Make up your mind. You have now shifted from poor design to inferior
manufacturing standards. "Cut corners" is what you are now singing.

Every manufacturer befitted to survive in the intensely competitive world of
electronic goods will scour the earth to find the lowest price for a
component. Solid state components last forever. Transformers and
condensers (nowadays also solid state) change parameters over time (minimal
in solid state components) initially but remain stable thereafter.
Mechanical components like switches (worn out through abrasion) may
conceivably be the Achilles heels of the electronic equipment. The error or
deviation from the Mean Time Before Failure of these is so large that it is
a pot luck to pick one consignment of components than another that this
measurement is meaningless, and hugely overrated. These considerations
apply to all whether big name or no name manufacturer. All are in the same
boat. Cutting corner in the selection of components is meaningless.

Television is a mature product. The design is standard. Any refinement, if
indeed desired (different manufacturer have different perception) by the
consumers, will be implemented as a priority. The alterations virtually
cost nothing. When one implementation is warmly received by the public,
every other manufacturers follow suit. Unlike computer software, there is
no secret proprietary circuit design (there are too many equally good ways
to accomplish the same task). Research? Whatever the new fashion of
outward cosmetic is, yes; otherwise, no. A flatter screen, a shorter tube,
a more brilliant phosphorus... or whatever else (I'm referring to a radical
change of direction here) have all been done and finished with. The money
is now on solid state panels.

TV sets are graded by functionality not by how big the name at the front is.
All sets of the same grade perform almost indistinguishably, the basic
parameters being the same. Even picture quality, though looks different
from different sets (only when placed side by side), is designed in by the
manufacturer whose view may differ from yours or from other manufacturers.

Cutting corners is a vague vernacular. The off hand treatment of Turkish or
Chinese chassis exposed your prejudice, not evidence in support of your
argument. Why has JVC taken an unknown manufacturer for the innards of its
14" model?

All electronic equipment nowadays are remarkably reliable and should last
forever (the critical components being minerals in sand) save a replacement
of mechanical parts. If the equipment works without fault in the first
couple of months, if not in the first hour, then there should not be any
problem from then on. Well....until the time comes when an 'upgrade' is too
tempting to be ignored.


Bee
--
[I have found my Shangri-La in ntlworld.]


wrote in message
oups.com...

Bee wrote:
Reverend_roger wrote:
Dennis wrote:
SteveH wrote:
Neaco wrote:
...You get what you pay for...
...the old 'get what you pay for' clause will surely be
applied?
ie. a £200 widescreen could reasonably be expected to expire
after a couple of years, whereas a £800 set should be expected
to last longer....
...There is little correlation between how long stuff lasts and
the
price. You pay for the brand name on most expensive things...
the components are the same....
I take it you have no experience of tv repair, otherwise you would
not make nonsensical statements like that. So , by your reasoning,
a 1200 pound set has the same longevity as a sub-200 pound
supermarket special? Care to show any examples to support that
assertion?? Whilst it is true that at component level, there
exists
some overlap, circuit design and how those components are used,
is more important, and is another matter ...cheapo no-name sets
are NOT "the same" as most other name brand sets, except on
occasion in , say, some 14" models (JVC used some ONWA
chassis in their 14" low end models, for example).


You are making the assertion that the models from established names
performs
better (and lasts longer) than the no-name or little-known named ones

because of circuit designs, i.e. of different use/configuration of
(some)
components.

That is generally true, yes. Price also influences -you tend to get
what you pay for. Fewer corners seem to be cut in the more expensive
brand-name sets and they as such tend to perform better. Not always,
but in the majority of cases I have seen working in repair.

A better design demands a premium, which may be £1000 more.
You implied that a circuit design is an intellectual property, and, a

superior intellect demands a premium. This is the essence of your
contention, reverend_roger.

I think you have read this into my words, nowhere did I mention
intellectual property. read on...

Why is it that a small unknown company (in one country) is unable to
design
a circuit superior than one from an established company (may be of
another
country with a different salary pay structure)?

There is absolutely, undeniably, positively, irrefutably no reason at
all.
It's bunkum.

The answer is quite simple- Economics and cost cutting. Put simply,
many of those low end sets seem to be built down to a price not up to a
standard. Of course, good design is not exclusive to anybody, but you
just won't normally find that in low end sets since it is not an
important factor in their manufacturing. They could include design
refinements (for example in the areas mentioned in next paragraph) if
they wanted to i am sure, but when you are making a product to market
at lowest possible cost, that doesn't generally happèn.

I find that in many such sets, corners (and hence costs) seem to be
cut most in the audio, power supply/regulation and scanning circuits.


Reverend_roger, you have been unable to think freely, unable to break
free
from the traditional, 'conventional wisdom' that "better design
therefore
more expensive", or maybe, you are an exceptional member of the
unthinking
masses befuddled by big names.

Thank you, that's the nicest thing anybody's said to me all day!

This is of course nonsense: an intelligent
circuit design does not cost money.

Making a proprietary design, researching , testing, refining it,
however, costs money (and takes time). Insetad of that, many low end
sets simply use one turkish or chinese chassis design and slap on a
name. Or maybe you think names like BlueSky, durabrand, technosound,
sogo, SEG etc. make their own designs? how little you know....OEM -ing
is probably far cheaper than designing one from scratch.

-Ben