALL of the new generation digital HDTVs are extremely complex and sophisticated devices. They all look fabulous in the showroom. Take my advice: DO NOT sink over $2 grand of your hard-earned dough on one of these puppies without asking for the number of the authorized warranty repair shop. Call them and ask them a) if they have remote diagnostic equipment on a laptop for on-site calibration. If they don't, any repair to your TV will necessitate them taking it out to their facility, vs. repairing it in your home. b) how many units have they seen or repaired and are they trained? Don't let the monkeys from AAB Tech (or similar) screw with your investment. You'd be as smart to let your 9-year old kid fix your car's brakes. I get the distinct impression that even in large cities like Toronto, these high-end units are rare, so the average shmo repair shop has never seen one.

BUYER BEWARE.

Strengths:
Appearance; ease of set up; input/output connections

Weaknesses:
Reliability

Similar Products Used:
None

Price Paid:  $1700.00 from From Ebay

Summary:
The picture on the TV is excellent. Could not see any lines with digital cable. The color is excellent when the settings are adjusted. Normal settings tend to show more red then expected. However this can be adjusted quickly.

Glare is an issue with this screen. Be sure to use it in a dark room. Place your lighting so it cannot be directly reflected by the screen.

I use TIVO with the tv, so I'm used to the tivo remote. The RCA remote is not very user friendly. It is also bulky.

The picture from TIVO is very good.

When I purchased the set, RCA included a free progressive DVD player (RCA 600P). This is RCA's top of the line player (a 500 dollar value). This player and the TV provided an excellent picture. I have not seen any better. Everytime I watch this combo, I'm still blown away.

Thier are a ton of inputs for this set. You can use your PC, Game set, TIVO, VCR, DVD player, Cable, and Satellite and still have more connects to spare. Just amazing.

I highly recommend the set. The price is right. For me it was $1700 and a free DVD player. You can't beat that.

Strengths:
Great picture, lots of inputs, easy setup, handles all video applications, Price is right

Weaknesses:
The remote, screen glare, Problem with red hues