Samsung has urged its channel partners to keep its LCD and plasma televisions on retail shelves following reports of faulty TV tuners in several new models.
A limited number of the vendor's M8 and R8 LCD televisions and its Q9 Plasma televisions were found to drop out intermittently while viewing digital free-to-air channels.
Samsung engineers spent last weekend developing a fix for the problem, which had first been identified on May 11. The vendor now claims it has a fix - affected sets require a "minor modification to the digital tuner board [hardware] settings".
Samsung has begun applying these modifications to its warehouse stock, and is sending out service agents to fix display stock in retailer stores as well as in the homes of any consumer that has reported problems.
"Samsung is asking retailers to continue displaying stock, while taking orders from consumers," the vendor said in a statement.
Samsung AV product marketing manager, Michael Apte, said dealers should expect their stock fixed and new stock to be available within the week. He said there had been "so few registrations" from customers complaining of faults that there was no backlog of work to be done.
"I'd like to reiterate that there were very few faulty units reported," Apte said.
The vendor said the fault has only been reported in less than one per cent of sales - specifically for the LA40M81/BDX, LA46M81/BDX, LA32R81/BDX, LA40R81/BDX, PS42Q91/HDX and PS50Q91/HDX models. Samsung dealers with any further questions are asked to contact the vendor on 1300 362 603.
A dedicated option has been added to the company's customer service line to deal with the matter and provide priority to service calls. Samsung isn't the first television vendor to have dramas with its digital tuners.
Competitor, LG, faced a far larger setback in late March when several lines of its televisions were found to be incompatible with specific digital television transmissions, causing them to lock up.
