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 October 1, 2008The Torture Cycle Sometimes I wonder why we tolerate the consumer-electronics business. Have you ever experienced a truly simple component setup? I haven’t. There’s always some problem, and you want that problem fixed so you can enjoy whatever it is you’ve spent your hard-earned money on. That’s when you face the biggest obstacle of all: the Torture Cycle. The Torture Cycle is what you go through when you install a new component and find it won’t play nicely with your other gear. It happened to me again this week. I was installing a very expensive projector in my system, in which everything else was already working fine. It should have been easy, with just four steps: 1) Remove my tried and true JVC HD-1 projector. 2) Install the swoopy new projector from Company X. 3) Turn it on and make basic settings. 4) Sit down and enjoy the fruits of my minimal labors. I guess some would say three out of four ain’t bad. When I fired up the Integra DTC-9.8 A/V processor and switched it to play Dish’s "Turbocharged" HD-DVR, the new projector cycled through its inputs looking for an active signal. Each time it lit on the HDMI input, it would display the message "signal out of range," and just below that, "352x1080p @ 60Hz." That would last about three seconds, and then the projector would start cycling through its inputs again. 352x1080? HD is 1920x1080. 352 isn’t even a whole-number divisor of 1920. Where was the fault? It could have been the Dish DVR, the Integra, the wires, or the projector. But because the JVC had been working properly just before, I was guessing it was the new projector. I figured I’d made a mistake in setting some obscure menu item, so I fired up the Oppo DV-983H universal player. It synced with the new projector only at 480p, and even then, the image looked like something drawn by a cartoonist on LSD. My D-Link media player wouldn’t show up, and hooking up a Sony PlayStation 3 produced another error message: "signal out of range, 1440x480 @ 60Hz." I called the tech-support line of the new projector’s manufacturer. As usual, trying to avoid getting any special treatment, I didn’t give my name, and acted as if I were a consumer, not a reviewer. A courteous and knowledgeable guy asked me to bypass the Integra and plug the PS3 straight into the projector. I was skeptical, because everything had worked fine before. The splash screen synced; in a very nice way, the tech suggested I call Integra because it was probably the DTC-9.8’s fault. Integra, whose processor I loved enough to lay down money for, said that if it worked with the JVC, it wasn’t their problem. They told me to call the maker of the new projector. I told them I already had. The Integra guy said it was the projector company’s fault and that he couldn’t help me. I was stuck in the Torture Cycle. When two products from two different companies won’t work together and both manufacturers say it’s the other’s fault, the one who gets screwed is the buyer. This is a problem faced by many consumers, whose components are seldom all made by the same manufacturer. How do you prove where the fault lies? If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t have had to call in the first place. It’s a catch-22. It’s the Torture Cycle. This conflict was setting me up to miss my SoundStage! A/V deadline, so I finally broke down and did something I never do: I told Company X that I was a reviewer. Shortly thereafter, I received the following e-mail from Company X: "My technician just advised me that you are having difficulties integrating the projector with the Integra processor. Sorry to hear that. At this point, I am not sure exactly what is going on. Since the projector has no problem with the sources when cabled directly, the Integra must be modifying the source signal in some fashion whether it be HDCP timing handshake or equalization. Without having the Integra in our lab, we are only guessing as to what might be going on. We will attempt to get more information from Integra to investigate. In the meantime, can you please provide me with a simple description of the sources, cables, and Integra model you are working with?" My reply, with names removed to protect the innocent: "Howdy (corporate manager), "I know that what you’ve written sounds like the right answer, but I’ve had four or five projectors in with the identical components and they worked perfectly, including one earlier today. So yes, there seems to be a problem with the handshake, and yes, it works with the PS3 plugged directly. However, it also works when I put the Integra’s menu up (which is at 480p). "This is a problem faced by consumers everywhere because they seldom have all one brand of equipment, and when they call in for help, each company says it’s the other guy’s fault. "I am certain that the technician has only the best interests of his clients. I don’t feel like anyone is blowing me off. But Integra isn’t going to send you a processor, and you aren’t going to send them a projector. And I just represent the little guy up here who doesn’t know what to do. That’s the reason I didn’t identify myself as anyone other than a customer. I wanted to know how your support works. I only told the technician I was a reviewer after it became apparent that getting this problem solved would be so time consuming. I spent a total of six hours today between setting the projector up and trying to get it to work. I’ve got a book due in six weeks and time is very precious to me. "I further understand that in 99% of the cases, there would be a dealer doing the installation, so it’s likely that anyone buying your product would have this problem sitting on the installer, not the owner. But owners do buy new processors, DVD players, PlayStations and any number of other things that they have to install themselves. And they would need help.
In the meantime, I got my trusty camera, wired the Dish HD-DVR straight into the projector, and took a photo of the result (see picture to the side by cartoonist on LSD). Company X’s tech wanted to send me a new projector overnight, but the marketing director decided against it. So out went the Company X, back in went the JVC, and . . . everything worked fine. Contrast all that with a slightly different Torture Cycle. I’d just replaced my Oppo DV-981HD universal player with Oppo’s new DV-983H. Excited, I fired up my system. Nothing. The older Oppo had been working fine, so I assumed the problem was with the new model. I called Oppo, got a human who spoke English, and, as usual, didn’t say I was a reviewer. The tech asked me to plug the DV-983H into another TV to see if it worked. It did, which led him to believe it was the Integra DTC-9.8’s fault. I called Integra, who said that since it worked with the older Oppo, the problem was the new Oppo. HELP! I called the Oppo tech back and told him what I’d heard from Integra. Calmly, he said, "Well, if it is our problem, we need to know about it, and no matter what, we want you to be able to use your DV-983H, so let’s see if we can fix this problem." For the next hour or so he patiently worked with me, trying different settings. Finally, he said that he was going to talk to another guy at Oppo who owned an Onkyo receiver (Onkyo is Integra’s parent company). He came back, told me to go to a place deep in the Integra’s HDMI setup menu, and flip a setting there. Voilą! It worked. Oppo tech support had fixed an Integra problem! I haven’t mentioned Company X by name because everyone there was very nice; I believe their hearts are in the right place. Plus, their projector had suffered the tender ministrations of UPS, which I’m sure rattled it worse than Coney Island’s Cyclone roller coaster. And what I say in the next paragraph would be more damaging to Company X than they deserve. The big problem is that Company X’s projector is one of the most expensive on the market: it costs many, many thousands of dollars. The Oppo DV-983H costs $399. Company X was so sure that their product couldn’t be creating the problem that it took them a very long time to admit that it might be. As soon as it’s back in their hands, I’m sure they’ll pull it apart to make sure I’m not crazy. I can only hope that they take the attitude the Oppo tech guy did: "We need to know about it." And he never knew I was a reviewer. Oppo’s only incentive seemed to be to make me a happy customer. And they did. One last example: Last year, Dish decided to allow their HD-DVR owners to hook up an outboard hard drive. I gleefully bought a 750GB Seagate drive and hooked it up. Nothing. After 1.5 days of Dish blaming Seagate and Seagate blaming Dish, I found a design engineer at Dish who went through Dish’s internal research documents and discovered that I could use any hard drive I wished -- except one made by Seagate. I switched to a Western Digital, and it has worked flawlessly ever since. But why did I have to spend a day and a half in the Torture Cycle? All of these companies need to drop their competitive walls and permit a little cooperative engineering. That way, they can come up with some protocol by which all components will have a standard way of shaking hands. That way, we consumers can have some assurance that plugging two things into each other will almost always work. Can’t some corporate genius out there create a solution and stop the tech-support departments from automatically blaming each other just to get rid of us pesky customers? The one blessing in all this is that the home-theater companies aren’t as bad as the computer companies. I can’t tell you how much time I wasted listening to Dell and Linksys blame each other about why I couldn’t get a wireless media network to work. But that’s another story. . . . Wes Marshall
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"The problem is, you say it must be
the Integra’s fault ‘since the projector has no problem with the sources when
cabled directly.’" Integra says, "It must be your company’s problem
since it worked with other projectors." I say, "HELP!"