Please help me troubleshoot an issue with my television

[emdkay]

This forum is so knowledgeable and the field of expertise varies so greatly - hopefully we have a person familiar with television repair

I purchased a Soyo 32" HD LCD for a room in this house about five months ago - model DYLT032A.  It was never anything spectacular, although the HD channels looked pretty nice.  All of a sudden, the darker areas of the picture look very grainy, staticy, and almost have a plasma-effect.  I know this is an LCD - but that's the best way I can describe it.  Also, the complete black color that appears for one second when changing channels now looks like a disgusting black/red hue combination.  When HD channels are not in widescreen, those black bars have the same ugly reddish color. 

I tried to take some photos and a video of this happening - it's nearly unwatchable at times:
http://www.emdkay.net/soyo/

I've tried other inputs on the television (PS2, DVD player), and the problem seems to vary.  I would assume that this doesn't mean my cable TV is the issue - what may be the issue?  Any comments are appreciated. 

[Harry Potter]

Either your settings have reverted back to default or the video processing hardware in the TV is shot.

I seen similar effects on CRTs where if you turn the brightness and contrast too far down, solid blacks all of a sudden get a slightly lighter of reddish tinge to them.

I realised this was actually pure black on a crt and so turned the brightness up a bit and it got rid of it.

I know that's an lcd tv but you may as well try it.

[pointdablame]

It almost looks like artifacting similar to when a video card overheats.  It looks a lot like some of the video shots I saw of the Xbox 360's that were overheating.

I'm not really sure what that means in the world of TVs, but something may be overheating.

[ha-Y-n]

is that robocop in your pix? i like robocop.

anyway, does the problem happen after the tvs been running for a while, or does it happen as soon as its turned on?

might be a stupid question but do you have warranty? (prolly not, you wouldn't have posted if you did)

You might also try posting in the monitor/video section, that might help.

good luck

[grantspain]

first question is did this just go like it or did you connect something?,also if you disconnect all inputs and put your tv into menu mode do the colours look good?to me it looks like one of two issues either(more likely) you picture adjustments(contrast/hue etc) have gone well out or the tv onboard decoder ic is shot

[emdkay]

you guys hit the nail on the head with some of these comments..

-it is robocop - great movie

-the power went out for at least an hour the day before this happened - so it would be reasonable to say that the settings have reverted back to normal, but the settings look the same, and i don't remember it ever looking this bad when purchased.  i'll try fiddling around with the color/video settings.

-if you put your hand near the television, it does feel somewhat warm, but it's always been like that.  this crazy problem happens as soon as i turn the television on - but has never been like this before.  i even left the tv unplugged overnight to see if maybe it had to cool off, since i always leave it on standby.  that didn't help at all

-my setup has always been cable from the wall, into my cable box, then dvi out into the television.  i've tried swapping with component hd cables, and the same issue exists.  in fact, all video inputs have the problem, regardless of their connection

-i notice that the screen that normally says "no input" when nothing is connected, has that ugly slightly red/pixelated/lines garbage instead of being solid black - so this would eliminate cables or the cable box being the problem and point to something with the tv set.  i even tried another cable box - same problem

it sounds like an issue with the video processor/decoder/whatever from what you guys have said.  it is still under warranty by 6 months - i was just hoping to nip this in the bud before having to deal with the warranty.  i did manage to speak to somebody about this and the warranty/repair people will be back in touch with me on monday to see if i'll be getting a new one, somebody will come here to fix it, or if i have to send it out - for which shipping costs should be reimbursed. 

i'll post results here, thanks again for the input 

[nullb0y]

good luck dont ya hate it when new equip dies?