My son just told me about a school situation that cracks me up.

Somebody bought projectors with autofocus (that is, a camera on the projector and software built into it that can tell if a test grid projected on the screen is in focus, and correct the focus). These projectors are permanently mounted, so the focus never needs to be changed! I call this SNAFU 1.

The money they used on the autofocus feature was NOT spent on motorized screens, so the professors have to reach up and pull the screen down. This could be SNAFU 2, but there are cases where manual control of the screen is a good thing.

Here's the major SNAFU: The prof will go into the room and turn on the system. They all know that it takes more than a minute for the projector to warm up, project a test pattern, and adjust the focus. So they let it do that. Then they start their talks, and at the appropriate time, pull down the screen...wait a minute: the projector focused on the WALL before, and now it is out of focus...rats! We have to turn the system off, wait two minutes and turn it back on again because the AMX controller does not, of course, have a button for autofocus!

Love to hear yours!

Bose

ha. I win.

ROFLMAO.........

Bose is like the trump card....

I ran across the desert with no water. no shoes, and I has to carry a volvo....

Oh yeah? I had to install a Bose.

That is just patently not fair.....Da**, contest over just like that....lol

Sorry about the nuke, guys. I wasn't really trying to top anyones snafu. It just came out and then it occurred to me there is nothing worse.

This message was edited by Steve Garn on 06/29/05 00:58 ET.

Tuff to top Steve's 'nuke' and Ernie's 'wtf'!

BUT.

I really love the confused customer that got a sat install that has RF,composit,S-video,and component hooked up to his display and no audio to the HTR at all!

Oh, yeah, another one --

The latest cable HD DVR, that only puts out composite or component, not both. It has a menu system that comes onscreen exactly where you left it last, not at some definite beginning spot.

Customer's Pioneer plasma's component input died, and I tried to switch the cable box to composite. To see the menu, had to put the menu up on the component input as composite was off. Customer service couldn't talk me through the process from their own box because there was no way of telling where my unit was in the menu, so they couldn't tell me how many times to push"menu," "up," "right," "enter," etc.

Then there was the H-K DVD changer that came set up for composite. I didn't want composite, so I wired the system for component only.

To turn on the component, I had to display composite, bring up the menu, and make the changes. No problem, sez me, I just take the green component lead an plug it into the composite output, right? Right! The menu comes up! All is well until I realize that the menu is done in some kind of pastels, and you can't tell what is highlighted in black and white, only in color...so I had to go get another fleeking cable and hook up composite to a composite monitor input to change it.

And this one isn't really a SNAFU, just a STUPID -- all those DVD players that exclaim DIGITAL AUDIO on the box, and that is the sole reason you bought that model, and, and, and, you set it up and there is no digital audio because some bright engineer thought "Why would we send it out of the factory with the digital audio turned on?"

I'm not sure BOSE qualifies as a SNAFU, either, because they actually designed it to be that way. A SNAFU is caused by an oversight, or a mistake, or two design approaches that just don't work together, or something, not by totally misunderstanding everything about life, the universe and everything.

Heres the one I love the most...


"We are drywalling tomorrow... can you prewire it today?"



damn GC's.

-Chris

I like this one very much, especially when most players in the beginning did this...sony was always good about this.

"What, we haven't had Dolby Digital for the last 2 years, it sounded pretty good to me" or "Is that what the neon blue light on the DVD player is for"?

Sorry about that, I thought you meant abomination

How about when yoiu get a call from someone who just bought a system from BB, CC, or even some of the local specialty a/v shops that don't do installs, and they ask you to install it.

Call it the good deed, your bored, or whatever, but you agree to install the equipment.

The salesman sold them an A/V receiver with only Opitcal audio input for the DVD (not assignable), and a DVD Player with Coaxial output only. Or the other way around.

Robbie S

Recently it has been Marantz DVD players set to output to scart in the setup and don't actually have a scart output. Also because i only use component for DVD i have to do the old "plug the green into composite trick"

Trust me though, the biggest snafu is Opus (made by mordunt short)

I can't go into all the details (i may start to cry).

here are a few of the gems

1. original text interface from sound servers unstable
2. new text interface..."please pull out all your keypads and replace the eproms"
3. "replace the eproms in all the main controllers too"
4. incorrect literature..."we know...heres the right literature"
5. i need to use Xiva and the file doesn't work...."Heres a new file that will"
6. i cant load that file it won't accept it...."you need to change it's name first"
7. the 21 pin serial cable you supplied won't work..." we know, pull these 8 pins out of the cable, they create conflicting information with the new text interface"
8. almost 100 hrs spent onsite with the rep (lots of calls to England)
etc, etc, etc
This is but a sample of the saga, there is much more. Unfortunately the cabling requirements are so specific that we couldn't switch to something else.

To be fair, once it is going properly it's a great system. It just took a long time and several systems to learn how to fix what should have been right straight out of the box.

I now declare myself the worlds authority on Opus multi room systems (outside Mordunt Short). I am so advanced on this product that i can now get a system going with almost no help at all.

Simon.

This message was edited by simoneales on 06/30/05 12:47 ET.

Remember the Denon 3801 or whetever that had upconverting and when you put certain VCR's throught the component you sometimes got time base lapse correction somethin or other......

They took the time to write a large paragraphor two in the manual about the problem but didn't fix the issue until later receivers..........

Is this a snafu??

Hmmm that's like telling the audience at a magic trick that sometimes this trick doesnt work so when it doesn't Ilet you know ahead of time that it was a possibility.

You just reminded me!

A Sony G90, is, what, $35,000? A Faroudja processor that, at the time, was well over $20,000? You plug a VCR into this combination, and the time base of the VCR is so unstable and the Faroudja needs such an exacting signal that the VCR plays in black and white or does not display at all.

The cure? (Someone else prewired this house years ago with exactly FIVE video cables.) Take the Vertical sync cable, add a Xantech CC12 at each end, and switch the VCR signal AROUND the Faroudja and directly into the projector's old-fashioned video input! I used the vertical sync cable on the questionable theory that this one cable, being about two feet longer than the others now, is least likely to completely screw up the timing of the 5-BNC signal.