No matter what brand you buy, the factory settings are always lousy, especially contrast. And on this set the Dynamic, Movie, and Standard settings Do Not give you a good picture. Use the Custom option and fine tune your settings.

Turn the contrast way down to around 30. All sets . . . Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic . . . come with contrast set way too high and this is the first thing you need to adjust. Same for brightness and sharpness. Sharpness should be way down in the 10 -12 range and brightness in the 30's range. This will also save your picture tube especially during the first 100 hours when all sets, HDTV or Standard, go through a break in period.

Don't expect standard cable to be magically transformed into a crystal clear picture cause it ain't gonna happen. Some stations will look better but some may look worse. It depends on how good your cable signal is and this will vary from station to station.
You might need to change some of your connections . . . especially the RF cable and the RCA composites. But don't buy overpriced Monster cables . . . you'll be paying for hype and retail mark up and may actual get worse results.

The one source that will really show you how good this set is are DVD's which look fantastic when you connect with component cables. I'm using a Panasonic progressive scan DVD player, but have it set to interlace because the Samsung de-interlacer creates a much better picture.

The TXM3096WHF is a great entry level set. And that's where we are with HDTV . . . . it's just beginning and it's gonna have bugs that will be ironed out over time. At this price you won't feel [taken] if you want to replace it in 2 or 3 years. But you might feel [taken] with a more expensive Toshiba or Sony set, because you're gonna want to replace one of those, too.