I got a free Sony 51ws500, plugged it in, and all three colors were sharp but separated by a couple inches and the screen looked like a bowtie. Obvious IC problem, I thought. But then I turned it off, turned it back on, and now the red overpowers the screen and the thin line parts of the red flickers.
I was all set to replace the ICs before the red blob happened, but now I wonder if that's a sign of a worse problem. Does a color blob with flickering lines on the top and bottom mean something serious like a CRT going bad? Trying to figure out if I should even bother putting new ICs in it.
Here's a couple pics:
http://i49.tinypic.com/1zdilk.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/14nfme0.jpg
That looks like a classic convergence issue. The red is quite bad compared to the others, what I have found is sometimes people get on the internet and find that for this issue you can adjust the colors via service menu so maybe the previous owner tried that or you have a power failure due to blown resistors from the ic's going bad. There is only one way to find out and that is change the ic's and hope it is just that simple. The link below can provide you with a repair kit and instructions for the repair job.