Mark Zacharias wrote:
My shop was servicing crt sets to component level up until 2005 or so; and
even a few since. Sony and Pioneer provided complete schematics and training
materials for all of their crt-based sets to authorized service centers. So
did Thomson. (GE and RCA - ugh)
And although we did not regularly service Toshiba, Hitachi, etc, we were
able to get service data when we needed it.
Zenith did take the opposite view, and used mostly non-serviceable modules.
I'm sure there are a 1001 exceptions to what I said, but you have to admit
after the mid 1990's, things did change.
The key phase to what you wrote is "authorized service centers".
It used to be mostly independent shops that did repairs prior. Sure there
were the crooks and ones that did poor servicing but after the mid/late
90's, most (both good and not good) all disappeared leaving only the
authorized ones, mostly because of the parts distribution getting locked up.
Here in Chicago, not counting tv repairs shops, we used to have at least a
half dozen parts stores. Some handled GE, some Zenith, RCA, Panasonic. If
you walked into one for a part and they didn't have it in the back, they
would let you know when you could pick it up.
When those places started to go under one-by-one, the writing was pretty
much on the wall that independents in the repair business were going to fail
too. No parts, no repairs.
I mean it's like owning a car, sure you can take it into the dealer
everytime for service and know you are paying top dollar for it but
independents, even though they may not have the latest and greatest with
service info, they still could do a reasonable repair for a reasonable
price.
Why the tv manufacturers wanted to go down the same path does seem to
support the conspiracy of "they want you to buy new, not fix", but that's
just my opinion.
I mean I know the technology changes to where repairing some things just
doesn't make sense. Like take plasma and dlp tv's, those are barely 10 years
old now tech wise and are totally obsolete.
-bruce