n00b questions

[do50]

OK, folks, I'm a total clueless n00b on this stuff

What makes a monitor (19 inch P992, FD Trinitron) image jiggle? In one corner of the room it jiggles.... 5 feet away it doesn't.

What makes DVD's glitchy? The glitches aren't consistent*... playing the same thing again may not have any problem. Sometimes the image freezes. Sometimes the sound stops. Sometimes the the lecturer's tie or part of his suit starts to sparkle. Not exactly what one expects from a DVD of a history lecture.
*the one time a glitch repeated itself when played again and again... there was a bubble in the disk.

There seem to be more problems when playing DVD's on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1150) than on the Samsung DVD player on the TV... But BOTH have problems.

Is this kind of thing fixable?

 

[ninja fetus]

magnets usually make my monitor shake. That or high electric currents may shake a screen

 

[Addis]

Yep, putting things with powerful magnets like speakers do that or when theres a live wire in a wall, the current can induce a magnetic field. Anything that distorts the screen can be usually fixed with a degaus.

 

[do50]

Thank you! I believe you guys have nailed the jiggle problem. Five feet above where I wanted to put the monitor is a big speaker from the '70's, and on the other side of the wall is the main service entrance. Current and magnets... Oh yes.

Neither the TV or my laptop jiggle (of course, I've never tried them in the same place where the monitor jiggled).

Any thoughts on the DVD's? I only play them on the TV or laptop, and most of the time DVD's are OK. They just get intermittently weird. Could somebody's garage door opener cause this? Could an intermittent wireless network (...every so often the laptop detects one)? There is a neighborhood transformer on a pole about 30' from the room. Do I just have miserable DVD players?

 

[ninja fetus]

Try coating the roof of your house with a thick layer of lead. :)

 

[Nic]

Try coating the roof of your house with a thick layer of lead. :)

lol

 

[do50]

Try coating the roof of your house with a thick layer of lead. :)

:good: lol.... but that's not as weird a suggestion as one might think. Some labs have copper sheathing in the walls, floors, ceiling and doors...(probably don't have any windows)... price is too steep for me.

 

[ninja fetus]

I know, it blocks a lot of interfierances very well, including radiation :)