I recently purchased 2 40" Samsung LCD HDTV 1080p 120hz etc, etc and when I attempt to play games on it whether the 360 or PS3 I get some quite unique and quite annoying results. This will be somewhat hard to explain, but I will try.


Games on both systems "Flare and Focus" with camera movement. Imagine a plant in a game. When you look at it and head on it is fine, however any movement in the game causes a constant shift in brightness , then after the movement stops it focuses back down to normal. This is the most annoying problem I am facing and it is most apparent on the Ps3. but it appears on the 360 as well I noticed it a lot in Bio-shock 2 and Mass Effect 2.


Now I know the usual suggestions: Did you check your system settings? Have you tried a different HDMi cable? Have you tried another TV?Have you tried different Internal Tv tweaks? Have you tried different systems? The answer to all of these is yes.


So Long story short I brought my game systems into Best Buy and after testing 8 different similar TV's that all had the exact same problem, and one plasma which didn't , 2 employees and a manager were dumbfounded as to what is actually causing the problem. Then when we were all about to give up one of them suggested trying them on a calibrated TV, and you know what? It worked.


So now I have to spend an additional $300 and wait a month before I can get a guy here to calibrate this by replacing a chip inside the actual unit. While I am happy to finally have this resolved I am left with one question...... Why the FUCK do they not come calibrated enough to display these games properly!! These are not old ps2 games I am trying to run on a HDTV and frankly there is no excuse for these games not to be visually playable on any TV past 1992, it is lazy workmanship at it's finest and the sad thing is, it's not just one company....it's all of them.


So if you are a gamer and you are planning to buy a new TV (Plasma or otherwise) now or in the Future, trust me when I say save yourself a headache and take your system to the retailer and find out what they are going to look like before you buy.


I Troubleshooted this situation all to hell, 2 systems, about 8 different TV's, multiple HDMI cables, 3 techies, same problem, no help other than a $300 Solution. If anyone has a similar or related story /situation please post.


Thanks

A small update: After the calibration the same problem was very apparent. So I guess this is just a inherent problem with LCD TV's ( I still have no clue why my system test looked decent on the calibrated LCD in the store). So I just picked up a plasma, and it works fine with everything I throw at it. I am still utterly confused by this whole mess. If any of you have a 1080p LCD that works with modern game systems and produces no motion blur or distortion I would sure like to hear about it.

Sorry, I can't give much on the side of specs, the Samsung's have ToC (touch of color), but other than that I cannot really give you much more info spec wise I am unfortunately not as tech savvy as I should be, however after literally cycling through 8 different TV brands, sizes, htz , you would think by dumb luck alone I would have stumbled across one that worked. It's pretty bad when the person calibrating your TV literally says "What the fuck is that, and why is it doing it?" So far I am real happy with the plazma, a little paranoid about burn in images with gaming, but I think as long as I don't leave it blazing for 8 hours in a row I am pretty safe.


I think I am going to reference this as one of those god hates me moments in my life lol

edit: (one weird thing I saw today before returning the TV was weird pixeling / hazing (hard to explain) around moving objects in games and videos.

thank you for the responses