Official Samsung LNxxA650 Owner's Thread - Page 235

Obviously the manufacturers think one that turns on is the flawless one.

Ok, it has been a while since I asked, so I wonder if anyone has been able to use the Samsung Motorized Wall Mount with this tv? I talked with tech support and they "still don't have a 650 in-house, so don't know if it will work". I feel like I am talking to pre-schoolers (the Samsung techs, not you guys, lol).

CNET also mentioned AVS forum.


We've seen reports on AVS forum showing purplish discoloration from off angle on some 650 series models, but we didn't see it on our review sample.

I use monoprice for all my cables. They are great. They are super durable and a great price. Can't go wrong.

Can you guys give your perspective on "purple"?

If I leave my cable box off, but turn the TV on and off, I do notice purple when the TV is on, and pitch black when it's off.

If I walk to the side and look at the TV from a wide angle, it looks more purple.

Is this normal? Thanks!

well, if it is purple without programming being on, what does that matter? The issue should be, do you see purple when you are watching something? Do you see it head on, or only at an angle, and how far of an angle do you have to be before it is noticeable? I'm not trying to be rude to you are any others who are looking at it on a blank screen, but the real test should be if you see it during programming. Put in a dark movie (Alien V. Predator,,,,the last one, would be a good example, but damn, it is a terrible movie) and test it that way. I could care less what it looks like on a blank screen, as long as it looks good when watching.

Cnet list one of the cons as relatively expensive in their review. I wonder expensive in relation to which other sets? From the price range they listed sees pretty reasonable, unless you pay on the higher end.

I got a 52a650 as a replacement of an 18 months old 4696. So far, I am not as impressed as I though I would be. I have had the TV just for a couple of hours but did not turned it on until it got to a reasonable temperature once at home (I am in Canada and today was a little chilly here in Ottawa). Anyhow, I am not sure if that helped or mot but there are no clouds or flashlights (Neither noticeable dead pixels). Regarding the purple thing, it just looks like most LCDs. This one actually is not that bad if you move horizontally, but if additionally you move vertically as well, the washed out/purple thing is there, but as mentioned before, that is LCDs for you.

Two things I don't like so far:
- There are just too many options and settings to get a nice picture. I find that whole thing is just getting confusing, but probably is just a little bit of time getting use to it. (BTW the wheel in the remote is retarded, even if you try not to use it gets in the way)

- I have an AppleTV and I can swear that never SD movie previews for animated movies (Horton Hears a Who) or movies with lots of computer generated scenes (Speed Racer) had looked so bad with so much banding. I don't know if I am paranoid because of the talk here but my son watched those previews 100's of times in the old TV and never the banding was so crapy, especially the beginning of Horton hears a Who. So at this point, there seems to be an issue with banding on this panels.

Anyway, I will try to get more info and settings and report later. I have not checked the calibration thread before, since I did not have the TV, but now it is time to dive there.

I agree. I do read CNet reviews, and they usually are pretty good, but they do favor SONY products (wait and see, the new Sonys that are coming out will have them gushing). Plus, you have to remember that they are writing for the general public, and these tvs would be considered expensive to the general public, although certainly not expensive in relation to comparable sets.

Take a look at the 650 calibration thread. What does your banding look like, and is it with everything or just SD animation?

Overall it was a fair review, though I notice cnet isn't particularly found of glossy screens, though I guess to each his own.

The glossy screen thing is kind of funny, seeing as they use Plasmas as the reference sets, and Plasmas have a ???? Glossy Screen.

Not just SD. I mentioned that one preview because it was especially bad. I am watching the IronMan preview now, in HD, and I have seen it before. At the beginning where they show the Marvel logo, the red concentric gradient is just bands and bands, period.

I will look at the calibration thread and see if things improve or not.


Something else I would like to mention, I get the Just Scan option even using Component, not just HDMI. I though it was mentioned here that it was only available using HDMI.

I forgot to mention the FW. It was 1003.M out of the box, 2008-04-09.

Ok, are we talking about Combing? Does it look like the teeth of a comb, i.e. red stripe, then blank stripe, then red stripe, then blank, then red, etc., in an area that should be all red? Because if that is the case, it sounds more like combing, not banding. How far does it extend, i.e. is it just in the red or does it go across the whole screen? If it is combing, these tvs seem to have an issue with that (or the 71 at least). It is a de-interlacing artifact. If you turn off Film Mode it should go away. I had it, and I turned off film mode and still had it. But then I turned off the tv for about 10 minutes (with film mode off), then turned it back on (the tv, not film mode), and everything has been fine since.

Edit: btw, if it goes across the whole screen, you may have mini-blinds, which is also an issue on many 71 sets. Usually turning off Film Mode will help that as well.

when a color, any color, goes from dark to light, the transition is not smooth. You see bands of colors, sort of like going from millions to billions of colors. It is not in a particular area of the screen, it just depends on the picture. As I mentioned, in the Marvel logo, the bands are concentric, but in the Horton hears a who preview, the banding happens horizontally in the dark sky. I have not turned film mode on, so I assume it is off by default, but I will check nevertheless.

Yeah, go ahead and check that. Film mode might be defaulted to on. From what you say, it now sounds like Color Banding,,,,,what Metal was talking about. If you have a digital camera, it might be easiest to take a picture and attach it to a post on here. If it is color banding, then I don't know of any resolution, as we already troubleshooted that, and no go, especially if we are talking about SD and cable/satellite programming.

Hey guys,

This is my first post on these boards, and I wanted to give a general thanks for the wealth of information I was able to find here when I was researching for new TV.

In the end I decided on the LN46A650 and so far I'm really happy with the purchase. I was able to snag it for $2170 from Amazon. A week and a half, today, I saw the price had gone to $1999, which bummed me out a bit until I found out that there's a 30-day price guarantee :-)

Attached are a couple pictures of how it looks now that it's all setup. Now that I've got all the pieces of my hi-def home theater in place (Aperion speakers, Outlaw processor/amplifier, new Samsung 6 series) it might be about time I got something that can actually play 1080p content!

That review put me over the top, finally. I have been researching HDTVs upside and down until my head is ready to explode, trying to decide what to do--LCD? Plasma? 720p? 1080p? 60Hz? 120Hz? etc., etc.--been to all the BB stores and looked at them, checked features, specs, pricing until I am blue in the face, and got it narrowed down to either the 650 or an XBR. Then tonight I checked here, followed that link to CNet (been there many times before but couldn't find anything on the 650) and read it. I was worried about how it does SD, since I couldn't ever find one in the stores to look at that wasn't hooked up to a Blu-ray DVD player. Glad to hear it's good with SD!

Went back to Amazon and found the 46" 650 had dropped to under $2K, so I pulled the trigger. I can't fit anything bigger without rearranging my living room, or I would have gone for the 52", but I have never had HD before so I'm sure this will keep me happy for awhile, as long as I get a good set with no defects. This is a lot of money for me to spend on a crapshoot, but it appears the majority of the sets have no problems, or only minor ones. I know I could have bought the Costco Visio or Phillips 42" for half the price, but I didn't like what I saw in the store or read about their reliability.

I'll check back in with my impressions after its delivered. Now I'm off to read the calibration thread, too. Thanks for all the contributions here by everyone.

TT

If you just got it, give it a couple weeks. The clouding can disappear over time. You can also lower the back light down to 2 or 3 and turn the energy saver on.

When I bought the TV I wrote off SD as a lost since I figured SD just wouldn't look good. On this set a good SD feed looks better than a bad HD feed, and cox serves up too many bad SD feeds (that isn't completely Cox's fault though, some of those channels are just bad).

My non-upcoverting standard DVD player looks as good as a compressed HD feed. The SD stuff is very watchable. Very happy about that.

The HDMI 2 has an analog audio input if I remember right. It assumes you won't be carrying audio from the PC with a DVI-HDMI connection. My ATI 3850 does and I use HDMI port 3. You can rename those ports and rename your HDMI port whatever one you use, to PC. Should default to full RGB color. If not set the HDMI black level to none I believe, if I remember right late at night.

Well "big river" has finally shipped my 52 inch 650 and I should be receiving it soon but I have a few questions:

1. Should I return the t.v berfore or after I look at it?

2. After I return the television should I call Samsung or come here and comment on all the problems that I perceive must be there because other people have saw them.

3. Should I maybe order another 650 because "cnet" gave it a good review and of course that is more important than whether or not I enjoy the way the television looks?

4. When I come in here trying to sound intelligent, is it better to discuss banding, flashlights, or the purple tint? (The purple tint doen't sound intelligent, however cnet says they didn't notice it, so if I say I noticed it then that might make me sound smarter then even the cnet reviewers).

Thanks for the answers in advance.

I am finally coming around to this perspective as well. They had nothing bad and everything nice to say about the substantive aspects of the set (great blacks, highly accurate color, massive feature set, etc and yet they give it only 8.0, knowing the they gave the XBR4/5 8.3. What do they harp on? The usual gripe of relatively glossy screen (which is not a truly objective or consensus negative), their opinion of the bezel attractiveness (I know few who like Sony's bezels), and of all things, the price! Don't they realize the Sonys are much more expensive?

Hahaha! My conclusion is that you should listen to what they write about the details, but ignore the final number grade, as that is where they are beholden to their sponsorship...

Anyway, next up, my dark room on and off-angle screen shots of the 40"--I definitely think it's more blue than purple. Soon to follow...

Please please don't start........I already tried this argument already

The conditions:

-Samsung 40A650, FW 1003.M
-Nighttime
-Cheapo 3 megapix digital camera on makeshift tripod (actually a number of boxes LOL)
-Rental DVD of Dexter on highly-regarded expensive SD DVD player over cheapo component cables

-Settings:Attachment 109124
-On-Axis: Attachment 109121
-135° Dark Attachment 109122
-135° Bright (flash)Attachment 109123

Conclusion, with these settings and connections,
1) On-axis is great, if not completely black
2) 45° off-axis lightens blacks with "blue haze" quite a bit; the pictures do look scary. However, it is really only substantially noticeable at night or in very darkened rooms. Those casual viewers in light rooms should have little problem, and those who take great care to have a specially prepared dark room are more likely to set seating such that nobody is badly off-axis. The major issue is a big crowd in your casual living-room setup at night.

I am still happy with my set. I don't intend to watch it 45° off-axis.

I've turned my backlight up quite a bit over the last few days, and watching a very dark film tonight with the room lights off I could see the 'purple haze' throughout the movie. It's not distracting, but it is there. It's clear to me that this is a characteristic of the 650, and I believe that it may be due to an interaction with the light diffusion behind the panel and the red frame.

I have my backlight set to max, and watched several dark movies, did not noticed any purple at all.

I think it is in the Option Byte sub menu. Tell us how it goes if you try it.

Yes, its under the Option byte first option have to hit it twice to activate it.
Thanks