@JJMoney

My Sony occasionally has this issue, notably when dxing..scanning for new channels. I'm guessing that corrupted data in a weak signal is causing the thing to blow a gasket so to speak. It occasionally will come back on it's own but I usually have to to a factory reset to restore order. (PITA)

It has suffered this affliction even before the Canadian switchover so I hesitate to blame any channel/network specifically.

My Dynex, (with beautiful guide), doesn't have this issue.

@Jase88: The TV doesn't support TVGOS. Also I didn't mean to imply that every station had changed the way they broadcasted their guide data - I just had an idea that maybe one of them had changed something recently and was crashing the entire guide somehow (i.e. the CBC switch over to 720p and the new system they are using, or even the Rogers EPG data coming online).

@ImHooked: Glad to hear at least someone else has seen this problem. I'll wipe the channels, factory reset and rescan and see what happens. Hopefully that will get rid of the problem - I did have about 9 months before this without any issues..

Is this something old, or something new?
I think LG has been watching too much dejavu; :p

I'm not sure if it even has a built-in digital tuner though!

Give your world a refreshing new change with the new LG TUBU&trade. A 14 ultraslim TV with a spectacular retro design that promises to add excitement and madness to your life.

Retro chic is in fashion like never before. With an extendable rabbit ear antenna and detachable chrome legs, LG TUBU&trade brings home the retro glam in the coolest way.

Enjoy the magic of retro at your own home with LG TUBU&trade. The rotary style knob of the TV lets you adjust the volume and surf channels with a twist and little turn. This cute little classic television also comes with a remote. Now, that's what we call cute, convenient and classic.

http://www.lg.com/in/tv-audio-video/color-tv/LG-14SR1.jsp

Maybe it's made with vacuum tubes. ;)

Judging by the link, it is at very least ot made for the North American market, most likely for India, and yes, analog only, and likely CRT.

My Sony occasionally has this issue, notably when dxing..scanning for new channels. I'm guessing that corrupted data in a weak signal is causing the thing to blow a gasket so to speak. It occasionally will come back on it's own but I usually have to to a factory reset to restore order. (PITA)

It has suffered this affliction even before the Canadian switchover so I hesitate to blame any channel/network specifically.

Just an update to my mysterious guide disappearance problem. I factory reset the TV about a week ago and rescanned and I've not had any problems since.

After thinking more about it, I have a hunch on the cause of this. I think it may have to do with removal of channel 2.3 by WGRZ near the end of September - it roughly lines up with when I first started seeing this problem. Maybe the TV was still expecting data for this channel somehow even though it didn't exist anymore and it was (eventually after a day or so) causing the entire guide to fail. Just a hunch though - I have no real evidence to back that up.

Anyways @ImHooked thanks for the advice - seems to be working fine now.

After using converters and one SDTV for a few years, I am finally considering purchasing an HDTV. I only use it for over the air reception (antenna), so I need a TV with the best ATSC tuner built in. Any suggestions?

My 2 cents worth. I have a number of different TV brands with ATSC tuners. They are all good. The bigger issue I notice is the quality of the TV image itself. Generally, OTA HD is great. Samsung is the best brand I have.

I have a Samsung and a Sharp tv and the Samsung tuner is a little bit more sensitive.

It's definitely tough to tell what to expect from a TV since nobody seems to publish info or even care about OTA very much.

A few years ago, my parents bought the cheapest Sony LCD they could find for their new vacation house. It has great info for each channel, with a few different diagnostic readings on the signals received -- excellent for fine-tuning weak OTA signals. Not six months later, they bought a bigger, much more expensive Sony from the same store, and it's terrible for OTA -- it takes forever to scan for channels, it doesn't give you any signal information, and you can't manually add individual channels. How could a newer TV that cost almost twice as much from the same manufacturer be so much worse? Very frustrating.

Like someone said, I guess you don't know until you play with each set in the store. But even then you aren't sure how sensitive they will be.

My home TV is a Panasonic plasma that I bought mainly because it was cheap, and it just happens to have what seems to be a pretty decent tuner and some ability to edit channels. But nothing is as good as my Zenith (LG) set top box... I've been thinking about getting a bigger LCD, and I'd probably get an LG just for that reason alone.

Some stores dont have remotes so you can't play with the menu system to see what's available. I wish/hope all TV OEMs have downloadable menus on their websites so you can see what features are available?? Does Sony, LG, Samsung have these downloadable manuals?

I see there is some debate going on about what tv to buy and which has the best features. I personally have a 4 year old Sony LCD Tv and it has a fantastic tuner and channel scanning abbility, some new sony tv's have the Rovi guide build in which is a big plus! But getting back to what tv to purchase I am thinking of getting a new tv in the near futrue and all I am going to do is make sure of the return policy at the store before you purchase your tv and buy one take it home try it out and keep trying new models until you find one that you really like the features that it has and how the tuner works. I know it's abit of work but it truelly is the only way to find out how the tuner and guide featues of a given tv will work for you, well that is unless you find the ONE store on earth that actually has an OTA setup and you can try out scanning channels and the guide before you buy.... not much help i guess but something to think about...

What about buying from Amazon? Most of their TVs have free shipping and good return policy.

I guess what you'd be "out," would be the return shipping costs?

****

Also, I have a Sony year 2006 CRT HDTV. I have to go to Diagnostics menu to see signal, SNR, etc... which is good since it seems accurate.

Its tuner seems good, compared to some newer LCD TVs I borrowed (Vizio, and another no-name brand) say year 2009 or so and it doesnt seem to be any better to get channels I could not get with my old Sony 2006.

I second the Zenith set top box... which is a reason why I have considered LG for my eventual HDTV.

Sensitivity is my number one issue, picture quality is a close second.

Does LG TV have a signal meter in percentage form and manually RF channel add/edit, similar to Sony?

My LG (2009) has a simple signal meter bar (Bad - Good - Excellent), but it allows manual adding/deleting of RF channels- which is better than my Samsung which does not allow manual editing of RF channels. I think Panasonic is the best for OTA signal diagnostics (e.g., strength, NM, etc.), not sure how good the tuners are though...

Samsung which does not allow manual editing of RF channels.

That's weird, I have two Samsung TV's, and on each if I type in a channel, and it finds it, it automatically adds the channel to the list.

As for Panasonic, judging by my mother-in-laws reception in her location with her new Panasonic LED, I'd say their tuners are very sensitive and of excellent quality.

Yep, I hate the samsungs for that, very frustrating. The ones I tried you cant manually add. Rescanning each time is insane :eek: or am I missing something

Is LG the only one that thought of this basic idea

Yes, you can type in a channel on the Samsung and it will show, but that's VF not RF, unless all channels are deleted. For example, if I punch in 23, it will go to WNLO VF 23, but not ION 51, which is RF 23. In contrast, adding in RF 23 (ION 51) on the LG can easily be done, even though WNLO (VF 23) is already in the memory. The LG allows you to switch both VF and RF channels, the Samsung doesn't allow this.

Then Sony is similar to LG. For example, say on a new set, if I have RF 22, I can punch in 22.1 (VF is 8.1) and it will see it stay on that channel and let you do diagnostics on it.

From diagnostics menu, it shows a signal strength in numbers from 0 to 100%. So when I have a picture lock, it will show say 60%. Then when I lose the lock it will show say 30% or 40%.

Other TVs with a basic meter will just show nothing or simply 0%. When you're looking for a signal it's frustrating in this situation. With Sony, at least you KNOW you have a signal that is too weak to get picture lock. With other TVs you would never know you got a signal at all until you get a picture lock, then it would show you say 60% or whatever it needs for a lock.