Hi Everybody,

I was just wondering whether it is possible for an LCD TV to lose sharpness over a few years of use?

I have an 37" Samsung 1080p LCD TV that I have owned for the last two years or so and up until recently I have been delighted with the picture quality and found Sky HD/Blu Ray to be perfectly sharp and clear, however just recently the image just doesn't seem as sharp as it was and it feels to be irritating my eyes a little.

My partner, who isn't as picky as me about picture quality, says that my eyes may be failing slightly as she cannot see any difference at all but we also have a little 26" 720p Samsung in the dining room and that seems as clear as it ever was even though it is much smaller so surely that one would be more likely to cause me problems if this were the case.

Is it possible or even common for TV sets using this technology to lose picture clarity with age or am I indeed having eyesight problems? If so it does seem a little strange that it only seems to happen with that one set and not the other two we own or with my LCD monitor.

Any advice would be appreciated to set my mind at ease.

I suspect that your partner may be right. I can't see how an LCD screen could lose sharpness with age. The backlight might fail or become dimmer, but that should not affect the sharpness. Also a reduction in clarity would be harder to detect on a smaller screen anyway. It might be worth checking to see if either of you has altered the sharpness setting inadvertently. Alternatively, does the effect manifest itself on all programmes? Some HD dramas are deliberately filmed so as not to deliver biting sharpness, This is done for creative reasons, where a slightly softer image is deemed more appropriate.

Does anyone smoke in that room?, or does it have a coal or gas fire?.

It could be smoke inside the LCD panel losing you sharpness.

I noticed a deterioration in picture quality on my 32" Samsung TV two years ago but eventually isolated it to a problem with the HDMI inputs. The symptoms were similar to an incorrectly terminated analogue input where a step change is signal level was no longer clean but was followed by a short oscillation. This made small text difficult to read and tended to give people a terrible wrinkled complexion. The TV has been relegated another room where just the SCART and PC inputs are used.

Do you have any problems with your eyes? When was your last check?

My eyes have deteriorated to the point that I can't read from around 2 metres and the sharpness just isn't there any more.

Now I have my first pair of glasses every thing is twice as sharp, and they only started failing 9 months ago. I find squinting helps, up to a point. However, up until my eye check I was just trying to manage, as I didn't think they were that bad. Obviously, being closer/further away will determine sharpness (maybe why on other TVs you notice it less).

Also, is the sharpness level still the same as it's always been in the settings menu?