Wow! All neat and tidy,
AND everything labeled -- Now that's a rarity!
I haven't expanded upon this part yet:
Did I mention that he also bought a new widescreen TV for the living room? I'll save my comments on that for next time!
Like many TVs these days, this set was obviously designed for use in different world markets and had the typical modern array of on-screen menus to set up everything. The manufacturer often uses the same basic programming for every set in the range but masks out menu options which are not needed for a particular country/area or for a particular model.
This set looked as though somebody hadn't quite decided where it was going to be sold!
The manual stated PAL system I (U.K./Ireland) and B/G (most of Europe, except France). Like many new sets, it has auto-tune and pre-programmed lists of stations for each country so that they can be put on the presets that most people use (e.g. 1=BBC1, 2=BBC2, 3=ITV, etc.). The channel listing options had U.K., Germany, and a couple of other European countries which I forget, but also
included the French listings. But the set had no facility for switching to SECAM system L for France!
Despite the manual indicating that the model was also sold for Ireland, it had no Irish station lists, nor was there an option to select Irish VHF channels (which are different to European).
It did, however, have the option to switch to OIRT (Eastern Europe) channels, and the menu allowed switching to NTSC as well! (Though there was no way to select American VHF/UHF channel allocations.)
The illustrations in the book (which clearly stated PAL-only in the specs for this model) showed brightness, contrast, color,
andhue adjustments. The owner assumed something was wrong, because
his menu didn't include the hue adjustment (I verified that it did appear when the set was switched to NTSC mode).
The average buyer is confused enough by all these different settings without being confronted with this sort of inconsistency as well.
