Info and forum posts by 'Brian Lonsdale'

This user hasn't used our main site yet, so has no main account at present.

Joined on: Friday, 8th December 2000, 18:39, Last used: Friday, 8th December 2000, 18:39

Access Level: Harmless

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This user has posted a total of 3 messages. On average, since joining, this user has posted 0 messages a day, or 0 messages a week. In the last 30 days, this user has posted 0 messages, which is on average 0 messages a day.

Recent Messages Posted:

RE: Problems with Tescos and Wharfedale

I`ve since found a place on the net that will send me an upgraded chip for £20, so I`m happy now. I`ll be getting it done shortly.

Why the hell Tescos can`t offer this service for people is beyond me. If they`re out to make money (and I offered to pay!) they should try offering some kind of customer support! Yes, they may be a supermarket but that doesn`t excuse poor customer support. The same level of customer support should be available whatever brand they`re selling.

You should think back a couple years....Wharfedale was one of the leading players at the time and getting excellent reviews - both online and in magazines....it was a Sony beater. Why the hell would I pay Sony £400 for a DVD player when I could get a Wharfedale branded one that was getting better reviews for £179?

I had a friend who bought a Sony DVD player shortly after, paid £400 quid for it and then asked the Sony shop if they did the modification to make it multi-region...at which point they just gave her a blank look and she had to pay an extra £100 to someone who had started doing these.

Even if I buy a brand new Wharfedale with the upgraded firmware in it I`d still be better off.

Go figure.

RE: Tekkies please!!

The file is still associated with the Quicktime player/viewer.

Try installing the latest version of Quicktime - you can set the options in it to which filetypes it should associate itself with. You can leave the rest as the default ones. You`ll frequently find that when installing programs like this they grab the association for files because they want you to use their software to view the file. It can be quite amusing watching Windows Media Player and Quicktime fighting over each other to be associated with the different file formats.

If the filetype you are clicking on is definitely a QT file, though you`re obviously going to have to view it using Quicktime. Windows media player doesn`t support QT files and this is probably why you`re getting the grey box and nothing more when you click on the link.

Problems with Tescos and Wharfedale

Sorry about this being a long post, but please take the time to read and hopefully I can enlighten a few people about service standards in this country!

I`ve had some major hassle from Tescos and Wharfedale in trying to get the firmware updated on my Wharfedale 750 (original one with original firmware)

I contacted Tescos about 18 months ago because of a problem with the DVD box set of Buffy Season One. Using the menus wouldn`t allow me to play the episodes - it bombed back to the main menu when I selected to play an episode. They said they did do a firmware upgrade because of the problems which had been reported with this title and other titles, including Jaws. I had to ring back in a few weeks once they had more information. I then found a workaround for the problem by using the chapter selection, so never rang back as everything else played OK. I got the info from this site about Tescos doing the firmware upgrade for users experiencing problems with some of their titles.

Couple weeks back I eventually got round to buying season two of Buffy and had same problem with this title. However, there is no workaround with this as you have to select an episode before you can select a chapter to watch, so no Buffy night.

I contacted Tescos and explained all of this and the first person I spoke to said there was a slim to no chance of them doing an upgrade because they weren`t getting anymore chips in...and that they`d never heard of the problem with the season two set (or season one).

I went back to Wharfedale and wrote them an email to their service desk from their UK homepage explaining the problem in the hope that they could do something.

Never got anything back from that so I rang Tescos again hoping to get someone who would at least understand the issue and might even be willing to do something about it. The person I spoke to said yes they would do an upgrade and did I have my till receipt...no mention of the lack of upgrade chips this time so thought I was actually getting somewhere. Then when he asked which title I was having trouble with and I told him Buffy he said that they`d had no reports of problems with that title so no I couldn`t have the upgrade after all. I was starting to get a bit annoyed about the whole thing as you can imagine.

He told me to go back to the producers of the DVD and get a re-pressing!! Like Fox are going to re-press a disc just because of my say so!! I asked if I could have the upgrade to see if this would fix the problem anyway and he just kept saying that because no one else had the problem they wouldn`t do it. I then offered to PAY for the upgrade and he said I couldn`t! They couldn`t charge for the service! Like WTF kind of response is that? I asked to speak to this man`s supervisor to see if I could get even the slightest possibility of service from Tescos and he said that he was a supervisor and that the only other people around were at the same level as him. I then asked to speak his supervisor when they got in - needless to say, several days later, I am still awaiting that phone call.

I hunted around on the Wharfedale website for a telephone number and got one for the service desk. I rang them and explained the issue and was directed to someone else, a Graham Eton. I rang this number to be told there was no such person as Graham Eton! A lady called Anne Oliver had answered the phone and I explained the issue to her and she said she would do what she could and speak to Tescos on my behalf.

Anne wrote me an email which stated that Tescos say the problem is because the the DVD disc is passing too much information to the DVD player for it to cope and that this was creating the effects such as picture freezing and problems with menus. Needless to say I wrote back with a lengthy explanation that this was complete nonsense - once again I was being fobbed off by Tescos. I also pointed out that as a representative of Wharfedale she should have taken the effort to validate this information before passing it on. I also pointed out that Tescos are the supplier, not the manufacturer so how did they (Tescos) get off giving this kind of response? I pointed Anne in the direction of this website and links to a thread in the forums which was posted in Jan of last year about Tescos doing the upgrade because of known issues with the firmware at the time.

This last email to her prompted a telephone call (odd, that). She said that she wasn`t very technical and that Tescos are contractually obliged to provide all technical services regarding the product and that she didn`t know how she could help further... she then said that because they knew they had issues with the Jaws DVD that I should tell them that I had that disc instead and see what happened!!!!

I rang Tescos back and said I had problems with my DVD player, said that it was Jaws. And.....they took my details and said that as soon as the upgrade chips come in they will contact me and get and engineer to come and replace it.....when they get the chips in though is another matter. So either Wharfedale and Tescos have put their heads together in a concerted effort to shut me up or am I really going to be able to look forward to watching Buffy??

What the hell does it say for consumer service when you have to lie to people to get a response? Why are Wharfedale telling me to lie to THEIR distributor in order to get service?

OK, after all this, I am asking if anyone knows anyway I can get this firmware upgraded without having to use Tescos? I know there are places which will program an EPROM chip with the firmware - anyone heard of this for the Wharfedale 750? Anyone got a binary image of the latest firmware so I can try this service out?

Thanks for reading, sorry for it being so long.