40UL605U Screen goes black whenever a bright or high contrast screen is displayed.

Question

I have a 40UL605U that I purchased a while back.  Up until a couple months ago it worked wonderfully with only a few of the issues that I see people have mentioned in reviews and on the forums (wireless connectivity).  In the last couple months, somewhat intermittently, the screen will go completely black any time a bright screen is shown.
When this first started happening, about 5 months ago I'd guess, I thought it was just some artifact of having switched to DirecTV.  After playing with some picture and brightness adjustments it seemed to go away.  To be totally honest I don't remember what I did to make it stop and now I'm led to believe it was just as likely the problem would've gone away even if I hadn't done anything.
Within the last couple weeks the problem has come back and I haven't been able to get rid of it, although I have been able to figure out a couple reasons why it happens.
It seems like any time there's a picture of say, snow with a little animal running around or a bird flying in a clear and bright sky, or explosions or... white screens as backers for cars in commercials the screen goes completely black with audio playing in the background.
It's more annoying than it sounds.
Bringing up the menu seems to make the problem stop, either with the tv's menu or directv's guide which makes me believe it has something to do with the way the television is processing contrast rather than some suggestions that it could be the input.  If I turn the brightness and backlighting up enough to wash out the picture some, it helps make it stop blacking out... at the sacrifice of the picture, which is kind of the point of having the tv.
Also, I found that pausing a recording from a dvr when a picture would normally black out allowed me to adjust the settings until I find a spot where the tv will show the picture with sections flickering rather than completely going black.  Changing settings like brightness or backlighting, contrast ratio or playing with the clearview features make the picture go black again.  It should be noted that changing these setting either up or down could make the picture go out and as of right now I haven't figured out exactly what settings work best while retaining a decent picture.
It happens under HDMI which I use for both DircTV, Xbox and Netflix through the wireless adaptor.  I haven't tested it on my computer, but I'll try to tomorrow after work and update if there's any difference. 
For the record, the tv's been great up until now and my mom's toshiba projection tv's been working for almost 12 years now.  Just a shame to have to get a new tv when this one was just getting settled in.
Any help or input would be appreciated.  Thanks.

Answer 1

It doesn't sound like there's going to be a simple fix that you could do yourself. If you haven't yet, try cycling the power by unplugging it, leaving it for a minute, and then reconnecting it.
If that doesn't help, try resetting the settings. Press the MENU button and open "Setup." Select "Installation." Open "System Status" and select "System Information." Select "Factory Defaults." Finally, select "Yes."
If that doesn't help either, your TV likely needs servicing.
- Peter