I’ve been getting a lot of traffic off my original post, so I thought I’d update. The local Samsung tech called me at 9am Monday morning as promised. He indicated that he needed to order a screen, which would take three or four days to ship from California. I didn’t mention it in the original or follow-up post, but we also had a problem with smudges inside the screen. Again this seems to be a common Samsung problem. The technician knew immediately what I was talking about and even asked if the problem went away temporarily if I rubbed the affected region or waited for the TV to warm up for about 15 minutes. This has definitely been my experience.

In any case I called back today. He said he hoped the screen would be in tomorrow, but that if it wasn’t he’d come by and address the bulb/ballast/controller board problem to at least get the TV working again for the weekend.

There were some comments on another blog about my “complaint” about the dynamic setting burning out the bulb more quickly. Though I was not aware that dynamic mode shortened bulb life, I wasn’t really complaining. I set dynamic mode originally because I felt the picture was too dark. Once the TV is working again I’ll go back and see if other adjustments improve the situation without having to over drive the bulb. Because of the subjectiveness of calibration–and how often I’ve seen it fail to deliver optimal results on computer monitors–I was hesitant to tweak too much, but I suppose that’s the next logical step.

This story continues… here