360 game visual tearing on new TV- is it the game, the TV or something else?

Try some other games. With some, it's the engine and their use of vsync.

I don't think it's just you or your TV, I do suspect it's a game performance issue. Sites mentioning the tearing issue: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-face-off-assassins-creed-revelations http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110102093206AAHiTRF http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/628358-/61076244

Also, turn off all post processing settings on your TV. Those are terrible.

It's the games - more specifically, the xbox360 GPU makes it difficult to buffer 1080p (you have to do magic, which in turn kills your rendering performance). If you switch the res of the xbox down to 720p, and the tearing goes away, then that's the reason. if it doens't, then it's something else of course :)

The "tearing" issue is a major issue for me, and the reason I have not bought an LCD tv in the last 3-4 years - I've been waiting for them to finally fix this once and for all. This is usually pretty obvious if you go to a TV shop, with about 20-30 panels all displaying the same scene, and you just wait until you get a slow panning scene. About half of the panels will display some juddering / tearing. The store people usually just explain it away as some panels being optimized for stills and some being optimized for movement. What really shocked me was how some of the top end panels (latest Sony Bravia 3D TVs) had unacceptable levels of tearing while on the other hand some cheap no-name brands from China did not. The only thing I can suggest is to go into your TV settings / look into your manual and turn off as much postprocessing as you can - anything that manipulates the sharpness, interpolation, etc, just play with the settings and see if you can get it to look better. FWIW my housemate had a TV with this problem before and I could never solve it - the same movie would play perfectly butter smooth on my computer LCD monitor, but when I ran a HDMI cable across to the TV it juddered / tore so badly it was unwatchable.

Juddering and tearing are not at all the same thing. I've never heard of a TV adding tearing to anything. Explain exactly what you are seeing to ensure that it really is "tearing" and not something else.

It could be two issues. The first is that XBOX and PS3 games have far less vertical lines than 1080 - I believe Halo 3 used 640 vertical lines, and upscaled. This would produce nasty visual artifcats. The second issue is that if a game isn't performing well, developers may disable the 'vertical sync', which is the signal the TV uses to let the game know that it's ready for more visual data. If they ignore this signal, they'll improve their frame rate, at the expense of incurring major tearing.

Be sure you've got the latest software update: Software history: Software version Problems fixed PHL-0AB_306_0 > Distorted video on analog channels > Picture Quality settings upgraded > Wireless connection lost when the set is turned on and off repeatedly > Picture blinks when the set is first turned on > Set re-boots during initial setup PHL-0AB_307_0 > Netflix service is updated from v1.6 to v3.0 > Network error when Netflix is connecting > No audio or audio lipsync with some signals > Power button does not work while the set is AutoProgramming. > Remote Control passthrough does not work when the connecting device is connected to HDMI4 PHL-0AB_311_0 > Internet connectivity test added PHL-0AB_313_0 > YouTube added (Limited functionality and search) Also try turning off DNM (Page 22 of the Users Manual) • [Digital Natural Motion] uses frame interpolation to make the video appear smooth which causes a video lag of about 200 milliseconds. If you are using the TV for gaming or as a PC monitor DNM will introduce lag. If your gaming system has a lag adjustment feature for your game controller, use it to negate the lag or else turn off DNM for any application where lag is an issue. If your prefer to use DNM while watching movies on your Home Theater PC (HTPC) and are using an external Audio Receiver for sound output, set a 200 millisecond delay on your audio output for A/V sync. You will not experience A/V sync issues for anything other than gaming or HTPC applications since the TV has internal A/V sync functionality.

To determine whether it's the TV or the game, you'll have to get some other source of 1080p and plug it into the TV and see if it tears.