The first warning here is this software comes from REAL networks. Back in the early days of the Internet they pioneered audio streaming on the web. However they lost their way and started offering bloated software.

Thankfully real audio has almost been consigned to the distant past.

Now in a move that smacks of desperation for $30 they will sell you software to rip your DVD’s keeping the original DVD DRM (CSS) intact but adding their own DRM to lock the content to a small number of computers.

It gets worse….

Say you have two PC’s and want to access your Ripped RealDVD movie on another PC, Real want you pay an additional $20 for their software for each computer you want to access the content on.

I have no doubts this is going to die a death and so it should.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/technology/08dvd.html?ref=technology

Well after hitting the brick wall with Acer’s warranty/tech support department. I re-contacted Tarlock in the Acer UK Head Office.

Tarlock: Has no one from escalation got back to you

Colin: No

Tarlock: OK, ill come back to you.

Shortly after he did. They are sending another engineer out on Monday to replace another board and if that does not cure the problem they are going to take the display away for further investigation.

So that’s a good result at this point. The problem is still not solved but Acer are back taking “responsibility”.

In the meantime I have hooked up a Panasonic display to the same SKY+ box and everything is perfect.

I suppose the lesson to learn is “No” is not necessarily the end of the conversation.

The short version: I have a Acer 32″ LCD Display that has developed a fault within the 2 year warranty period.

So I had a visit from an engineer on behalf of Acer. The screen was displaying the problem when the engineer arrived and I was pleased the engineer had seen this problem before. Sadly that gave me false hope.

The problem is intermittent until the display is warmed up. So with my bad luck about 90mins after the engineer left having replaced one of the main boards The problem reappeared (see below). 

So I called the warranty line (again) and waited a full 20 minutes before my call was handled. When it was I hit a brick wall with Ryan the representative who was helping me. (Case 477-375N).

He said they could not guarantee the display would work with 3rd party hardware (my sky+ box in this case). So I asked for confirmation in writing and received the following.

With regards to your warranty position on adding hardware to your computer. You are able to add hardware yourself, however if by doing so you damage any of the internal components of the machine during the fitting or as a result of the additional hardware your warranty may become void. Also note, that Acer would not support any additional hardware added by yourself, nor would we support any software conflicts arising in this configuration.

So basically I am left with a Acer display product I cannot use with the most popular digital satellite provider (SKY).

An analogy would be if Acer sold cars it appears they are saying they could not guarantee to run on petrol.

I feel very let down by Acer’s lack of ownership of this issue.

I contacted the UK head office of Acer and spoke to a gentleman called Tarlock who took my details.

When I asked Tarlock if someone would contact me he said “hopefully”.