The PS/3 Saga Continues

Sit back, buckle up, and enjoy the ride. It's always more fun when it's happening to someone else!

So, as I wrote about not long ago, I've been having an issue with my PS/3 where the video quality has taken a serious hit. Specifically, there's a purple tint to the picture, and a series of wavy lines that roll up the screen continuouslly. Not exactly acceptable when you're striving for the HD experience. I had tried switching the inputs on the TV, and the cables, and the problem had persisted, leading me to believe it was the PS/3 that needed the fix.

Today, Vicki and I travelled to Best Buy - a good 20-minute drive away - in order to trade it in. Since PS/3s come with a 1-year warranty, this went relatively smoothly. We did decide to purchase a 3-year extended warranty this time, though, as the service guy didn't seem at all surprised to see another PS/3 arrive, which made us worry about the track record for the new console thus far. We got the replacement home, only to discover that they'd managed to not give us our USB cable back, which I'd been too busy with the warranty discussion to notice, and Vicki hadn't known to look for. She kindly volunteered to go back out, and so it was another hour before I could actually test out the new box.

At which point, we discovered the problem was still there! I could almost not believe my eyes! (And before any knucklehead asks, no, we didn't just bring the same machine home by mistake. This was a new one, with nothing on its hard drive and none of my settings on it.)

So now I'm left with no choice but to assume it's the TV that's the problem. I've switched the PS/3 and SA8000 box - which use the same HD cable input types - between the 2 HD inputs on the TV, and the problem follows the PS/3. But the fact that 2 different PS/3s, and 2 different sets of PS/3-HD cables, all show the same issue, means it has to be something in the way the TV is handling that specific type of signal. How it can react that way to the PS/3 input and not to the SA box, though, is a mystery to me.

The good news is that the TV is still under a full warranty, so getting it fixed shouldn't cost us anything. The last time we had a problem with our big screen TV was the previous model, and it was a different video issue that only showed up sporadically. It would never happen whenever the service guy came, so he'd end up replacing parts on spec, only to have the badness return months later. That particular saga ended when, after three unsuccessful service calls over two and a half years, Vicki complained that the extended warranty was soon going to run out and we still hadn't had our problem fixed. That cranky e-mail resulted in them offering to replace the defective TV with a new one, and we took that opportunity to upgrade to HD-capable and widescreen (for a couple hundred dollars). That was a little over four years ago.

In this particular case, we don't have to worry about not being able to recreate the problem for the service call, and we'll also have a better sense of whether it gets fixed or not, right away! And, y'know, if they have to give us another new TV.. oh well! The only hassle will be finding a time that one of us can be home for the usual 4-hour window!

Oh, and while I did have to reload the System Updates for both the PS/3 and Resistance: Fall of Man, and did lose all of my offline campaign progress for that game, as well as the saves for our Star Wars Lego game, I was able to retain my kimota94 userID, meaning I'm still a Supreme Commander in R:FoM online, with nearly 1000 games under my belt!