I hate my new TV!

17 years ago

Will I ever be able to be happy with an LCD HDTV? After researching TVs for about a month, we bought a 37" Sharp Aquos this weekend. I never liked the way the LCDs looked because of the strange foreshortening affect that some shows seemed to have and the cut-out like silhouette affect of people on the screen. I admit I am used to regular ole TV with its saturated colors. But my DH was gungho to get one and I caved.

We bring the TV home and hook it up (with the proper cable) and we have Verizon digital FIOS, so I was expecting to be blown away. No such luck. Now, even my DH doesn't like HDTV after watching it for a few shows. He doesn't think the TV is sharp enough. When you look close up at a face, the pixels almost look like an impressionist painting - like daubs of paint. I don't see the pores that I was expecting to see :-). On the other hand, the silhouettes of the people are almost too sharp - they seem to float above the background. It may be something you have to get used to but I'm not sure. I think this might be the nature of the beast.

We are planning to bring it back, but I don't think we will buy another unless what we are experiencing is unusual. Anyone have opinions about this?

Comments (5)

rayfromalaska
17 years ago
Hopefully you read the manual on how the change all the settings to your liking. All TV's come from the factory set for viewing at the store. Do you have a HD or BlueRay DVD player? What kind of DVD player you have?

The settings on the DVD player also need to be changed to match the TV. You can get the best signal from a standard DVD player via a set of Component Video cables. However, if you have a DVD player that has a video "up convert via an HDMI port, then the signal will be much better than one from "component cables." If you do have a DVD player with upconvertion via HDMI, then connect it to the TV with a HDMI cable, and play a DVD movie to see how it looks. If the movie shows better than the digital channels from the box, then the problem may not be the TV.

HDMI cables are expensive, but if you shop around you may be able to find some of the six-footers for around $30.00. Maybe you can rent a DVD player with signal upconverter locally, along the cable you will need. Adjust the DVD player so the it matches the TV's capabilities. The signal will provably be 1080p or so.
jimisham
17 years ago
There are some disks available that helps you set up your HD tv.
One of them is AVIA and looks like it runs about $50.

Here is a link that might be useful: AVIA
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mikie_gw
17 years ago
If you search the net for hdtv picture adjustments you probably will find a basic way to adjust things. Apparently all of them need that picture tune up out of the box. Here's Cnet's version which is basicly nearly exactly the same as many others suggested tunings out there.

Here is a link that might be useful: CNet HDTV tune-up
jerzeegirl
Original Author
17 years ago
Thank you all so much for responding. I now know more about HD TV that I ever wanted to! We decided to bring the TV back to Costco. What I was objecting to is something that I don't think can be tweaked - I think it's the nature of the Hi def TV. We started looking at other people's HD Tv's and discovered that up close they had the same "problems" as ours. I had already done the tweaking on the color/sharpness/etc. but even at optimal settings I just don't like the way the picture looks. Especially during motion sequences. Maybe the technology just isn't there yet. So I'm sticking to my old SONY which always had a good picture but now the picture is even better with the Fiber Optic installation.
mike78613
17 years ago
love my lcd. Just sometimes high-end electronics are not for othersm b/c many people don't want change. Just like my grandparents. They just don't care.
They have a 100% theater room w/ 120" screen running of a front projector. My grandparents says what a waste of money. I go to their home and they watch tv on a old 27" Sanyo TV set w/ a APEX 29.99 dvd player, and the mighty 1987 Sony VCR. Their PC is like 1.5 mhz w/256K ram, talk about no technology. But I know that the AQUOS is a excellent panel television, and is highly recommended by AVS forum consumers and won many awards. By reading your input, I think you do not know how HD works. I bet your cable tv was not hd cable and your probably running S-video.

Not sure what city your living in, but I know there is no one to help you @ costco that knows how to tell you how HD TVworks and what equipment&hardware you need to make it correct. Either way, once you go HD, you will say good-bye to Analog.