You can turn off that soap opera effect.
I know, there is a thread around here somewhere from when I bought my mother a surround sound {Wharfedale evo2-10s with matching center, fluance surrounds, denon 1913, and a rythmik lv12r}and new tv system, I bought her one of them fancy hi def $1700 units {I bought one for her, but won't buy one for me, I just noticed that as I typed it, that is weird, I'm going to have to bring that up at the psychiatrists office, lol} and when I set it all up it looked terrible to me, I did end up turning it off, it was called something like Ultra definition, I had to call tech support...
I really don't care about ht sound either, I only put a decent system in my living room to match the rest of the house, lol... Although the built in tv speakers are HORRID, but I could be happy with a nice sound bar, some sat surrounds, and pair of subs...
