LCD background noise

Hi, first time poster.

I have s Sony Bravia KDL-26S2030. I've been having issues with it from day one. When watching DVD's, playing games on PS3 or just today watched a blu-ray movie, I have been seeing plenty of background noise which is annoying me. On the tv seetings there is a noise reduction setting when turned on full doesn't really do anything but cause ghosting. There is a mpeg noise reduction which will get rid of the fuzziness from background noise but when turned on but results in a loss in detail and give a strange look to it. When watching or playing HD the using the mpeg noise reduction will get rid of the noise but defeats the object of having HD content when the mpeg noise reduction causes a loss in the detail. Example is with mpeg noise reduction off I could see the pattern in the stitching on Momento's outfit on X-Men 3 when in HD. When I turned mpeg noise reduction on the stitching dissapears.

I would prefere to have the detail but also not have the background noise. Is this common with all LCD's or is this with the Sony Bravia's? What other way is there to rid of the background noise?

Thanks everone.

Hi, welcome !

"Mosquito" noise (or whatever it's called this week :) ) is common with pretty much all LCD's sadly. I gave a full audition to many, and it was apparent on every one.

Noise reduction settings will smooth it out, but then they'll smooth out a lot of fine detail, and maybe cause cetain other artifacts, which you've already found out.

The only thing I've found that helps is having a play about with the picture settings. Have you adjusted them from factory presets yet ? Sony sets tend to be preset on Vivid, which has colour, contrast etc. all almost maxxed, and they tend to have all "enhancements" (detail enhancer, edge enhancer etc.) switched on. It's worth turning them down or off to see what it does to the pic.

Also, "sharpness" controls can introduce a bit of noise if they're not at a neutral setting. The problem there lies in finding what's neutral ! Some sets that have a 0-50 sharpness setting have 25 as neutral, some have 0 as neutral. You just really need to have a play to see what works best.

Also, you're maybe too close to the screen, in comparison with Sony's recomended viewing distance :)

Thanks very much for your advice. I spent literaly hours in total fiddling with the settings for xbox 360, and PS3 and I would say that the games are much cleaner than watching a DVD or blu-ray. I download HD game trailers in wmv files at 6500kbps video bitrate and play then back using the 360 and ther doesn't seem to be background noise.
On the TV, the setting is 'mpeg noise reduction' and on DVD it uses mpeg-II. Does the blu-ray use mpeg at all like mpeg-4?
I was thinking that the noise is on mpeg files?

I suppose I would have to live with it, I don't think I can do anything more with the settings, turning down the sharpness only helps in small percentage. The Bravia in my front room is 40" and you don't see the noise or the choppiness from SD cable because I'm sat 12ft away. I did think with the noise there was something wrong. I didn't expect that the picture quality itself (not the HD side of it) would be inferior to older crt tv sets.

Thanks again.
bamf