Today is my last day with E* due to the incompitent installer they sent me today.

On Friday my VIP 722 blew and wouldn't even power on. I called tech support and was told that they would waive all fees (including the $5.99 service plan) and would be out today.

The tech came out today while I was out on an errand and the first blow came when he told my wife "You will need to pay $5.99 for the service plan and the cancellation fee of $25 should you decide to cancel it" (not true as the $25 does not begin until February... but I digress)

Next he took out my broken 722 and hooked up the new one. He then asked my wife for the tv remote to set it up.....

side story time: last year I paid to have my tv calibrated and have not changed it since

... he then went into the picture settings, set it to sport, reduced the brightness from 100 to 95, and set it as my preference overwriting my calibration settings!

I get home and have a picture that is so bright and with white balance off so much that it looked like a white screen with some colors on it. I called up E* to complain and was told "it will take 3-4 weeks to investigate your claim and then we can proceed from there. Please do not change your settings from where they are until we inspect them. This could take 1-2 weeks pissed as all hell I asked for someone higher up to try to make sense of this bull as I was about to blow a gasket. The supervisor told me that was they best I could do and they would need to see it exactly as it is or else there was nothing they could do.

I was not going to keep my tv with these settings for 2-4 weeks so they can "evaluate my complaint" and when the company the installer worked for called us we were told that "we should have specified our wishes when the installer got there." I told them I was under the impression my wishes were for a working receiver and nothing else.

As a result, despite my disdain for Comcast, they will be out tomorrow to do an install.

If it makes you feel any better the original installer at my house tried the same thing. I walked in the room & he was adjusting settings. I was like "WTH are you doing"? He told me he was optimizing the picture quality for Dish broadcasts...


I asked him if he had the equipment to properly calibrate a TV & he said "what, the settings"? I told him to leave it alone right as his buddy walked in & he said ok & then proceeded to save the preference.

His pal asked him wth he was doing (at the same time I was yelling at him).

Bottom line, they ended up paying (at first they offered a service credit) for a tech to come back out and do the calibration again.

if you are leaving dish because of the installer changing some settings on your tv then to me sounds like you were looking for a reason to leave dish anyways and you found your reason. other wise you would change the settings back as they were and just call and complain to the installer that did the changes.

Wow...now that sucks...an installer toying with your settings of your A/V equipment when it was simply a receiver swap.

Sorry to hear about your problem. Here are some points though:

1. I bet that the only settings that the installer changed were user settings. Most likely just brightness and contrast. I doubt he ventured into the Service Menu as most calibrators would do.

2. It's always a good idea to record those settings after the calibration, so you could easily restore them. Too late now, but keep in mind for the future.

3. Call your calibrator. Chances are he wrote down his settings and might be able to help you restore them over the phone.

4. In most TV sets calibration is done for each input independently. So your settings for DVD/Blu-ray should not be affected.

5. I don't know how consistent E* receivers are, but it is possible that you would've had to change the settings anyway after replacing the receiver.

6. Remember, the installer was just trying to help. He didn't know that your TV set was professionally calibrated. You should've told him. This is not something that he could've guessed...

Sorry to hear about your problem. Here are some points though:

1. I bet that the only settings that the installer changed were user settings. Most likely just brightness and contrast. I doubt he ventured into the Service Menu as most calibrators would do.

2. It's always a good idea to record those settings after the calibration, so you could easily restore them. Too late now, but keep in mind for the future.

3. Call your calibrator. Chances are he wrote down his settings and might be able to help you restore them over the phone.

4. In most TV sets calibration is done for each input independently. So your settings for DVD/Blu-ray should not be affected.

5. I don't know how consistent E* receivers are, but it is possible that you would have to change the settings anyway after replacing the receiver.

6. Remember, the installer was just trying to help. He didn't know that your TV sets was professionally calibrated. You should've told him. This is not something that he could've guessed...

+1 :up

if you are leaving dish because of the installer changing some settings on your tv then to me sounds like you were looking for a reason to leave dish anyways and you found your reason. other wise you would change the settings back as they were and just call and complain to the installer that did the changes.

He said he paid to have it calibrated so he would have to get someone to come back out.

6. Remember, the installer was just trying to help. He didn't know that your TV set was professionally calibrated. You should've told him. This is not something that he could've guessed...

I would be pissed if I caught the guy changing my settings on my A/V receiver or TV. I would have instantly kicked him out. That is not his job to adjust my TV....I don't recall seeing this step in the 722 installation guide.

I would be pissed if I caught the guy changing my settings on my A/V receiver or TV. Me too! So, I would've made sure to tell him that in advance, to prevent such situation. ;)

Two lessons to be learned:

1) NEVER leave the house on a day a tech is coming to install something

and

2) NEVER, EVER, under ANY circumstance, leave it to your wife to let the guy in to do an install. EVER.

And that includes anything technological. Seems like I remember a similar situation with Elwaylite and the packing of his tv before his move. :D

if you are leaving dish because of the installer changing some settings on your tv then to me sounds like you were looking for a reason to leave dish anyways and you found your reason. other wise you would change the settings back as they were and just call and complain to the installer that did the changes.
\


I guess you have never had a professional calibration done. It isn't cheap.

Well to answer a few points...

1 - I was not looking to leave. I'm actually the reason my company kept dish when it came time to determine our 2010-2012 budget. I was just extremely pissed that after spending the amount I did that he would go into setup and change stuff.

2 - the way he changed my settings was use the sports setting as a base and turn brightness down slightly so as a result my advanced settings (r,g,b, etc.) were overwritten. As far as I know there is no way to protect it but I will be searching.
3 - installer was due between 10 and 2. I got back at 10 and he was already done.

4 - as for inputs I only use one for hdmi as everything runs through my receiver. That said I tried the other inputs and it appears static on all inputs.

Lastly i was extremely pissed when I got home but moreso that the tv is virtually unwatchable and they want me to just leave it as is until they "get around to inspecting the damage."

I've already called the guy who did it and he'll be out shortly after comcast leaves (with minimal charge if I fix his laptop) but it's a matter of principle (why should I give a company $200+ a month after ppv event fees if the best they can do is get around to fixing it. It's not about the money as much as the lack of common courtesy from the companyArMy least I got an apology from the installer's company secretary but eventhat was three hours too late. My wife swears she only gave him the remote because he had to "adjust something to get it to work" and once she saw what he was doing it was too late.

I've defended dish as much as I could at home and work but once you do stupid (I.e. A d* installer Using svideo to hook up my HD box) you're off my list.
(sorry for misspellings Im typing from an iPhone)

You did the right thing. They pissed you off and you spoke with the pocketbook.

They should be made to pay for recalibration of your televison.

Is there a website that shows the optimal settings on televisions so that you can calibrate yourself? I try to calibrate the analog televisions but these new ones take a bit more work it seems with the additional settings that you have.

They should be made to pay for recalibration of your televison.

Is there a website that shows the optimal settings on televisions so that you can calibrate yourself? I try to calibrate the analog televisions but these new ones take a bit more work it seems with the additional settings that you have.
There are websites that will have "general" settings, but each TV (even with the same model number) panel will be slightly different. Professional calibrators use special equipment to get the "perfect" picture.

That being said, I think instead of kicking the installer out of the house, you should have had him commit (either in writing, or by calling his supervisor with you in earshot) that he changed your settings.

I am also surprised whoever you hired to calibrate your set wouldn't keep copies of the settings. Even if he has to come back to get to the service menu, it shouldn't be the cost of a full calibration.

If anyone ever messed with my settings, he would be leaving my house with broken fingers.

Can completely understand why you're leaving, don't know whether or not that would cause me to leave but it'd definitely would tick me off if the installer tried anything. My A/V setup is a little bit on the intimidating side though so most technicians do not attempt to mess with it.

I do have two questions for the op though:

1) Why didn't the original calibrator leave behind the setting changes he made to your setup? All of the ISF certified technicians that I know of always leave a full printout of the before and after settings to the TV set that they make both in the factory menus and to the user accessible menus.

2) Why did you elect to have a technician come out and replace the receiver instead of having Dish overnight you a replacement? Not saying what you did was wrong but as picky as I am about my setup I prefer not to have the technician touch a thing on it. The techs that I've had come out to install receivers have been perfectly happy to let me hook up the receiver to my setup while they're busy running cable to the satellite dish.

General response to folks about calibration:

A properly calibrated set can not be duplicated just by copying the settings that somebody else has on their calibrated set, even if its the same model. A professional calibrator also takes into account the room that the TV set is in and how it will affect the picture with things like lighting in the room.

Today is my last day with E* due to the incompitent installer they sent me today.

On Friday my VIP 722 blew and wouldn't even power on. I called tech support and was told that they would waive all fees (including the $5.99 service plan) and would be out today.

The tech came out today while I was out on an errand and the first blow came when he told my wife "You will need to pay $5.99 for the service plan and the cancellation fee of $25 should you decide to cancel it" (not true as the $25 does not begin until February... but I digress)

Next he took out my broken 722 and hooked up the new one. He then asked my wife for the tv remote to set it up.....

side story time: last year I paid to have my tv calibrated and have not changed it since

... he then went into the picture settings, set it to sport, reduced the brightness from 100 to 95, and set it as my preference overwriting my calibration settings!

I get home and have a picture that is so bright and with white balance off so much that it looked like a white screen with some colors on it. I called up E* to complain and was told "it will take 3-4 weeks to investigate your claim and then we can proceed from there. Please do not change your settings from where they are until we inspect them. This could take 1-2 weeks pissed as all hell I asked for someone higher up to try to make sense of this bull as I was about to blow a gasket. The supervisor told me that was they best I could do and they would need to see it exactly as it is or else there was nothing they could do.

I was not going to keep my tv with these settings for 2-4 weeks so they can "evaluate my complaint" and when the company the installer worked for called us we were told that "we should have specified our wishes when the installer got there." I told them I was under the impression my wishes were for a working receiver and nothing else.

As a result, despite my disdain for Comcast, they will be out tomorrow to do an install.
Tech here..
I am flabbergasted.
The tech had no business tampering with your settings. That was unecessary.

I would be pissed if I caught the guy changing my settings on my A/V receiver or TV. I would have instantly kicked him out. That is not his job to adjust my TV....I don't recall seeing this step in the 722 installation guide.SHHHHHHHHHHHHH......Dish management may see this thread and make these adjustments policy..

Why would he have changed anything. Are you sure the tech did it or could something have been done by someone else?

Why would he have changed anything. Are you sure the tech did it or could something have been done by someone else?

It wouldn't surprise me if he actually messed it up himself trying to get his first 722 to work. :D

Wow. Sorry to hear that Dan.

Did your calibrator go into the service menu to calibrate??

He should have given you a copy of the settings as soon as the calibration was finished so if the settings are changed, you can just put them back in.

I would be mad too if he messed with my settings. No reason at all to mess with the tv except to program the new remote.

First as I was not here I do not know why the hell he went into the settings... as for the settings being changed by someone else prior... at 7am I watched the local news. at 8am I left my house with everything still intact to go to the office real quick.

Typically I do what others have said and tell the guy to sit on the chair while I hook things up. (and it's what I intend to do tomorrow with the installer that comes out)

In response to the two questions asked of me:

1) I was given the basic settings (Brightness, Contrast, Backlight) which has improved the picture some but I don't have the other settings.

2) I was told by tech support that they "needed" to send someone out. My assumption was that it was better to get a receiver today than to wait until Wednesday (Monday is a federal holiday which means it wouldn't even ship until Tuesday so if they overnighted it I'd get it Wednesday). I had my wife on the phone throughout the install except for five minutes when I called dish because he was trying to put me on the service plan which I was told I would not need and $6 may not be much for one month but if I'm told an additional fee will not apply then it is not going to apply. I had that resolved and called back and he was packing up to go so within that five minute window of me calling customer service is when it happened.

Also, in response to the comment that I may have messed it up... I do not go into my tv settings at all... there is no need as everything runs from my touch screen or the universal remote (so no reason for him to even program a remote since there were two other ways to control the devices without use of a dish remote). I do installs at my work (I am the co-dish installer at my company as well as the on-site av specialist/co-meeting planner) but my eye for color is not good enough to be doing calibrations. My 722 sounded like a jet engine taking off and had a green flashing light on it. The receiver would not even reset and if I unplugged it and plugged it back in the fan/hard drive spun just as fast as before. I watched OTA and Blu-Ray fine all day Friday and yesterday with no color problems.

At any rate the 211s and 722 are waiting off to the side for their respective boxes to go back to their homes.

Someone needs to explain to Dish Network that their service techs are not qualified to touch the settings on an HDTV. When the 622 came out I ordered one and just happened to have step out to the store for my wife when the service tech showed up (early - can you believe that!) and he had disconected half of my home theater equipment by the time I got home!! My wife came outside to warn me that the idiot was pulling wires from my receiver and to get in there!!!

I asked what he was doing and he told me that he was installing the 622. That is when I asked him what that had to do with the speaker connections on my receiver. What a BOZO! I told him to call in the 622 for setup and I would hook up the equipment.

After we got it set up (it took me all of 5 minutes to reattach his screwup and hook up the 622) I asked if he was a trained home theater specialist. He said no and then I told him the next house he went into and started pulling wires might be that of a lawyer and that I hoped if that happened he lost his shirt. Needless to say he was apologetic and I was peeved.

Then he wanted to adjust my picture quality!?! Is this something that Dish teaches? Fortunately for him my wife was there giving me the look and I told him that if the 622 was working (and it was) that we were done. He looked puzzled - I guess some of these installers don't have a clue! My suggestion is that if you do not want the installer screwing something up you better be there when they come thru the door and watch them like a hawk!

well i would have never left the installs side. since i usually know more than the person that shows up.

If anyone ever messed with my settings, he would be leaving my house with broken fingers.Justifiable homicide in my opinion...

Also, in response to the comment that I may have messed it up...



Relax, I'm just giving you a hard time.:)

well i would have never left the installs side. since i usually know more than the person that shows up.

Yeah, these guys don't seem to be well trained, I was a newbie when I had mine installed and knew more than the installer. He told me I could not use my Harmony ir remote with my 612 because it only had uhf, when you can clearly see the ir receiver on the front of the box. He also didn't want to install my ota because he said there was no need as dish carried all the hd locals, when they do not carry CW and PBS HD, he tried to convince me that those stations did not transmit an hd signal. another one told me when we were having signal problems and 77 showed up as red that it did not matter because 77 was a dead sat and no channels came off it when one of the channels we watch the most, FSC is on that sat. If they don't really know everything about what their jobs entail which is the sat system itself, I would definitely never let one of these guys change the settings on my tvs.

The tech has no business adjusting the settings on the TV, they are not even susposed to walk into a room and turn the TV on. The proper procedure is to have the customer show you each TV and turn it on for you so they can't accuse you of breaking their TV if it won't turn on.

The only time the installer should ever adjust the settings on the TV is if the picture is really dark, and its pretty obvious it needs to be changed. I was at my grandparents house the other day and they had the brightness turned all the way down to the point where you could bairly see anything on the screen and where talking about going out and buying a new TV because of it.

http://members.cox.net/kbghdg/duck.gifRelax, I'm just giving you a hard time.:)


No problem... with the way this day has gone up until this point (and the problems didn't end with Dish... just started there) I'm more on edge than usual. Luckily I am off tomorrow due to federal holiday and it can only get better.

No problem... with the way this day has gone up until this point (and the problems didn't end with Dish... just started there) I'm more on edge than usual. Luckily I am off tomorrow due to federal holiday and it can only get better.

Dan.

Who did the calibration and how long ago was it done?

What happens when the set looses power does it hold it's settings?

The set does hold its settings from what I can tell as the image hasn't changed when I've had to replace the surge protector.

It was done by a local company that usually does commercial a/v installs that I deal with at work and asked for a favor since it would cost less than having a company that does nothing but that (i.e. the excellent company that advertises on this site) and that would be better than bestbuy.

They didn't give you a print out of the calibrated settings??

and I would trust my dog before letting BB calibrate.:D

Does this unit have different settings for each input?

whatchel, I didn't think so but there is a noticeable difference from the OTA to the HDMI1 that I setup myself earlier so I'm going to try to copy those settings as best I can and try to recover it myself that way... regardless the guy will be out this week to if nothing else say "good job" and I'll make sure I write it down on paper. (My wife says we had something that I typed and saved on my computer... not much of a help since she doesn't remember which one)

I don't remember any dish tech EVER adjusting my pic controls. Of course I haven't had a dish tech in my house in years. The last one was when I had a 522 installed, that I leased to test the new name based recording features before I decided to buy. I had everything hooked up before he could look up. He authorized the receiver over the phone and we were good to go. I never let an installer in my home unless I am there. My wife is totally clueless on how tech works and would just let him do what ever he wanted to .

Justifiable homicide in my opinion...

Self defense? :)

He had no business messing with your TV settings.

I'm still a little confused on why they would send a tech out to replace a bad receiver and not just mail out a replacement.

I can only hope that the average end user is capable of unpluging the old unit and removing the cable and hooking up the new unit. Seems to me this is a tremendous waste of money.

Is this standard dish policy?

I would be fuming. Being someone that has paid for and understands the value in a professional calibration I feel your pain. Sorry for you trouble and I don't blame you for leaving one bit.

I had my old RPTV pro calibrated a few years back. I no longer have it. ( sold it to my brother in law ) . Anyways, I'm pretty sure when he was all done, the settings were saved as the factory default. If something ever happened to the settings, all I had to do was a reset and I'd be back in business.

I had my old RPTV pro calibrated a few years back. I no longer have it. ( sold it to my brother in law ) . Anyways, I'm pretty sure when he was all done, the settings were saved as the factory default. If something ever happened to the settings, all I had to do was a reset and I'd be back in business.

I don't know what TV you had, but that is absolutely NOT the norm.

That was normal on Toshibas. I know Gregg Loewen setup my old Toshiba that way.

and the same for Mitsubishis...

As long as I know, we the older qualified installers does has the home theater installation experience or does has the certification on this, but the newly trained DTV or Dish tech don't know what the hack is this. Well, you got what you paid for.

That was normal on Toshibas. I know Gregg Loewen setup my old Toshiba that way.

Same here. That's how Gregg setup my Toshiba.

I don't know what TV you had, but that is absolutely NOT the norm.If the calibration is done correctly, it actually is the norm.

As long as I know, we the older qualified installers does has the home theater installation experience or does has the certification on this, but the newly trained DTV or Dish tech don't know what the hack is this. Well, you got what you paid for.

Hmm, the point is even if you know what you're doing if I (the customer) didn't ask you to calibrate my TV, please don't do it.

If the calibration is done correctly, it actually is the norm.


Depends on the brand. My Samsung and Pioneer settings were NOT the default settings. If I were to reset the settings, it would go back to factory settings and not the calibrated settings.

But an ISF calibrator can rest your factory settings to be the default and that default is the settings that he/she set.

Interesting. You're saying they can set both greyscale and user settings as the default for all modes? That was not done on my calibration of my Pioneer 6020 and I was not aware that it could be done. Thanks for the info.

... I do installs at my work (I am the co-dish installer at my company as well as the on-site av specialist/co-meeting planner) but my eye for color is not good enough to be doing calibrations....

??

Not making light of your situation, you have every right to be PO'd because you paid to have the set calibrated & the installer went in to the user settings & screwed it up with out the need / authority to do so, but I have to ask & please don't take this as a bash on you, but by you're quote above, how could you really tell the difference between adjusting the user controls yourself till you got a picture you liked & the paid calibration picture? I've had 2 LCD's (not many, I know) but neither were calibrated. I just went into the customer controls and worked each one until I was satisfied w/ the picture... it may take a few days of tweaking, but I always made it there.

I've done TV work for years in the past (not doing it now) but I always had to cave in to the customer because when ever a set (CRT, not Panel) came in for repair, we always tuned the drives, bias & customer controls for the best pix. However, if they've been looking @ a pix w/ a high red drive, for example (really red backgrounds, etc) they'd always say that the picture wasn't as good as it was before they had it fixed. Guess it's just what you're used to, huh?

whatchel, I didn't think so but there is a noticeable difference from the OTA to the HDMI1 that I setup myself earlier so I'm going to try to copy those settings as best I can and try to recover it myself that way... regardless the guy will be out this week to if nothing else say "good job" and I'll make sure I write it down on paper. (My wife says we had something that I typed and saved on my computer... not much of a help since she doesn't remember which one)


If its really messed, reset to factory defaults and look up your tv's owner thread at avsforum, usually people post settings.
AVS Forum (http://www.avsforum.com)

I don't know what TV you had, but that is absolutely NOT the norm.



If they adjust and set calibration through the service menu then thats the new default, so yes re-setting to factory default from the user menu will bring back the new calibration settjngs. Their is a key stroke sequence to reset service menu settings to factory defalut. Anyway, thats how my sony works I found out after messing up some setting in the service menu.