For the last three days we have noticed a worsening colour distortion problem on our 37"philips hd ready lcd model no 37PF5320/10. Part of the problem seems to be columns of green lines of varying intensity 'running' down the screen. Also green and red swirls and 'shadows' appear, the green ones seeming to settle on areas of brightness. The whole thing seems to get a litle worse the longer the tv is on. We contacted the store (the set is only 18months old) who seemed to think it had been affected by a magnetic field or lightning, despite the fact that we have no other electrical equipment nearby (asides from the digital reciever box) and anyway, I thought lcds were not affected by magnetisation? The store told us to try switching the set on and off at the mains afew times, but this has proved ineffective. Can anyone shed any light on what the problem might be, and possible solutions? Is there something we can do ourselves?
If the problem is effecting the menu screen as well as your regular TV viewing picture the odds are you've probably got a bad LCD panel controller board, which unfortunately, is normally not available seperately from the LCD panel and requires a LCD panel to repair the problem. Check your warranty on that set. Some Philips LCD's had a 2 year warranty on them.
By the way, LCD tv's are not effected by magnetic fields like old CRT sets were.
Thanks MOtvGuy,
I checked the menu screen and it seems perfectly clear...so any ideas on what else it could be? Incidentaly, if this is not fixable I would be reluctant to buy another lcd but as we need a flat screen for our business, would you say that plasmas were more, or less reliable? Up until now the lcd has performed brilliantly, I can't understand it! As for the warranty, unfortunately the paperwork has gone missing...
I had a similar probelem with an older Phillips 37 inch LCD TV. Try altering the Picture settings in the Picture and Sound Menu using your remote control (press menu and use the up/down arrow keys to selectPicture/Sound). I noticed that Contrast was set very high and when lowered toward 50 it seemed to eliminate the problem. I had already played around with the Brightness, Colour and Sharness settings as well and they may have had an impact. Certainly, reducing brightness reduced the problem, which always seeemed to be associated with areas of strong light as when light was being reflected from faces but to elimate the problem brightness had to go too low. Contrast appears to have been the key variable.One way of experimenting is to find a scene in a DVD where the problem is obvious, freeze frame and then systematically vary the sttings to see what helps. I've just done this and it certainly seems to have elimiated all the odd green silhouettes and green splashes inside faces and around bright colour areas. All seems normal now and I have hopped around channels to see if there is any recurrence. I can't find any.
I also have distorted colors on the faces and ears as well as surrounding. The reply above solved my problem. I had brightness and contrast at 50 each. Turning down the value made it worst. So I set it to higher. He is right that you need to pause a screen in order to see problem disappear while tweaking the brightness/contract values.
Cheers and thanks for the tips M'OG