I tried to answer a question on this thread and it wouldn't let me post so I am posting it here.

A person said his 25 inch TV had a blank screen and a flat horizontal white line through it.

People responded saying it was toast and he needed to replace it. They mentioned diagnal lines and distorted colors as an example, which is an entirely different problem than yours.

So ignore them and consider the following advice:

A horizontal white line through a blank black screen usually indicates a loose or disconnected vertical alignment array. An honest TV repairman could fix that for $50 to $80. Modern appliances use cheap tin soder as opposed to lead soder these days.

Where I live (Melbourne, FL) there is an outfit called Wiler's TV & Monitor repair that does this sort of work. That is usually how much it costs.

Thanks for the info, Majestic. Can you give us a link to the thread you were trying to answer?

This is the link.

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/advice/t-11534.html

Aah, I see. Your link is to the archived version of this:
http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/television/should-replace-repair-tv-11534.html
which can't be added to since it's no longer a current topic.

I am glad you added this info, though. This is great stuff for our Tips board.
I'll move this there.