RCA Refused warranty on 1 1/2 yr old television thats now dead. Indianapolis Indiana

So I bought my RCA 34" SDTV on 12/27/06, all excited I'd saved up enough to finally move past the 20-29" range of sets in my house. I had problems as soon as I hooked it up, getting it to register my digital cable and such. I called customer service, and a nice woman helped walk me through different set up tricks until finally it started working. Then we proceeded to do my product registration over the phone since I was already speaking to someone. No one told me registering it in it's initial 10 day from pruchase time frame was -not- enough to verify when I bought it.

Last night the television literally shuts itself off while my husband and I were watching, and won't come back on. I check the cable connection and the surge protectors but nothing registered on any other electronics for a problem. I refer to the technical section of RCA's website and it tells me to power it down for 5 minutes and then see if it works. It's 10pm so no service center's open obviously. I try that to no avail. Power goes to the set, as lights show up in the panel at the bottom but the screen remains dead.

I contact customer service this morning for advice and the name of a local service center to fix my still warrantied television. Much non-sincere apologies and hold times later she tells me it's almost certainly a picture tube, and without my reciept from 1 1/2 yrs ago I will have to pay all my repair costs, despite registration. What was even the point of that extra step with the rep back in December 06? Repairs start at $100 here and go up, and the service center I called told me it almost certainly will be much more then that.

So effectively I have a 300 dollar oversized paperweight now and need to buy another television. I can tell you, it will never be another RCA though.

Lily
Gwinn, Michigan
U.S.A.