Has anyone seen a tv look like this before?

[Sekundes]

My Tv, a Vizio VO420E 42" LCD is having some odd issues. It displays changing patterns which consist of mostly vertical lines but they move and can be multicolored. I can connect a game to it and it is quite obviously sending a signal as the color patterns and movement changes. The sound works fine and it does this to even the menu display.

I attempted to call for some support on this and was told that it was the panel that was bad due to no menus showing up. I'm not terribly trusting when those people stand to make a profit off my TV being dead which forces me to buy another but at the same time I don't know enough about LCD TVs to say they are wrong but I was curious if anyone has an experience with a similar visual issue and what caused it.

If they end up being correct, I don't mind but just the way they spoke on the phone gave me a feeling like they really didn't know for sure and I'd like to know for sure before I go buying a new tv which I lack the money for anyway ^^;

Thanks in advance for anyone who has seen something like this before or anyone who can offer some tests to be sure the problem really is too expensive to repair.

Here are some reference images:
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/7716/img00264.th.jpg
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3535/img00263m.th.jpg
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5032/img00263.th.jpg

[Purrrfect]

I think I've had lcd screens in laptops do something similar. Pretty sure it was related to something going bad, but I don't remember what.

[Melena]

Get it serviced if it's still under warranty. When LCD's on laptops do that, it usually means the inverter is going. Don't know if that's the same thing with your TV but it's fubard.

[sruon]

My laptop screen does that because the VGA cable is fubar, probably unrelated to your issue though.

[Mjd]

Well if menus aren't showing up, it's defiantly not the connections to it.

How old is it? (Under warranty)

Might be cheaper just to get a new one =/

[Day]

Yeah if it's doing that to the menus... not good. Prob fucked, but I'd look into the warranty.

[Senji]

Ive seen a Vizio literally come out of the box doing that, it went right back.

[Sekundes]

Sadly, there is no warranty, if it really is toast I'll probably sell off the working parts and hope I make enough back to reduce the impact a bit. I just wanted to localize the problem even if I can't fix it so at least I have an idea of what I can sell off.