Re: Re: New TV Advice? Svetaswan

[Guest guest]

Thank you for this thorough recommendation Svetaswan. I turned the backlight

up. 

 

I adjusted the brightness down but not sure how far down. I'll try to find the

OPC as well.

 

I don't think I am having issues with light sensitivities regarding the tv.

 

Any other ideas that have worked for others?

 

Loni

 

From: svetaswan <svetaswan@...>

Subject: Re: New TV Advice?!

Date: Saturday, July 2, 2011, 5:09 AM

 

Hi Loni,

I know that people's e.s. responses may vary - but in my experience, turning the

backlight down on a LCD (or LED) makes things worse. To make the picture less

bright, it's better (at least for me) to use the " brightness " control - while

keeping the " backlight " at maximum. Because when you dim the backlight - even

just a little - it's sort-of like using a " dimmer switch " on an overhead

fluorescent light - it introduces a " chopping " or " dimming " mechanism that

generates more emf.

And I've heard that lowering the backlight on a LED TV may lead to additional

problems with a " subliminal flicker " response, depending on how much you're

flicker-sensitive. (I'm distinguishing between LED TVs and " regular " LCD TVs

here - supposedly regular LCD TVs generally aren't as bad in this regard.)

Do you think that part of your sensitivity may be because your eyes are

sensitive to the intensity of the light and/or the " type " of light that the TV

is putting out? If so, making the picture as dark as you can stand it (while

keeping the " backlight " at maximum) can make a difference. You can try lowering

the " brightness " to as low as possible. Just don't overdo it - because if it's

too dark, your eyes can start straining to see the picture.

Often, LCDs/LEDs have this setting activated that automatically adjusts the

backlight from scene to scene - to " optimize " picture quality. So for every

scene in which the LCD dims the backlight, it could be generating emf. You may

want to make sure that this setting is set to " off " . What this setting is called

varies from brand to brand - on our Sharp LCD TV, it's called the " OPC " (Optimal

Picture Control?). You can try looking in your manual to see what this setting

is called, and making sure it's " off " .

Furthermore, you can try to " simplify " the settings as much as possible.

Anything that seems " fancy schmancy " , that you can do without - try turning it

off (if you can) - or adjusting to a setting that you think may lead to some

relief. In a TV that large, it may have some extra settings that I'm not

familiar with - I only have experience working with TVs 32 " and below. (I think

I did see where you mentioned that it was a 60 " - pardon me if I'm wrong, I

often don't remember what I've just read!)

But getting back to the light-sensitivity issue - if you're anything like me,

you could be responding to not only the intensity of the backlight, but also the

amount of light in a certain spectrum it puts out. This is one of the reasons

why I found my Toshiba 26 " LCD TV (that I only had for 2 weeks) bothersome. Even

with the " brightness " turned very low, something about the light seemed way more

intense than the CRT ( " tube " ) TV it replaced. I think it was putting out way

more " blue light " than my CRT - indeed, the overall picture quality had a more

" bluish " tint/tone to it than my CRT. I find a more reddish/yellowish/ " amber "

tone to be much easier on my eyes/brain. I tried to find each and every setting

that would affect how much " blue light " reached my eyes - and adjusting those

settings to " filter " out as much of the blue as possible. One thing to do is to

adjust the color temperature to " warm " . Actually, different TVs call this

setting different

things - on some TVs the desired setting is called " cool " . It can be a bit

confusing. But what you want to do is to adjust things so that the white light

has more of a " reddish " tone, instead of a " blueish " tone. Let your eyes be your

guide.

Another thing to do to cut down on the blue-light effect is to adjust the " Tint "

so that there is more red in the picture - let your eyes tell you when enough

red is enough.

And from my experience with the more " entry level " Samsungs - Samsung has some

advanced picture settings that you can tweak to further cut down on the blue

light. Try to find the setting that lets you adjust the intensity of the " blue "

color to a minimum - it may be called the " Gamma " setting or something like

that. You might want to try to keep the " red Gamma " relatively high.

Adjusting the " Black Tone " or " Black Level " (if this is an option) so that the

black will be as dark as you can stand it can be a way to further cut down on

the brightness and/or blue light.

For some reason, lowering the contrast has generally led to less TV stress for

me - maybe because it has an overall brightness-lowering effect, I'm not sure.

If nothing works well enough - maybe it would help to go with a smaller TV?

There have been times here recently when I sort-of wished our 32 " Sharp LCD TV

that we have in our den was a 37 " or 40 " - but I try to bring myself back to

reality, and remind myself that bigger TVs can lead to more problems with emf

and other sensitivities. Also, I suspect that a bigger TV can lead to more of

the " zombie " effect - where you get too entranced by the screen, and you end up

just sitting there being sucked in by the movie-like screen in front of you. I

don't know about you, but it seems like I'd be " fried " by a huge LCD TV for that

reason alone!

If you think that a much smaller TV might work for you, you might want to look

at the Samsung UN32D4000. It's a 32 " LED TV. When I was " testing " it in a store

a couple of months back, it seemed like it would be OK (as long as the backlight

is kept at maximum). If you need something bigger, maybe something that is as

close to this model number as possible would work.

Hope it works out for you,

~Svetaswan

>

>  

> We bought a Samsung LCD/LED and the thing is frying me. I turned the backlight

down from 14 to 3 but don't notice much of a difference.

>  

> Any ideas on what else I might try?

>  

> Loni

>

>

[Guest guest]

> Thank you for this thorough recommendation Svetaswan. I turned the backlight

up. 

I always turn the backlight DOWN for LCD TV's that have a florescent backlight.

That always makes me feel better. But you've got an LED backlight, so I don't

have

any experience with that.

What about the signal source? Are you using a cable box? DVD/Bluray?

off-the-air

antenna? If you are using a cable box or DVD/Bluray, you can experiment with

the

types of cables used to feed the signal (component vs. HDMI) and the resolution

of those signals (720p, 1080i, 1080p). I find 720p/1080i input signals are

easier to

tolerate than 1080p, but don't notice any difference between component/HDMI

cables.

Marc