I have a strange issue with my panasonic lcd tv, it happened abruptly last week where the picture has gone darkish.

I have put my contrast on max and my brightness is about 80% but its wierd because in bright scenes it doesnt look to bad, its just blacks are that black they loose depth and just turn into a black blob and if i watch anything dark i can just see a bit of movement.

It wasnt like this previously i have always thought my pic to be very good.

If i put my brightness to max i get the same affect but the blacks are just greyer but still no depth.

can it be my backlight do tvs have one or two bulbs? could one have gone?

Or is it more technical than that? I have tried different sources all the same issue. The tv is watchable, just not when you are watching dark scenery.

LCD usually have a fairly large number of CCFL tubes, depending on size - from four on a portable, to probably more than a dozen for a very large set. It does vary considerably, depending on the particular manufacturer of that panel.

If one tube has gone out, you 'may' se a darker horizontal area around that tube, but most of the better makes will shut the set down totally if any of the tubes has a problem.

Have you tried adjusting the backlight setting?.

It's a panasonic tx-32lxd85 if that sheds any light to how many bulbs it should have, I have set the screen to max brightness max contrast but the whites are blindingly bright but yet the darks still stay all as one so shading isn't shading it's just black or grey now I have set everything up to max.

It's as though the backlight is no longer adjusting itself, I have never had it set to dynamic but yet the tv has always dimmed and increased the backlight depending on what I'm watching it's quite noticable when it's working but I haven't seen it do that since the problem started.

Any ideas would be very much appreciated the tv is out of warranty so I am hoping this is just agremlin that might go away by itself which I doubt!

I would expect a 32 inch to have probably 8 tubes.

Sounds like you have a fault with the set?. I do know that Panasonic have had a huge failure rate on some of their LCD panels, due to the Chinese manufacturer changing the type of adhesive they used (and not telling Panasonic). But I've no idea what problems it actually causes?.

Assuming it is to do with that?, then I believe Panasonic are covering it even out of warranty, as it's a known manufacturing defect.

Hi Nigel, when you say "huge" what do you mean? As a Panasonic dealer I can honestley say that there have been no "huge" failures at all on the Panasonic sets yet funnily all I hear from you is that Pana's have huge failure rates.
Of this individual model we sold in excess of 115 and as one a few places in town that would service them I would have expected to have seen at least 1 or 2 panel failures by now if the failure rate was huge?

Ill give panasonic a ring in the morning. See what they advise, the tv has been totally fine up until now so I'm hoping it can be something cheap to sort out.

We're not a Panasonic dealer, but we've heard this from a number of dealers who are, and from reps who call on Panasonic dealers who have seen large piles of sets awaiting panels.

I've no idea what model (or models) the problems occured on, it was never actually stated - generally the Pana dealers were asking if we have similar problems with Sony (which we don't).

Since 2005 I / we have sold multiple thousands of Pana LCD & Plasma TV's the vast majority have been covered by the Pana 5 year guarantee & I have had ONE LCD require a replacement panel ( a TX-26LXD70 ) that at 3.5 years old had a problem reqiring a new panel . There was a problem with some of the 42 & 50 in plasma models about 3 years back in that they would have a blue or green line down a otherwise perfect picture , I wonder if this is what Nigel heard about ? or have our customers just been lucky ?
Ian

By any chance do you have the viewing mode set to ECO?

I used to have the set on cinema, then I changed it to normal when the problem appeared I have it now set at dynamic with the brightness and contrast on max, it's sort of watchable!

Waiting for panasonic to give me a call back need to speak to a techinician.

You aint going to get to speak to a engineer , Panasonic will just refer you to the nearest service dealer to your home and you can take it there for test . From what I can remember 32LXD85 was quite a good model in its day being the 100hz HD ready step up from LXD80 . If you bought it from a Panasonic dealer there will be 2- 3 years left on the guarantee so it will be sorted come what may .

You need to make sure that the set is looked at by an authorised Panasonic repair agent. Once they have quoted you a price for repair you can contact Panasonic on their customer service email address giving them all the details and asking them if they are willing to provide any support. If they are, they will only take an authorised repair agents information about the repair, so don't waste money elsewhere. You may well find that they offer to supply the parts either discounted or free and may also cover labour. This is of course all at their discression and cannot be counted on at all.
You may find also that if the set was bought on-line or at a multiple they may not supply the same backup.

i bought it at argos it came with additional warranty but that has expired.

i just presumed i would be getting a call from a technician when they said i would be getting a callback.

It has been a very good tv up until now, i think it makes it worse that my cheapo 37 inch wharfedale in my bedroom is a year older and at the moment the blacks are far superior to the panny

If it's any henlp?, I've just heard of a similar problem, and apparently it can be cured by resetting the EEPROM, and then setting some of the options correctly.

So it may just be EEPROM corruption.

Is there anyway to reset the tv myself, I have been told I have to take it to a service centre, but I don't know why when the tv isn't in warranty, they said the tvs software might not be telling the tv to adjust the backlight like it normally would but have given me no idea of cost, if this is something I can do myself by going into the service menu then that would be great.

RIght just a quick google and I have performed a self check and it says everything is ok.

To reset the EEPROM I have to press minus volume on tv and the status key on the remote. But I have no clue what the status button is.

I have tried it with the info button and also the menu button but on both occassions it has just done the self check. I don't want to randomly hit buttons so if anyone can give me an idea of what the status button is then that would be great.

The details I heard were far more extensive than that, but I've never had occasion to try and enter service mode on a Panasonic.