While it's a little difficult to understand exactly what you mean by eye strain, here's a few tips. Is the display on a wall mount or on it's pedestal? The ideal is for screen to be at eye level when seated. A 55" display in a 15x15 foot might be a little "over-powering" to some people just due to it being the main light source. You may try placing a small lamp near the back or side of the display to see if that helps. There are light kits actually available for this very purpose. It helps with depth of field issues between the display and wall that supposedly cause eye strain. Last the television itself can over-process the video and create problems. You can select several program settings for the video and you may want to click through them to see if one is more pleasing to you. The other thing they do is to dynamically control the display back-lighting based on video content. I highly recommend turning off this feature and reducing the back-light level to a more pleasing level. That's similar to what you were doing by lowering brightness and color levels. Of course there a numerous other adjustments and settings available in the menu as well and may require a little trial and error or outside help from somebody familiar with calibrating video displays.

If you contact Magnavox they can get you a main board. Or you can purchase a board from an authorized Magnavox repair shop, and install it. Or - you can take this to a shop, and they will repair it. Electronics - when we don't know what we're doing - is like considering Gravity - and deciding that we can fix gravity.

We just went from a 27" crt tv to a 42" LCD Emerson (bought at WalMart on Black Friday) for Christmas. We LOVE it. It's not even hooked up to HD, just DirecTV. We've only seen HD on it when I get a blu-ray from NetFlix. We really love the picture. We also got a Sony blu-ray player that can stream NetFlix. We got the 4 Monster HDMI cables (5 feet) on Black Friday for $10.00 each. We also got a Wii, which we also love. The bowling is so much fun. We will probably get a Wii Fit for it, too. When we get back to MN, we will get a 46" Sony Bravia or a 50" Sanyo plasma. Our tv has a refresh rate of 60, it works for us. And it cost $398 on Black Friday. The LED and the plasma have beautiful pictures, but the LED is a jump in price. I think they will drop though, as the stores push 3D more. The LED is noticeably brighter than the LCDs, to me. But they all look wonderful in the big sizes compared to a 20 or 26" CRT tv. Like being at the movies!

Wonderful kitchen!! And I have serious DeskAreaInKitchen-Envy. *insert pout icon here* Last year we looked high and low for a silver-framed TV for my Mom. Just wanted a little one so that she could watch TV in her little eat-in kitchen area while she pays bills, etc. None to be found. Someone offered us an almost new, 9" white, color portable, not flat screen, not LCD....just an older model TV. We took it. I found an iron shelf that fits it like a glove. At first, that glaring white TV stood out like a sore thumb in that darker corner of the kitchen. Only in my mind.....because nobody else saw the thing as sticking out like a sore thumb. Like hubby told me, it is what it is...it's a TV. No need trying to pretend it's something else or isn't there. So, longer story a bit shorter.....only took maybe a month to adjust because now, I don't even know it's there. I think if you get a black frame TV, just make sure it's thin enough not to stick out too far. Some stick out as far as 11 inches....not so 'flat panel' huh? lol Heck, if I had a desk area like yours, I don't care if I ended up with a hot pink TV.....it would go on the wall, right where you want yours to go. :)