RCA F38310 38" 16:9 HDTV with Built-In DirecTV and HDTV Receivers
Very Short Life for the RCA F38310 HDTV
I bought this television a week ago. It worked only 4 days and then went off completely. It will not turn on at all. I checked the instruction manual and learned that the TV has a protective circuit, which turns it off in case of a power surge. I tried all the methods prescribed by RCA to get the TV back on but nothing worked. Finally a RCA appointed local technician checked it and found that a component in the power supply board has burned itself. Four days is an awfully short life for a failure of the circuit board. I am going to get rid of this TV now and buy something else. Please note I also use a real good surge protector for this TV and all my stereo components. I do not believe that the TV ever was surged.  Another shortcoming is that RCA provided only a single set of component video inputs.  This becomes a real problem, if you have two high performance devices to connect to this TV (like a progressive scan DVD player, and a HD Decoder box for the cable TV).  You can get around this by getting a component video switch.  However, there are not many such switches are around at this time.  The least expensive one I found is made by JVC and is available for about $ 100 ffrom some online retailers. I hope RCA takes notice of these issues and resolve them as soon as possible.