Home Theater Hacks

Hack #68. Hack Your TV's Service Menu

The key to almost all tweaks in TVs comes through the service menu. However, getting to this menu is usually undocumented, and you'll need some help in finding it.

It's a general principle that TV manufacturers consider TV consumers fairly unintelligent. As a result of this (usually incorrect) assumption, your TV probably has tons of undocumented features and more than a few calibration menus. Lucky for you, many popular brands of TVs have their service menu access codes available on the Internet, through sites such as http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/. Even more conveniently, various web sites' information has been aggregated here, to detail just what you need, all organized by brand.

Tip

These are just the codes to get into the service menu. If you want to go on and mess with convergence, focus, and so on, consult the other hacks in this chapter, as well as online resources. Trying to document every feature of every brand would require a separate book.

Your Instructions Don't Work for My TV!

Unfortunately, in a continuing sign of distrust, manufacturers often change the codes to access their service menus in new models. What works for many of you with older TVs might not work for someone who just got a brand-new set. If you hit a wall on this, visit http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/, which I've found to have the latest variations. So, please don't panic: you just might have a newer TV than the rest of us.

Hitachi

There are actually two ways to get ...