Should I buy the Service Plan?

[Gregg Lengling]

Well like the title says....should you buy the service plan.  My answer to that is on Hi-Tech , high priced, newer items....YES YES YES.  Case in Point:::::

Just under 2 years ago I bought my integrated RCA 61" HDTV with ATSC and Directv receiver internal.  The fine print on the Service Protection Plan from Circuit City it specifically covers, yes covers, Power Surges (this also means lightning).  And yes 6 weeks ago I got zapped, lost the HDTV and a few other little things.  Although it took them 6 service calls and a bunch of testing to figure out the set was non-repairable...when they did they called me and gave me a credit number to go to the store with.

Well I did that this morning after they called, took the store management a couple minutes to straighten it all out, but then handed me a cash register receipt showing the credit I had to spend in the store. (It was around $3600.00, the full purchase price of the set including tax and a prorated portion of the Service plan).  With that in hand I purchased a 65" Hitachi (65SWX20B) projection set (a floor demo to be delivered Wednesday) and a Sony SAT-HD200.  The demo looks brand new and the new Sony box looks like a winner all sorts of neat features.

Anyhow the moral of the story is that the Circuit City Protection Plan (actually Zurich Insurance), is phenomenal and saved my viewing and allowed me to have a new set and no insurance claims against my house (ouch it would've hurt with $1000 deductible).  And now everything is new and better.

So my story is I made the right decision and now not only have a new Set but also another 4 years of service protection.

Adios for now.

[Bebop]

So, are you telling people with a service plan to pray for lightning after a few years?  


The Sony receiver is nice. It just can't output HD and 480i at the same time. The signal strength button is right on the remote and you don't have to get into the receiver's on screen manual like the Samsung.

[Gregg Lengling]

Yes I've already found out that it can't output 480i while in any other mode...but yes I already found the signal strength button.  What my wife really likes about the way it works compared to the old RCA is she just now picks a channel.  Even though we get the locals via Directv the HD's are right next to them, just punch in the channel number you want and it's there...no switching from Sat to OTA...works kinda nice.  Just learning all the features but so far so good.  Of course I'm just outputing at 480i to a standard set until the new HD is delivered on Wednesday, but so far very impressed with it....even enjoyed watching HD programs on the regular TV..impressive even though the set couldn't really display the HD content.

Also like the cropping and stretch modes much better than the RCA.  Let you know tomorrow what I think of it on the big screen...it's been a very dry TV period the last 6 weeks...actually didn't watch any TV, did other things....sorta like living in the 30's had the radio on a lot.

(And regards of getting hit by lightning....I've got 4 years of Service Plan on the new set and 5 on the box, the service plan for the box was $36.00 couldn't pass that up.  But I don't think I have to worry about lightning again, I will be posting pictures of my PolyPhaser installation in the near future.  Polyphaser makes lightning surge protection for the 2-way and wireless industry, so I've installed a complete system to protect my home entertainment and Amateur Radio Station).