Sony KV-24FV12 Image intermittant Blackout

My Sony KV-24FV-12 was bought a little over 3 year ago and the extended warranty has expired. It's been a decent TV, although I don't know whether I'll buy another Sony as the last few I've owned have developed problems early on. This KV-24FV-12 has a few problems. it's connected to a Direct TV Satellite dish and a Panasonic VCR. It's been used rather extensively, but onky for viewing TV or watching DVDs. The most annoying problem it developed a couple weeks ago is an intermittant blackout on any channel, even when watching a DVD, The picture will be fine then all of a sudden the screen will go black for a second, then the picture will return to normal and a couple seconds later it will go black again. this sequence will repeat itself, then it will cease for several minutes before acting up again. Seems like the audio does not drop off when the picture goes blank. It happens on all channels from Direct TV as well as when I have the Direct TV box turned off and am watching a DVD. It seesm to be occuring more frequently, and I cannot watch the TV anymore it's such so annoying. On the same TV, I've noticed the picture quality has started to deteriorate. It's not as rich as other TVs in the house, the colours almost look faded. Sometimes when I look at the Direct TV guide the background colours are faded, other times I'll switch to the guide and they're nice and strong, and this is without switching the picture mode to Vivid, Sports, etc. Lastly, I get a high pitch audio hum when the volume is turned down low, it goes away when I turn up the Volume, but I don't like to have the Volume at a very loud level at times. Thanks for any help, Robert