You might recall that I bought one of those $90 DVD players from the Warehouse. Transonic brand, it was. You also might recall that, on the whole, I was pleased with my purchase.
Apart from a couple of kinks – like no display on the front, a remote that had to be pinpoint accurate in order to have any effect and a couple of setup difficulties – it was an absolute bargain…
Until it started the sync problem. Every ten minutes or so (sooner for Region 1 discs), it started to lose synchronisation between sound and pictures. It just looked like bad overdubbing. Stopping then restarting the playback fixed it each time, but it wasn’t long before it would get out of kilter again.
Well, having bought myself a couple of new DVDs (the Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Man With A Movie Camera’ is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous), I decided I’d had enough. A DVD player that couldn’t play a disc from start to finish and keep the words in the same place as the mouths speaking them wasn’t worth having. It had serious internal processing problems – and it was expressing them externally.
As a point of fairness, if I get an absolute bargain, I have a reasonably low expectation of the goods – but I do have minimum standards. It has to work.
I rang the Warehouse: “Hello Warehouse? Yes, hello. The DVD player you sold me has brain cancer.”
“Bring it back. It’s under warranty. We’ll replace it on the spot.”
“Um… I threw out the box it came in, and the receipt too.”
“No worries – we’re the only people that sell them, so this is the only place you could have bought it.”
Brilliant. I unplugged it and took it straight back. Sadly (and this wasn’t mentioned at any time during the phone call), they didn’t actually have a working one to replace it with.
A phone call confirmed that the other stores within reasonable driving distance didn’t either. A few more phonecalls revealed that no Warehouse branches in the greater Auckland region had any of these $89.99 DVD players in stock.
I had a store credit now – but nothing to watch my lovely Cinematic Orchestra disc on.
The guy at the Albany Warehouse’s electronics dept was the most helpful: apparently, there are new ones coming. Not just new machines – new models to replace the older, slightly more dodgy ones. Same price, only better. Stock should be in on Wednesday.
I’ll be going to Albany to get mine, so I can thank the man. I’m still in withdrawal, but I’m no longer quite so panicked. I can hang till Wednesday. Hope he wasn’t just making it up to get a troublesome customer off the phone.
And incidentally – if you happen to be a Warehouse manager and you’re reading this: every single Warehouse branch I spoke to complained of being understaffed on a Sunday. Computers were down in three of them, and I was put on perma-hold at one of the stores.
Thanks for the cheap DVDs and all – but do better.
