brand new Samsung UN40D6000 has choppy/stuttering/laggy picture. help!

hello all. about two months ago, i purchased a brand new samsung un40d6000 led tv after my 3-year old lcd fell victim to the capacitor problem (which i then had fixed by samsung for free - but at that point, i already went ahead and bought the new tv). when i got the new tv home, there were MANY problems right off the bat - edge lighting was WAY too bright in the corners, two thumb print-sized dead spots in the middle of the screen, terrible speakers, etc. but the most mysterious problem was that when watching certain programming, the picture would stutter a bit when there was fast paced action and/or quick camera movement. it's almost as if the tv is trying to go into automotion mode even though i turned it off. happens especially with sitcom programs, but now i notice it happening with sports, movies, and while watching frozen planet (those big, wide, panning shots are VERY laggy, as if the picture is like tripping over itself. movement is not fluid at all and it's annoying the crap out of me).

this never happened on my old lcd using the same equipment, cable box, and cables, so i brought the tv back thinking it was just a dud and they gave me another brand new one. no help - same problems as before (and this one seemed to exhibit them worse than the previous one).

called in my warranty, service tech looked at it for about 2 minutes before he decided it was a 'dead panel.' they took it away, had it for two weeks, and brought it back. when i plugged it in to try it out, NONE OF THE PROBLEMS HAD BEEN FIXED! i called the service center and was all 'wtf?!?' and the receptionist pulls up my work order and says, 'ah, yes, we did a software upgrade on your tv...' to which i replied, 'well, what about the new panel?' she said no such work had been done nor ordered. furious, i scheduled another service call with a different tech. he came by this past friday and assured me that the new panel would at least fix the dead spots but kind of said, in so many words, 'yeah, the stuttering picture is a known problem on these sets sooo, i dunno, try messing around in the menus to see if that fixes it...' great. real useful. spent $1000 on a new tv only to be told it has problems that the manufacturer knows about which make it much worse than the 3-year-old lcd tv it was replacing.

well, i've tried a bunch of different things and here's what i know ISN'T the problem:

it's not the cable box - changed the settings on it, changed the cables going to and coming from it, even upgraded to a new dvr box, no help.

it's not my cables - tried hdmi, coax, and component cables, no help. even tried them all on my other lcd tvs which worked fine.

it's not the automotion feature - i hate this feature and turn it off completely on every tv i own.

it's not my cable provider - as mentioned earlier, this NEVER happened on my old tv using all the same equipment, nor does it happen on any of my other lcd sets.

it's not up-converted programming - at first i thought maybe the tv was struggling with old standard def programs that were being converted to hd, then i noticed it was doing it with new hd shows, movies, and sports.

the only thing i haven't tried is really getting into the tv's convoluted and confusing menus to do a trial and error of different settings. i've turned a bunch of things on and off, but to be honest, i really don't know what a lot of these things do, so there's a good chance i'm just making it worse. if anyone has any optimal settings and/or has heard of this problem with this particular tv, please let me know if this is something that can be fixed or if i should just trash this thing which i am already seriously considering doing...

bump for the evening crowd!

this seems to work for some programs, but makes the problem on other programs much worse.


interesting theory. though i know this particular problem existed in some form on my old tv, it wasn't NEARLY as bad and was hardly even noticeable unless you were consciously paying attention and looking for it (and even then, it only happened every so often - on the new tv, it happens non-stop on some programs). where in the menus is the option for game mode? i remember seeing it at one point but can't find it now.

as stated, i tried all the different types of cables and even a different cable box and the problem still existed. then i tried those same connectors and peripherals on other lcd's in the house (one of which is the exact same model as my old tv), no problems on any of them. it's definitely the new LED television that's the problem.

wow, this has helped exponentially! i will keep an eye on the most problematic shows i've noticed it happening on when they are on, but so far, so good! thank you so much!

just a SLIGHT degradation in picture quality, but i can live with that more than i can the stuttering.

it happened on all different channels - but the programs that seemed to exhibit this phenomenon at its worst are yes dear, tyler perry's house of payne/meet the browns, friends, seinfeld, frozen planet, everybody loves raymond, and baseball games (not that i watch tyler perry shows, they just happen to display poorly on my tv lol). there are other random shows that occasionally will blip out depending on the action and/or camera movement, but again, those shows and ones like them were the worst offenders.

this works great as well, thanks! also, any quick notes on some of the other settings in the menus to optimize picture quality? like mpeg noise filter, film mode, digital noise filter, color space, motion lighting, etc? i've fiddled around with some of them, but without proper knowledge of what they do or how they work with and/or offset each other when activated, i feel i'm not pushing the tv to its full potential.

seriously. after this debacle and my other samsung tv crapping out after just three years due to a known capacitor issue, i highly doubt i'll ever purchase another samsung product. at least their customer service has been good...