Just noticed really strange, shifting distortion on 34XS955

[Burkerg]

So...whenever I watch 4:3 material in normal mode (with black bars on the sides), the lower left vertical line waves and shifts. As the picture changes, the black bar does as well. It's quite strange. I'm watching closely and trying to tell if there are any specific qualities of different images that cause shifting in one way or another. The lower left side just winds up looking like a wavy black bar. Anyone have any ideas?

[jmccorm]

This will be a one-off question, probably a miss. Do you have something near the bottom of your TV that would have a fan or electric motor inside?

[Burkerg]

There is a refrigerator about 2 feet away (living in a dorm room right now, so space is limited), but it's on the right hand side, and the distortion is on the left side. Also, there is a fan about 4 feet away on the left hand side. Is this kind of distortion a known issue? Thanks for any help!
Rob

[jmccorm]

This may or may not be it.

But you could rule it out completely by temporarily moving your TV into the center of the room, away from any other electronic objects (and you might unplug anything else), and seeing if the effect stays. The reason I say in the center of the room is since you're in a dorm, if you have it near a shared wall, you want to rule out what someone else may have going on.

If the problem persists, you can at least say you've ruled out magnetic field interference. Yes, motors use magnetic fields to turn, and magnetic fields will warp TV images in interesting ways.

Also, as another experiment, you could temporarily turn down the brightness and contrast of your TV and see if that has an effect. (If it does, that tells us something.)

These are general troubleshooting tips, so it'd be good to get someone familiar with this particular TV to toss some ideas.

[Burkerg]

Well, I turned down the brightness and the contrast, and I've tried living with it for a while now. It seems to help some. I've been staring at the same part of the screen for such a long time, I think I'm beginning to see things. Why would my contrast settings (mostly what I adjusted) affect the picture in this way? Anyone else experienced this? Thanks for all the help, jmccorm.

Rob