My initial task was to purchase a TV for our weight room in the basement but I quickly realized there were a gazillion TV options all within the same relative price range. So now, I'm thinking ... I can replace my 5 year old Panasonic (which is a great TV) with a more current Flat-screen and push it to the weight room. So I ended up at Wal-Mart in front of the Sanyo 24" Flat-screen with Component Video and I'm smiling. Get it home; replace my Panasonic and start the channel search setup and it only finds like 15 channels. WTF, so after playing with the menu setup I just turned it off and when it came back up, it found the other 80 channels after the second channel search setup. Cool, progress...

Next, I noticed the screen looks a little small so out comes the ruler - and it's like 23" not 24. My guess is 23" Flat is near 24" nonFlat? Hell, I don't know. Remote in hand, I forged on...

I don't much care for commercials, so I often mute the set while I work or read. This is important to me! So while watching the Denver vs. Pat's game, I hit the Mute button and what do I hear.... Humming. Nooooooooo - The damn TV's power unit is humming and I pick up on it at once, now my brain and ears are offended, and find the set the unacceptable. So I try to ignore it but while my wife was lying in bed she asked if the heat was on down stairs ... Guess what we heard after pressing the Mute button?

Quickly, I could have sworn I was seeing "banding" like you would on widescreen DVDs on several commercials. This set isn't advertised as HD so that was weird...

This is the second humming experience we've had with Sanyo products. Such a disappointment because they have great offering at each price level.

I think this story will end where it began, back at Wal-Mart except I'll be in the return rather than the TV department...