Troubleshooting TV Picture Problems

Most televisions manufactured today have high-definition systems with the most advanced cutting-edge technologies. These TVs provide high-quality picture and entertainment. However, sometimes even your new HDTV might run into problems. Fixing them can seem daunting, especially if you don't know much about your TV. Knowing a little about TV picture problems and their causes can help you troubleshoot the solution.

Digital Mosquitoes

Clouds of digital mosquitoes sometimes surround fast-moving objects on the screen. This common picture defect might occur due to the digital signal compression. In this case, the problem is with the broadcaster rather than your TV. Digital mosquitoes will probably reduce greatly as compression technologies improve. However, a fix is available now if you're ready to spend some extra money. Adding an outboard digital noise processor could solve this problem. Algolith Mosquito HDMI is one of the most common processors.

Unnatural Colors and Flesh Tones

Unnatural flesh tones and other colors could present another problem even in a new HDTV. This is due to the TV picture settings, which are optimized for a showroom environment. Fix this by changing the picture mode to natural in the picture menu. For more precision, try manually setting the color, contrast and brightness options in the picture menu.

White Outlines

White outlines around objects and people generally appear either if the TV sharpness is set to very high, or if your television set uses some edge-enhancement processing technology. Go to the picture menu and adjust the sharpness till the white outline disappears. If edge-enhancement is enabled, try to disable it using the service menu.

Picture Breaks into Pixels

Your picture may break into pixels due to the digital video signal dropping. The signal dropping may occur because of either problems in the cable or weak signals. If the problem is weak signals, use an amplifier to strengthen the signal. A cable technician can help you install an inline amplifier or a pre-amplifier. This will boost your signal strength and fix the pixel problem.

Crawling Moss and Choppy Video

At times, "crawling moss" might appear in dark areas of TV picture. This problem, known as dynamic false contouring, mostly occurs in older plasma and LCD TVs. Most manufacturers nowadays have rectified the situation. If you run into this problem, changing your television could be the only solution.

At times the video might become choppy. When this happens, check whether the signal is strong enough. If the signal is strong the problem is with the cable operator. If the signal strength is weak, try boosting the signal strength with the help of an amplifier.

References

• Algolith Mosquito Video processor

Resources

• Troubleshoot Your HDTV