HELP!!! I finally sprung for a new Samsung ln52a630 yesterday. Got it all set up to watch the playoff game in HD and to my surprise the picture was worse than my old Sony Vega HD CRT TV. Im pretty bummed to say the least, i've been waiting to pull the trigger on this tv for almost a year now and its pretty disappointing to see it doesnt blow my other tv away...especially after dropped $2000 on it. I've got my cable box (Timewarner) using a HDMI. SD channels looks OK, but even the HD channels are kinda bad. Football was really noticable. Seemed almost BLOTCHY and pixelated especially when they zoomed in and out. and i tried the 120hz on AND off.. Now this is my first LCD tv (my old sony was a HD CRT TV and the picture was amazing) so im not sure what to expect with it. I havnt calibrated it or anything really yet, but i was hoping for nothing but amazing after reading all the reviews. Am i doing something wrong? i've havent tried out and dvds yet (also hdmi), but my 360 actually looks pretty good off of component. Is there just a noticable difference between picture quality between LCD and CRT that i am going to have to live with? Even my wife (whos not technical at all) pointed out how bad it looked. Her dad just got a 50" sammy plasma which looks VERY nice over xmas.. thanks for any help.. im freaking out over this and i dont really want to have to return this and find a new tv.. thanks again
Sorry to hear your having problems with your new TV. SD should look pretty much the same as your old CRT, some people might say worse, some people might say better, it's a matter of opinion. The SD channels should not look as bad as you say they do. I have owned samsung lcds before and was happy with the SD broadcasts. Try a few dvds and see how they look, but if the tv looks as bad as you say it does, I would consider returning it to the store and get another one. Good Luck
I had MAJOR issues with Time Warner and my Vizio 42" LCD. Among the problems were HD channels "jumping" their position on the screen, black screen with audio only, black and white (no color) for some channels, or worse, some would never come in at all. SD channels would "shift" to the far left of the screen, and would only re-appear properly letter boxed after shutting off the cable box and turning it back on. (I also recall doing something the in menu or guide and then exiting would sometimes fix it too.) I think part of the problem is TWC broadcasting in the native resolution of the channel itself. Any shift from 480p to 720p or 1080i caused issues. You could probably try to ditch the HDMI cable for a component cable and see if the analog (component) connection works better, as it won't have issues with letter boxing and will "stretch" the picture on standard 480 feeds.
I think you can ask the cable company to come over and reprogram your box for you with a different resolution. I had mine converted but only because the box kept resetting itself...
When I had comcast and got my Vizio I had the same issue. Come to find out I had to change the display resolution on the cable box. Not sure what box is used timewarner. You could google the box and see if there is a way to change the resolution.
