To all who have the 5 blinks, pic goes black with sound and pic flashing: this is the famed AKB error that all SONY's have. The Automatic Kine Bias Circuit (AKB) is part of the self-diagnostic mode for the set. A flashing picture with the 5 blinks associated with it can be solved by turning the screen voltage up slightly. You will pull off the front cover to reveal the speakers and the control panel. Remove the 4 screws that secure the center control panel. Next remove the 6 screws for the service panel. Pull slightly forward and up and remove the service panel from behind the control panel. The control panel has 4 plastic stand-offs that hold it center into the TV frame and the service panel cover. To the right of the control panel after the service cover is removed you will see a block with 6 adjustments. The top 3 are the screen control and the bottom are the focus. DO NOT TOUCH THE FOCUS!. The problem with the sets seems to be the Red tube gets weak. The controls from left to right are: Red, Green, Blue (same for the focus). There will be white paint on them tha will be broken off during adjustment. Trunig left will cause cut-off and right will cause brighter screen. With the set on an input with nothing on, first try the red (move it slowly till you can see red in pic). Try this on blue if red has no effect. Do nor move it very far or bad color will result. This will resolve 90% of the AKB error issues. Emailing the manual is hard due to it being 24mb in size.