What kind of LCD do you have? I'm curious. The most recent LCD that I've come across that looks like absolute shitte out of the box is the Toshiba REGA line. I dealt with 32", 42" and a 47" REGZA panels and they all look like crap out of the box. Darker than all hell. Even once properly adjusted they're visibly darker than other sets in the same category. It took some extensive noodling with the contrast, brightness, backlight, Dynamic Contrast, DNR, Digital Noise Reduction Modes, and their advanced color menu to get the sets to look decent. Up close there is still lots of noise and compression artifacting visible. At a distance of five feet or more they look okay, and better in a dark room, but they still suck for the money. And FYI for anyone considering one of these....they're advertised as 1080p displays, but there's a kick. While the panel itself does have a the native 1080p resolution, the sets CANNOT accept a 1080p signal through their HDMI or component inputs. That's straight from Toshiba's tech support. The sets will scale an incoming signal to 1080p (they say), but will not accept a 1080p feed. Go figure.