Hi folks,

I've recently signed up for u-verse, and I too have noticed this crushed black problem.  On some shows, there are whole programs where the screen is almost entirely black except for a face or two.  Now, with a 58" screen, that's what you call black. It's started to bother me a lot. I was over at a friend's house today, and although I didn't get to see any dark scenes, I could see he has the same problem. 

I have a Panasonic 58PZ850U.  I haven't tried the calibration yet, but I can tell it's definitely this black level problem.  In my picture settings menu, I have this black level, light or dark setting.  It's already set to light.  I can tell by setting it to dark, that is exactly the setting, but I need another setting, lighter, much lighter!  So, I don't understand.  If it's just the RGB offset, 0 or 16, you'd think it would be right one way or the other.

I have the STB connected through a Denon 3808 receiver.  I noticed it has a setting for RGB dynamic range for the HDMI.  I assume this is for the HDMI output to the TV.  It has an option for normal or extended (or something like that).  That didn't make any difference either.  I'm curious if the receiver is some how in the middle of the problem.  There's no RGB dynamic range setting for the inputs, only the one output.  Could it be interpreting the black level wrong, and then converting it, clipped, to the TV.  Does it convert the signal or does it just switch it through un-touched?

Has anyone fixed the crushed blacks by changing this RGB dynamic range, or are component cables the only way to go?  If it's just this RGB offset, seems like I should be able to fix it without going to component cables.