I had this same problem. Apparently it's fairly common with these older Hitachi Ultravision TVs. There is a bad fuse and capacitor. If you are willing to do some soldering it can be fixed at home. I bought a kit and instructions from TVRepairKits.com for about $30. Although I haven't worked on electronics since jr high school electric shop, it powered up as soon as I replaced the bad parts. Not very difficult, although the circuit board accumulated an amazing amount of dust in its 10+ years of use.
the tv picture began to get wavey lines at the top of the screen for a short time then the tv screen...
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the tv picture began to get wavey lines at the top of the screen for a short time then the tv screen went black.