Picture Tube Hazards

I'm definitely learning something from all this! When I went to look up the DVD unit on Panasonic's site it tells me I can't order through the internet, I have to call to inquire about the part in which I figure no problem. Then when I went to this site:

-ss

"Scott" wrote in message news:_9ydnWa-FYnkCVDbnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

You could be running into a problem here, which bugs all 'normal' Panasonic dealers. They have two flavours of dealer, normal, and DSN, which I think stands for "Digital Service Network". In order to become a DSN dealer, you have to be prepared to invest thousands in test equipment and so on, so this pretty much precludes any of us small independants, ever being able to achieve DSN status. The real bugbear to this is that Panasonic / Technics service, won't even speak to you, let alone give you any pointers, and ordering any spare parts is a complete no-no, as is getting any service info. If you go onto their website, it recognises from your logon details, that you are not a DSN dealer, so excludes you from access to related material. It's all so silly really. A friend of mine is a regular Pan dealer, and they are quite happy for him to sell their 'digital' products, but will not allow him to service them, even under warranty. Instead, they have to go to another dealer in a town 20 odd miles away, who is authorised to do them. As you can imagine, this goes down with the owner of an in-warranty item, like a lead balloon. The really, really silly bit about it all, is that in general, Panasonic do not allow even the DSN dealers to actually do much by way of repairing the units, instead, supplying replacement boards and drives, which any of us could block diagnose and replace. It gets even more ludicrous when you consider that their ordinary DVD players and hifis have no such restriction, and a normal dealer is free to order any part or service info that he wants, to allow him to effect a repair down to component level !

Arfa