Hi guys, this is my first post and just really wanted to share how awesome it's been reading this thread so far. It has given me a lot of useful info and allowed me to make a more educated purchase. I've been using this little wonder (UN55ES8000) for 3 weeks now and I must say it's been a pleasure coming from a LN55C6000 series. I tried the PNE8000 first but, eventhough the blacks were very inky, the whole picture was just... I don't know, dim and a little bit too soft for my taste. But, after some glorius HD gaming on the ES8000 I knew it was a keeper, everything looked just so stunning that it was almost ridiculous! It makes me very sad to hear so many people frustrated and having so many issues with clouding and flashlighting that I feel almost guilty about having such a particularly problem free set. And you know what? I'm gonna share my secret!
I use my set almost exclusively for Xbox360, PS3 (Bluray) and PC gaming and at first I started using the Movie mode with Nitra's settings but something was off... I like a very bright and pop picture for my games and, even with the backlight at 16-20 the Movie mode produced a very dim and dull image that I didn't like very much. And to top it off it was full of clouding and light bleed from the top left corner. I got really frustrated to say the least because the black level performance with the lights off was really bad... just take a look at the black loading screen from Battlefield 3 in Movie Mode with the backlight at 12 (sorry for the crappy picture quality, it's from my phone
)
Movie Mode.jpg 140k .jpg file
Then I started messing around with the settings, changed to Standard Mode and... voila! The freaking clouding and light bleeds were almost non-existent! I couldn't believe it!
Just take a look at the same black loading screen with the same settings as before but in Standard Mode:
Standard Mode.jpg 87k .jpg file
It was freaking unbelievable to see that much difference by just changing the picture mode to Standard with THE SAME SETTINGS as before! And to top it off, the picture was a whole lot brighter too... I changed the backlight level in Standard mode to 10 and even then it was brighter than the Movie mode at 20, go figure.
I'm guessing that, maybe the micro-dimming is working better or as intended in Standard and not so much in Movie mode? Or maybe I got lucky with this panel
Either way, I believe there are far too many people following blindly the general given advice of always using Movie mode just because it's closer to the reference stantdard from factory ... But you know what? I couldn't care less about the reference standard because for gaming I like a very bright, colorful and motion interpolated picture (yes, the "sopa opera effect" makes the old head-ache induncing motion of xbox360 games more bearable albeit introducing some lag which for slow paced games I don't mind that much) with a normal or cool color temperature. And, at the end of the day, the results of calibration should be the same even if you start on Movie Mode or Standard so I'll suggest that, if you're just tired of the cloudiness, light bleeds and un-even uniformity just give the standard mode a try before dismissing it off. The only thing you're gona miss it's the 10p White Balance and the Black Enhancer but... the picture just looks incredible anyway. And most importantly, just use the settings YOU are comfortable with not just some random suggestion from some over-enthusiast reviewer at some random site (David Katsmaier I'm lookin at you! I wasted so much time with the PNE8000 and VT50 even when my eyes where telling me that this LED was far more sexy
)
Well, sorry for the rant... it's time for me to stop messing around with calibration bla bla bla and enjoy some fine HD gaming and some bluray extravaganzaaaaa! See ya!
Edit 1: BTW, I use Dynamic Contrast at low and the Eco Sensor at 8 minimum, it's amazing how it adjusts the backlight automatically to an adequate level at night. Just an added bonus to a phenomal set!