I'm having some folks over this weekend to watch Batman BDs, so I thought I had better fine-tune my system. I re-ran the Onkyo sound calibration for the audio, then I decided to re-calibrate the display on my P65VT25. I've noticed that the picture is very dark lately, and I lose all detail in the shadows. It doesn't seem to be the Fluctuating Brightness that I'm reading about here, so I'm starting a new post before I call BB or Panasonic. Here is what I see:
On the WOW simple calibration screen, I can only see the two right-hand strips in the group of 3 on the right side of the screen. I don't make out anything in the middle or on the left at all - and that's with the brightness all the way up at 100. I originally calibrated with WOW and then adjusted slightly to DNice's settings in THX mode, so the picture seems to have degraded in the last year and a half. I also tried boosting contrast to 100 and also tried Vivid mode - but I still can't see more than the 2 right-most strips. On the next calibration screen I only see one of the floating 5-point stars.
I see reference to the rising black problem on here, but I haven't found a full description yet. Is that what I have?
I am a Best Buy Silver member, primarily because I bought this TV there along with the protection plan. (That doesn't qualify as price talk, right?)

Recently they sent out an update that said Silver members qualify for a free TV calibration once per year. So before I did anything I wanted to post it all here to see what I should do. I figured that if I called out the BB fellow to calibrate and it was not fixable, then he'd refer me back to the store for a warranty claim. But if I call for the claim first, they will surely give me the runaround if I tell them "My TV is too dark." If it is fixable, then I would prefer to get my annual calibration *after* repair... and that's all assuming it's a repair issue.
What would be my best option?