Interestingly, you are using an onkyo dvd player,which is essentially a souped up toshiba.I do beleive toshiba's automatically set the white level to 7.5 ire which is too high for america(I beleive it is correct for japanese equipment)-You should be able to easily change it to 0 ire in the menu somewhere.This may solve some of the problems.Also I would mention that I recently used to own a panasonic tv and did have trouble adjusting the brightness,so that to get it bright enough it had to be a little washed out-I think this was because of the dark glass they used + they're probably somewhat subdued,not too bright picture tubes.I think philips makes the best tv's,although quality control wise I have heard some complaints online(of course every large manufacturer has complaints).By the way considering all the POSITIVE reviews on the 950 I am probably off base that there is anything wrong with the unit.By the way with all that equipment I hope you have everything plugged into the same surge/power device,because in my (admitedly limited) experience if you plug different equipment that is connected into different surge/grounding devices it can create a ground loop which conceivably could cause some video problems.