2008 Samsung HL61A750 LED DLP owners thread and FAQ - Page 6

i connect mine via VGA, but there is a new analog to HDMI plug for the 360 made by madcatz

Well since my receiver only has one optical can I go ps3 to receiver via optical and directtv to receiver via......what do you suggest???
Thanks

I suggest this:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2



I have-1 & it works great. The only thing is you must manually switch the device yourself.

I'm considering getting a HL61A750 to replace an almost four year old RCA HD50LPW162 (DLP is HD2+ on this set, which was quite desirable at the time). Anyway, this TV has always had a loud fan and possibly color wheel that has always annoyed me. The bulb has burned out a few times, and while I have a warranty on it, It takes a while to come.

While waiting for it, I thought I'd check on the status of DLP in general, since I've heard from a few people that Ti may be abandoning DLP soon. I don't see how this can happen until LCD/Plasma sets can match DLP for bang for buck with size.

Anyway, this thread and the other related to '08 Samsung DLPs has been quite helpful. Here's a few things I'd add to the front page. I was googling to see if anyone put this on a Kill-A-Watt or any power device, and see that Crutchfield has the specs on their site:

Power:
* On: 156 watts
* Standby: 0.6 watts

That site also lists manufacturers specs on the above. Of course these numbers could change slightly depending on brightness settings, but it's still a good reference. As a note to any other power conscious folks out there, I tested my RCA, it was about 165 watts when on, and 60 watts while off. That's right, 60, which is almost double that of my HR20-700 DVR! This set is .6, so clearly a huge improvmenet there.

A few other things I'd like to see in the FAQ. These may be obvious to Samsung owners, but they're not to me.

* Does this set support discrete power on/off via IR?
* What about IR codes to go directly to their inputs?
* Does this tv work properly with the voice sync feature of HDMI 1.3a?

Thanks
--falz

If this person's receiver has a free Digital Coaxial audio input, just get an adaptor that goes from Optical to Coax, and you won't have to physically switch things. That and the quoted product above are on this page on Monoprice:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/su...04&cp_id=10423

I'm so close to getting a HL67A750. The only issue for me is whether it uses the TI Dark Chip 3 instead of 4 which it sounds like is the case. So my alternate choice is the Mitsubishi WD-65736 or WD-73736 which uses the DC4 but has a bulb instead of LED.

My question is, which is more important: having the TI Dark Chip 4 or having LED instead of Bulb?

Intrested in people's response to this question as well.

I do have the 61A750. The fan shuts off when the TV is shut off.

These TV's have fans? Did not know this, maybe mine is broke, never heard any fan after a few weeks of ownership. Did I mention I LOVE MY TV!!!

I have been watching my 61" for almost 2-months (got it April 1) and love it.

Having the LED is much more important to me. I just replaced the bulb in another DLP to the tune of $290. For all practical purposes, the LED will never wear out. It's also quieter than a DLP w/ bulb/color wheel and turns on faster as there is no spin-up time involved w/ the LED.

The blacks are plenty black.

Well then, my fan is not very audible. I can only hear it when I stick my head behind the TV. I do not hear anything at all when in front of the TV. Is your noise a motor noise or do you think something could be stuck on the fan like a wire or something. Maybe something went in one of the vents for the fans and is hitting the blades.

From the other thread:

Ummm... Your own link shows you have it around 7200K, who knows which 7200K...
That is not D65. You maxed the contrast which does not jive with my experience and your gamma is way off. You are using a Spyder2 colorimeter on an LED display..

For the love of God do not claim to have done a calibration. There are a hundred ignoremuses out there who have copied your settings and think they have it all right now.

Personally, I've never had issue with the DRM since I'm never not logged into Live. But, for those of you who want to be able to play games offline (or under a different gamer tag) on a different machine than you originally purchased titles on, there is a new utility coming out next month to let you move your game's default machine.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...1&limitstart=2
So you can buy a nice, new, cool, quiet Arcade unit (they all come with HDMI) and pop the hard drive off your old unit and pretend your old premium just magically sprouted an HDMI port.

One of the first things I did was to run it through my Kill-A-Watt to see how it measured up to my old Toshiba 62HM95.

Again with another WOW moment!!!

I've since found that depending on various settings, mine runs between 140W and 175W when "on" and always less than 1W when "off".

About 40% less than my old Toshiba when "on" and about 1/20th when "off". That last part really annoyed the crap out of me about the Toshiba! But that's probably the smallest thing that annoyed me about it...

Thank you both. I think I'm convinced enough to get the Samsung. A huge selling point for me is the positives LED has over bulb. Also, I have a family member who is a pharmacist at Kmart and can use the employee discount at Sears which happens to carry the new Samsungs. Even with all of those benefits, it's still hard for me to go with the old Dark Chip when I have the possibility to get with the new one... but I'll just forget about that one thing and get the TV I've known I should get all along. Thanks again!

Soon I'll be able to post as an owner. I'll be getting the HL67A750.

Edit: It looks like Sears just dropped the price of both Samsungs. I think you can get 10% off for using a Sears card. Seems like a decent deal.

I am very limited to the settings I can adjust with VGA. Even sharpness is greyed out. I am using 45 for brightness and 95 for contrast. I got those in a dark room with a 6500k backlight using the Halo 3 calibration disc.


I read this article before, this is not official yet (I had a case open on DRM hell and they called me a few days ago (this is escalated support not in India) and I asked about it, and they didn't know about it). Besides, as badly as Microsoft has screwed up DRM, I'll believe a "solution" when I see it.

Never not logged into Live? You're scratching the surface here. What about the extensive Live downtime they've had over the holidays and recently after an update? What if you have kids with Silver accounts who want to use your content? Not to sound annoyed, but I am so tired of people responding to my DRM posts with an incomplete understanding of how bad the situation is.

Well after a boat load of research, as of today, I too am now the proud owner of a 61a750. I originally started off with a 52" sammy LCD, then went to a 56a650 which was advertised this weekend between bb and cc for 1499. then I saw the 61a650 was only 100 more at 1599 and was gonna go for it. THEN i saw the 61a750 and wondered.. why is the 61a750 $300 more than the 61a650..... and thats when I discovered the wonderful world of LED. after loads of surf & search and reading, ie. "doing my homework"
i sprung for the 61a750 figuring "hey, brighter, better color, and NO Bulb to replace in 2-4 years? no brainer"

after a price match and a coupon, i grabbed mine for 1699 @ BB, plus i got 3 free blu-rays (although not great ones) and was gonna get 100$ off of a tv stand for it as well. Well I picked out the TV stand i wanted which wound up having the wrong tag on it so the sales guy was searching for it and couldn't find ONE in the company, when the manager realized he was looking for the wrong stand.. we then found out the stand i wanted was on clearance and went from 299.98 normally , to what i thought would be 199.98 with the 100 off, to on clearance for 59.99!!!! YAY! SCORE! ill take it! lol gotta love memorial day sales!

So anyway, having always used friends and relatives lcds, crts, and front and rear proj setups, this is my first large tv and having just purchased my first house i wanted something nice. I have NOT set it up or even tested it yet, but since the house is still a few weeks from being ready to move into I plan on testing it and updating the firmware first thing tomorrow to be sure it doesn't have any of the known issues. specifically the bowing/sagging issue.

I REALLY look forward to setting up my PS3 and playing some games and BD's so i can not only try some of the detailed settings listed in this thread (THANKS BTW, THATS AWESOME GUYS!) but also to get the full enjoyment of this series 7 and LED Greatness!!
I look forward to posting my results to you guys and reading further into the forum!
thanks for all the input that aided my purchase and see ya soon!

Just noticed this today as well. Bought the 67A750 Sunday from Circuit City, but didn't check Sears first. The last time I checked they didn't have the 67 listed. Checked Best Buy first with the 12% coupon and free delivery, but they didn't have any in stock, didn't know anything about them, and couldn't figure out how to get one. Circuit City just up the road had one in stock, so I took it home that night. They matched the 12% off of their price, which was $100 lower than Best Buy to start.

So Sears sale price of $2250 - 10% employee discount (works on sale prices too) = $2025. Put it on a Sears card and it's $2025 - 10% rebate = $1822.50. Not too bad. I also have a family member that would be able to get the employee discount.

I called Circuit City and they said they'd work with me, just have to come back in to do it in store.

By the way, I love this TV.

WOW that will work out to only about 125 bucks more than what i paid for my 61 for 6 extra inches!
Nice having the employee discount.
I Would love to have gotten the 67, but my room barely allows for the 61 as it is..
AHH i cant wait to set mine up.. It kills me that its just sitting at my unfinished house untouched while i stay with relatives.

And some of you guys were flippin out over waiting for delivery from big river. Imagine having it in possession and not being able to test it out yet.
the carpet is getting replaced in the room the tv is going in, so b4 i can setup the tv, i have to setup the stand, and before the stand can get setup the carpet has to be done! ARGHH!!
but a quick test tomorrow to check for defects is IMMINENT !

i had to return the 61 because it had the bowing or the "hour glass" on 4:3..

i laid it down when i took it away from Circuit City.. so much ******** cuz I did that.. but anyways.. long story short.. the "holy grail" 61 inch instore model had the same bowing.

In my mind.. i was thinking.. "in your face!"

I had to deal with soooo much ********. The instore manager said to a response of mine.. "if we give you a new tv.. it will have the same problem"
ha...what a bunch a bs..

anyways.. the 67 inch didn't have the hour glass problem.

It was the display model too,, installed today. May 26, 2008

I took it easy,, just payed the difference.

I'm soooooooooooo 100 percent happy now!!!

Angel M.

by the way... Circuit City Mcallen, Texas sucks

I'll never buy from thier again.

i'm 29,, my passion has always been for a large affordable television with good quaility.. LED .. made me buy it.. thank you samsung!

young at heart hell ya!! and yes.. Xbox HDMI.. wow.. best TV eva!! (for me)

I'll be getting blu ray.. for the thanksgiving deals!!.. and mayybe..Directv HD.. thier recievers only output 1080i.. so that sucks..

I realllyyy like this tv a lot!!!

I don't think any cable/satellite/telco receivers to over 1080i, if they do they don't have any content (unless there is some new FIOS/Cable On Demand programming deal that has it, I only have satellite available to me). Not even HDNet is doing 1080p yet, although they have talked about it. If anybody is doing 1080p they are probably just upconverting which the TV can take care of . . . DirecTV's programming will definitely take advantage of the HD capabilities of this TV.

damn.. thats making me nervous dude..
When they carried my 61a750 out of best buy yesterday and were putting it on the truck i specifically asked if it needed to stay stood up or was it okay to lay it down. The sales guy said NO you have to stand it up, you CANT lay it down, then the manager interrupted him and said
"Na na na No, don't forget that this is LED, normally it is NOT okay to lay it on its back , but since this is LED and has no color wheel or lamp, you'll be fine"
so they carefully laid it flat on its back. I then drove it about 20 minutes home, and immediately and carefully took it off the flat bed and stood it upright.

Does laying it down on its back aid in the bowing/sagging issue? and if so HOW?

Just bought a new 7 series and very pleased with it once I got my cabling sorted out to get HD from the box and over the air. Over the air is stunning, and all with factory settings in my own home viewing environment. Loaded the latest firmware to 1005.3 I think, was 1001. It does have a buzz when in Dynamic mode, but I don't use this mode at all and won't get too concerned about it for now. I would like to believe the set still has some additional headroom to perform in my environment with service level calibration adjustments. I have seen the menus for this and haven't tweaked anything, just looked at. There's allot in there...Here's the question: Can a typical user make any headway in tweaking the set using the DVE CD by itself? Also, can a user make any useful adjustments without DVE and carefully tweaking some of the areas in the service menus to improve anything or check alignments etc.? Thanks in adavance for any input on the subject...Russ B.

Happy Memorial Day... it's memoriable for me in that I took delivery of hl61a750 on Saturday. Needing to be a careful consumer I have been lurking for quite a while and heeding everything people were saying about this item. We were as prepared as one could be prior to the box arriving. Purchased from BB, delivery was exactly when they promised. Two person team and very concerned that we were happy with their service.
Ancillary devices are Comcast HD cable box, Wii and got a deal on PS3 for BluRay DVDs. I'm VERY happy with the set right out of the box. I was able to navigate the menus without problems. However, some of the settings are still greek to me. Trying the different settings didn't really yield a drastically different look so I adoped the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality and left most everything alone.

One observation is the awkward way closed captioning is handled. I split the cable and have one connected directly to the TV so PIP will function. Through this connection the TV handles the captioning signal. Apparently HDMI doesn't carry the captioning signal. The captioning must be handled by the cablebox which is functional but awkward to turn off and on. I have not seen any comments regarding this on the threads so I wanted to put it out there. No complaints about the picture quality at all.

Anyone know if there are different codes on this TV than the standard Samsung remote codes? Just took delivery today and am trying to get the Comcast Custom DVR 3 Device remote in sync with the TV so I can power it on/off with the Comcast remote as well as control the volume. No luck so far.

I've tried these codes with no luck:
10060, 10812, 10702, 10178, 10030, 10766, 10814, 11060

Any advice is welcome.

Thanks!

Over the holiday weekend I used a hacksaw to open up one of the round ports on the back of my 61A750 and looked inside. Man, I couldn't believe there were so many wires and circuit boards and connectors...is all that stuff really necessary? And it looked like some of the wires were not perfectly straight; some were kind of bent in order to make the connections. I think the people that put these TVs together have to be pretty small and have really long arms in order to see and work though those little port holes. And later, when I unplugged the TV, it wouldn't operate. Shouldn't there be some sort of back-up battery in this set to provide for uninterrupted operation during power outages? Or maybe this TV has a back-up battery, but mine has already died...oh my! And when I adjust the color and contrast intensity down to the minimum levels (energy conservation), the picture just seems to lose all its pop...really bummed about this.
So, should I return this problem-plagued set to BB; has anyone been successful in getting a 30-day extension on the 30-day time limit for returns?
Tip: when reinstalling the cover for the access port, apply a liberal amount of plumbers putty around the edge of the cover to hold it securely in place and to provide a tight seal against dust and critters.

I just want a big HDTV that doesn't have all these major problems...is that aksin too much?

Quote:
Originally Posted by vipermansa
Well since my receiver only has one optical can I go ps3 to receiver via optical and directtv to receiver via......what do you suggest???
Thanks

Well, one of the few solutions posted below. I think you should also consider it might be time to upgrade your receiver. You have a sweet new TV, if you can swing it, you may want to spend a few hundred on a new receiver, especially one that has HDMI inputs and can support for the new Blu Ray audio formats. They are not as much as you think, check out the Onkyo line, like the 505, 605, 705, 805. I got the 805 for $700, but you can get a decent new receiver for half that.


Ok well if I did get a new receiver can you describe the connections for me???
I have the samsung tv, direct tv (hdtv), and a ps3
thanks