My TV is still busted, but I figured out a way to get it limping along again. Actually, for the limited amount of time he spent looking at the TV, the Best Buy dude accidently helped me understand what the problem is.
He said the TV has two boards, a digital and an analog. I assume they’re the TV version of a computer’s motherboard. If they are, they pretty much run the whole shebang. Based on the problems my TV has been experiencing, he said it has to be the failure of one or both of those boards.
Well, I noticed the day he visited that the TV worked perfectly for him at first. It wasn’t until I hit the remote’s “Source” button to change components that the TV began to freeze and reset. At first I thought this was a random occurrence, but it turned out to be a completely predictable phenomenon. The TV only froze when I cycled past the analog TV setting. If I avoid that component setting and stick to just a cable, DVD, or HD-DVD setting, the TV works fine.
Long story short, the TV’s analog board is kaput. I still haven’t been contacted on when he’s going to come out and replace it, but at least we can watch TV and movies again. And not a moment to soon. I think more book reading and spending quality time with my family was going to kill me.