Australian LG plasma / LCD TV owners forced to "reboot" frozen sets

It's not exactly unheard of for DVR, PC, and PPC-6700 owners to have legitimate complaints about "freezing" issues with their gizmos, but we can't say the average television was on our list of devices we look forward to "rebooting" every day hour or so. Apparently, a horde of Aussies are facing such a quandary, as the digital TV tuner in a myriad of LG LCD HDTVs and plasmas (hit the read link for the full list) is going on the fritz whilst tuned in to broadcasts on the Nine Network. Currently, the only answers irate owners are getting revolve around "reception issues with digital transmissions in Sydney and Melbourne," but LG has also stated that it expects to rollout a "way forward" for customers quite soon. Currently, the only way to solve the seizures is to unplug the set from the wall, give it "two to three minutes to reboot," and flip the power back on, which can quickly erode any meaning found in your average half-hour drama. Regardless of how irritating we're sure this is, at least a (promised) fix is supposedly on the way, and trust us, things could be much, much worse.

Update: Oh man, what a disaster this is turning out to be. LG has now admitted that the problem affects 17 different models sold nationwide and stems from certain "digital TV processors and decoders had difficulty dealing with the way that the data signal is packaged." Even worse, the company is going to have to deploy hundreds of technicians to make tens of thousands of house calls, as an in-home repair is the only way to upgrade the components. Sorry, Aussies, until you can make an appointment, it seems like you're gonna be stuck with this annoyance for awhile -- and not only on Nine, as LG claims the bug could affect other OTA channels as well.


[Via Core77]

[anonymous @ Mar 22nd 2007 1:13PM]

sounds to me like they are using cheapo tv tuners trying to cut corners just to make a buck.

[Electromodo @ Mar 22nd 2007 1:17PM]

I am sorry for offtop, but who needs to discuss the TV if it has such a fancy volleyball DVD included??? I will get two! :))))

[Christian Martin @ Mar 22nd 2007 1:37PM]

Were the offending components made by Sony? Just checkin'...

[Eric V @ Mar 22nd 2007 2:24PM]

Why polish a turd?

Just return it and get something else...

[Droo @ Mar 22nd 2007 3:06PM]

I love my LG 32LC2DU thats for sure. Wonder if here in the states we'll have a firmware upgrade. My TV starts with 611 which is supposedly affected in Australia.

They're not using cheap tuners or video processors, they make some of the best ones out there.

I'm not generally an LG fan (I'd never own one of their piece of crap cell phones, for instance), but I do love the TV.

[Mike @ Mar 22nd 2007 3:24PM]

LG isn't exactly known for high quality products. They want to be Sony and charge Sony prices, though the products aren't worth it. Samsung is almost as bad.

If you buy either, get yourself an extended warranty... odds are you'll need it.

[tiuk @ Mar 22nd 2007 5:58PM]

While I agree with you that the quality isn't there, it should be noted that it isn't with Sony products either.

[roblc2 @ Mar 22nd 2007 3:41PM]

My Westinghouse 32w6 has been freezing a lot lately (several times a day); it didn't when I bought it. I have to unplug the power cable or the antenna cable to fix it.

[kjmurphy711 @ Mar 22nd 2007 2:49PM]

We had issues with a Sharp Aquos 37" that had a cable card installed. The TV would lock up and be unresponsive to both remote and built in controls. The tech at the place who sold it to us tried to convince us that cable cards "had never really worked". After pushing and pushing, we ended up with 2 firmware updates (only had the TV for a couple months). No problems since.

[Reid Sartin @ Mar 22nd 2007 11:37PM]

I just had my LG's HD tuner freeze up on me over the weekend! And I'm in the US. After about 15 minutes of fiddling with settings, I unplugged the set, and plugged it back in -- no problems since. Hopefully it was just a random issue, because I'm really impressed with the overall quality & performance.

[Paul @ Mar 22nd 2007 3:42PM]

"They want to be Sony and charge Sony prices, though the products aren't worth it"

Are you suggesting that Sony's products are worth their price? HAH! Sony is one of the biggest piles out there!

[CapWKidd @ Mar 22nd 2007 3:50PM]

This article mention infers that TVs freezing is unusual, and I would of though the same, but my brand new Vizio 47" freezes up as well... Vizio support says it is probably the power supply, so, back to Costco for another one.... Oh, and I live in CA...

[Izzac G @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:09PM]

I wouldn't mind my tv freezing as long as that girl playing volleyball is displayed every time!

[grug @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:28PM]

First of all it took LG 3 days from being notified about the problem to identifying and fixing the software and organising a nationwide firmware update. That's a good thing, IMO. Good customer service is worth more to me than the fact that they had a minor software bug.

Second of all its not a common occurrence -- so far it's happened twice, the most high profile being last Sunday which is what got LG onto the problem in the first place. It's not the blatant "reboot every hour/day" mischaracterisation in your article.

Thirdly one doesn't have to power off and "reboot" the TV -- one can simply unplug the antenna cable from the back of the TV, switch channels, and plug it back in. Downtime, 20 seconds tops. It doesn't excuse the situation but it does make things easier.

With the problem being a rare occurrence that only affects ONE broadcaster that has had ONE high profile incident, it seems pretty easy for it to slip through the gaps when they were testing the unit.

And last it's VERY common for DVB-T set top boxes to require firmware updates -- LG integrate one into a TV and now apparently they're the sole manufacturer to ever have such terrible issues because its a "TV" thats broken and not a STB?

And it wouldn't surprise me if the LG bashers don't have an LG-Philips panel in _their_ LCD TV, since they're the largest TV panel manufacturer.

This sounds like the rantings of an LG fanboy -- I'm not. But after having issues with a Sony HD Set Top Box that took them SIX MONTHS to fix, as well as a Samsung plasma catch fire and burn down a portion of my house (that caused me to buy an LG as a replacement) my LG experiences seem positively minor.

[apothus @ Mar 23rd 2007 1:54AM]

I completely agree, a figure i herd a while ago (not sure how accurate) was that LG produce about 80% of LCD TV screens world wide, and i assume Toshiba would have a good share on the other 20%

[DAZA @ Mar 23rd 2007 3:34AM]

LG-Phillips have a market share of 22% of all LCD's manufactured. That's a huge amount.

I completely agree with the above statement. The situation is over-rated. I am a sales man at a very large retailer in Australia and we sell a huge amount of LG units. How many people have called up to complain that their unit has frozen? 1 person.

The firmware upgrade takes about 30 seconds to perform. A technician will rock up to your house, spend thirty seconds there and be on his way. Wow, what a big deal!

Plus Channel 9 are moire than likely the ones to blame out of all of this. They are the only station that cause issues with TVs and I can guarantee it is not just LG units that sometimes play up with Channel 9. We run the Channel 9 HDTV Loop (CH80) and the amount of times it simply cuts out or breaks up on all 40 or so TV sets we have is ridiculous. Channel 9 have some serious issues with their broadcast and they need to resolve it.

Oh and, psst, Engadget, I heard a sneaky rumor that the reason it froze up the other day when broadcasting CSI was because they were apparently broadcasting it with DRM. Apparently there was some flag set so DVR's couldn't record the show. How true is this? I have no idea, not even sure if it's possible. Maybe it comes like that when it's transported overseas from America and they just forgot to remove the flag. Who knows.. :)

Don't hate on LG. They make very reliable, good quality products. Just ask my storeman. We had a huge batch of faulty Samsung LCDs where they would simply fail to turn on. 3 x 26", 3 x 37" and 1 x 40" units in one week. Could have been a problem during transportation and a courier dropped a whole heap but whatever it was we had an awful batch of Samsungs. LG on the other hand have a perfect record and I have not seen any 26/32/37/42LC2D's come back yet.

Good on LG for resolving the situation so swiftly.

[Mike @ Mar 22nd 2007 11:07PM]

grug: Actually, it happens a lot more often than you may think.

I wonder if it is really the TV's fault, or the broadcasters fault. It doesn't happen on all channels, so why does the one freeze?

We have a GE OTA HD, and it freezes on one particular channel, but none of the rest.

[infectedarea @ Mar 23rd 2007 3:43AM]

Well, really who cares. If a few mindless sheep miss 2 minutes of the propaganda that channel 9 spurts out, its a good thing.

Well done LG!

[sm007h @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:59AM]

LG is the only brand that openly advertised their TV sets being able to record programmes and SKIP the advertisements. Broadcasters do not like PVRs in general, so LG antagonising the situation ... coincidence that they are the only brand that has to fix this situation?

[Cubedude04 @ Mar 23rd 2007 10:03AM]

I have one of these (the 42 LCD one) And haven't noticed a problem yet. Does anyone have any idea how the firmware upgrade works?

[Rob @ Mar 31st 2007 4:20AM]

I'm in the UK, but have one of the LG models listed in the article for less than 6 months.. We already had it replaced within two weeks of purchase, and the current one shows the same problems albeit less frequently - locking up, or just excessive delays, when changing between inputs. (particularly going from viewing HDMI1 -> AV1) I wonder if there is a more insiduous firmware issue at work here?