Expected lifetime of new TV sets
 

Was talking to a Chinese friend I've known for years. He bought an HDTV LCD set. He said it was good enough until they come out with better and bigger and cheaper in a few years. He expects it to die in a couple years. I told him Americans were used to expecting 15 years out of a TV set, before it fails so badly as to need to be tossed. He was kind of surprised to hear this.

No, he doesn't know anyone back "home" in the TV industry...

That's a far cry from the Chinese fellow who was taking a 20-mile round trip
on a fragile homemade raft to rescue a CRT-type TV from his badly damaged
house after the earthquake earlier this year. I guess this shows that all
the Chinese are equal, but some are more equal than others...

Good night.

As I sit here writing this, I have 3 of those little 8" RCA sets from about 1956 staring back at me, as well as a Philco Safari which'll turn 50 next year, IIRC. A Sony 5-303W from '63 or so sits perkily on the mantle, an eager little puppy of a TV, ready to go on the next adventure. All work. Then we have the Color sets-2 KV-4000 series sets, one w/the AM/FM/tape recorder gizmo built in. IT doesn't work, but the TV section ? Fine. They're 1982 models. The only TV in here that DON'T work is my big Zenith Roundie, 'cause I can't take it down to Terry's...In the other room I have a '48 7" Admiral that works-Not too well, but I think it works about as good as they ever did. Somehow I don't think the hi-falutin' rootin'-tootin' new LCD & plasma video display devices-it pains me to call them "televisions"- will be around in 40, 50, 60 years...But if whoever gets my Admiral after I go Tango Uniform takes care of it, I see no reason why IT-and all the rest of my obsolete technology TVs-won't work indefinately.

if they go much past the warranty period you have bought you a decent set. most everything out there is crap. not sony or sanyo toshiba you can fix those. my pick is the sanyo, great relations with them at a service center standpoint. parts are here in 2 days and we are paid within a week. steve

I have two 19" solid-state TVs, a Zenith Sentry 2 (1995) and an RCA CTC185 (1999), that still work as well as when they were new. :thmbsp: The Zenith has never had any service work done on it (still has the original CRT, which I think is great considering that 1995 was right in the middle of the time frame when Zenith TVs were showing up right and left with defective tubes; the failure mode was usually shorting, which would often take out most of the video circuitry).

The RCA, also with its original CRT and a beautiful picture, has only had two small (but not cheap) repairs in its eight years, when the RF port for the antenna/cable snapped off the tuner PCB twice (within the space of a year or so--I still have the receipts from the repair shop that did the work). I believe the technician who repaired the second occurrence of the RF port problem also resoldered the ground points on the onboard tuner, which was a major trouble spot on RCA TVs from the 1990s through about 2003, as the set has been working like a champ for some years now. I expect both sets to be around to see the analog TV stations sign off and the digital channels come on next year.

I never got too much in the habit of collecting older TVs (kinda wish I had, but then again with the upcoming digital bastardization I hardly see the point in it now). I used to have a 1965 vintage GE 12" which worked great for TVDXing and was pretty much all I used it for. Now I have 2 90s vintage BPC rigs: a Sony and a Sylvania. Both 27" CRT's and both work like new (and I bought them used at pawn shops for about $60 each).

I have a 2 year old Emerson 19" LCD set in my building with a believed to be bad LCD screen. I see no evidence that the set has been dropped. It's just a made in China piece of garbage. I've also got a 32" RCA SDTV (2006) that I just ordered a flyback for. The customer reviews for the RCA are not good to say the least. Some of these sets are not even lasting the warranty and most are dying right after the warranty. I believe my particular RCA model was a Wal-Mart exclusive (what does that tell you). I'm getting more and more "donations" from the local TV shop that are only 2-3 years old. Many of these sets are not worth repairing for whatever reason. Once upon a time, I would have been happy to have a fairly late model TV given to me. Now, I get them all the time and most of them are junk.

OTOH, I have in daily use:

1. 1980 RCA 19" XL100 color TV (CTC97 chassis)
2. 1977 Zenith CCII 17" (17JC55 chassis)
3. Mid '80's Sony 19" mono color TV
4. Mid '90's BPC Sharp 13" color TV in the kitchen
5. Early '90's BPC Sharp 19" color TV
6. 1969 Zenith 23" tube-type B&W floor model as my "shop" TV

All of the above are still going strong and I'm sure they'll be much easier to repair when they do give trouble.

The modern stuff is just designed to work and then die. No repair needed! (or possible as we all know :thumbsdn:) Too bad they don't work for very long!

In daily use, I have these sets: 1979 Zenith System 3 25", 1980 RCA ctc97, 1982 GE 17AC, 1987 MGA/Mitsubishi 13", 1977 KV1712 Sony, 1999 KV35S40 Sony.

Also use my b&w and color portables from time to time. They range from 1965-1988, most USA built. I do have a few nonworking sets, but they'll be fixed eventually.

I've had the same Mitsubishi t.v. since 1985 or so. Only had one service call on it. Forget the exact model number but it even has a wood cabinet.

Mitsubishis were a very expensive set back in '85. They usually stood the test of time. The CRTs did at least. I remember working on a 1991-ish Mitsu for a friend and a ton of p/s caps were just plain bad.

...

From my experience the best CRT sets were made in the early 1980s. Solid state had just taken over and manufacturers had not figured out how to cheapen the designs yet. My mothers 1980 Sears/Sanyo still works fine except for dirty controls. I enjoy bringing the old tube sets back to life, but do not believe they are as reliable as the solid state ones.

As for the flat screens, I do not have one yet, but I do have a 5 year old LCD monitor that has given absolutely no trouble. I see no reason that flat screens(at least LCD ones) should not last as long as CRTs do.

I think Mitsubishi TV's started using bad electrolytics sometime in the late '80's. I've had some that had so many bad caps that leaked and ate the foil on the board that I finally gave up on them. I don't think I've ever seen a bad CRT in a Mitsubishi.

On tube sets: I think the most reliable ones were Zenith "handcrafted" sets. Most of the others were built on PC board chassis and we all know what 25 years of heat will do to a PC board. I used to find a lot of Zenith tube sets back in the '90's and most only needed a few tubes and adjustment to produce a good picture.

I'll agree that many solid state sets of the '80's were reliable. I still get many that only need minor repair. My nieghbor has an '89 RCA (CTC149) that has seen hard use and I recently had to replace a cap in the power supply. That was the only repair made to that set. Not bad for almost 20 years!

Does this also apply to my 25" RCA CTC-121 chassis? The FCC-ID code shows it was designed in 1983 but my set was made on Janauary 1984.

As far as I know from Consumer Reports, in the early 80s, Sony and Mitsubishi tied #1 in reliability back then. Then Panasonic took over after 1985 and stayed #1, until 2003 when Sony, Sanyo, and Toshiba are now more reliable than Panasonic after more than 20 years of absence. I wonder what caused the Panasonic CRT reliability to drop after 2003.

I do not know about RCAs. The ones I can comment on(other than Sears/Sanyo) are Zenith and Mitsubishi. I have a small Zenith color set from around 1984 that is still going. The only repair that it has ever needed (new power supply diodes) was due to lightning. I also had a Mitsubishi set from that era that lasted at least 16 years until lightning struck the power lines and destroyed an unavailable microprocessor chip(not a great loss as the red gun was weak and smearing by that time).