How to Repair the Picture on a TV
- 1). Check the cable that connects your television to your cable box. This is called a coaxial cable and is found at the rear of a television. It's usually constructed from copper and has a metal tip at the end that attaches to the connector on the TV. Distorted pictures or poor sound quality often are caused by a damaged coaxial cable. Twist the cable to different positions while it still is connected, to see if picture quality improves. Purchase a new cable from an electrical store if your cable is damaged.
- 2). Examine the metal fitting to see if it shows any signs of damage, if the cable itself appears ok. Dents in the fitting can damage signal strength. Replacement fittings can be bought from electrical stores.
If cable and metal tip appear in good working order, the fitting on the TV itself may be at fault. Any maintenance work on this fitting should only be performed by a qualified repairman unless you have previous experience in this area. - 3). Move away any devices such as stereo speakers or electrical motors that are close to your TV set. Magnetic energy from such devices can adversely affect the TV's picture quality. Most televisions have a built-in demagnetizing function to block interference. This function may be faulty if your picture quality is poor.
- 4). Purchase a demagnetizing coil from an electrical store. Make sure your TV set is turned off, then move the coil in a circular motion roughly 3 inches from the screen. Repeat this circular motion, making the circles wider each time, until you have covered the whole screen. The set should now be fully demagnetized.
- 5). Adjust the picture aspect ratio if the black bars visible around the edges of the picture trouble you. TV broadcasts are usually made using 4:3 standard-definition images. On a widescreen TV, this will cause black bars around the image, as widescreen sets are proportioned and set up to accommodate widescreen broadcasts. To have the image fill the screen, access the picture controls by pressing Menu on your TV remote control. You may also need to adjust the same setting on your cable box. Here you can change the aspect ratio of the image by selecting 16:9 instead of 4:3. The image will now fill the screen.