Samsung PN**B450 Picture Settings

Glad to see another PN**B450 owner. Hope we can get an owners thread going. I am new to all this HD stuff too. I just got my tv about 2 weeks ago and started reading up on HD a few weeks before that. I have read a lot of information but it is still an open question as to how much better informed I am. Disclaimer: I am new to this hd stuff and merely express my opinion and point of view. I have no expertise and will be wrong often. There are many experts in this forum and they should be taken seriously.

To your first point about Modes; from my point of view there are 2 main camps when it comes to adjusting the settings. One says the proper setting is the one that will reproduce the most accurate representation of what the original author intended. The other is "I want what looks best to me and my eyes and the original author be damned, "accuracy" is not important to me". They both have merits and everyone has to decide where they stand.

The d65k standard is what the "video engineers" have decided is the proper light level for all shades of grayscale. It seems to be the "holy grail" of settings. This link explains it much better than I can. cavx.blogspot.com/2008/09/d6500k-and-why-it-is-so-important.html. (Sorry for the poor URL I am not yet permitted to post URLs.)

I don't plan on having a professional cal done either. It would cost about half of the price of the tv, and my picture may not be perfect but it looks very good to me.

There are many ways to cal your own set. You could buy a cal disk and use it to cal your set. There are several and the Digital Video Essential (DVE) and Avia seem to be the most popular. Both are available on amazon and many other places. I have used the DVE disk and would suggest that if you are not the type of person who will RTFM and spend a couple hours preparing to do the cal you would probably be happier with the avia disk. I have not used the avia disk. I have seen links to some free downloadable disks but don't have the link right now. You can also use the THX optimizer that is on most/all pixar disks.

I have a stb (SA explorer3250HD), blu ray dvd.
My settings at the current time (subject to change)
Mode: Standard
Cell Light: 5
Contrast: 75
Brightness: 49
Sharpness: 0
Color: 49
Tint: 49/51
Advanced:
Black Tone: Off
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Gamma: 0
Color Space: Auto
White Balance : all set to default (25)
Flesh Tone: 0
Edge Enhancement: Off
Picture Options:
Color Tone: Normal
Size: 16:9
Digital NR: Low
HDMI Black Level: Normal
Film Mode: Off
Screen Burn Protection: On 2sec pixel shift
I am not married to most of those settings but seem to work for now and will change if I find a good rationale.

The room where I have the tv is fairly dark with no direct light on the screen. There is some indirect light from the other rooms.

Hope we get a lot of owners to contribute to the conversation.

I have my B450 set to Standard now, and it has been for about a week or so. I switched around to Movie mode but didn't like it. The colors didn't seem better at all. All it did was like dim the image to be "better" viewed in low light conditions... apparently.

I don't think it's a better mode at all necessarily.

Hey guys just got the PN42B450 today. Haven't set it up yet(gonna wait until later when it gets a little cooler in my room because it's too hot in here) but i was wondering something. Is it ok for the sun to be beaming on the plasma whether it's off or on? Just wanted to know if the sun beaming on a plasma will damage it in anyway.

the 4 series must be a totally different animal. when i set my 560 to any of the settings you guys listed my eyeballs start to hurt. either the set is just very different or i just like a darker picture.

my 560 on movie move with contrast in the high 60's/low 70's, and brightness in the low 50's(on my cable STB input) and low 40's(on my ps3 hdmi input) looks very accurate to me. anything i watch feels like it just looks right. my set looks very good right out of the box. i set my contrast and brightness to those levels, sharpness at 0 gamma at -1 and all enhancements are off, and that's it. i feel no need to mess with any of the color settings.

i didn't want to post here since i have a b5 series and not a b4 series, but you quoted me in your original post.

That's ok, some people prefer the standard mode as opposed to the more accurate movie mode. In the end it's up to what you like best.

Mode- Movie
Cell light-5
Contrast-90
Brightness-50
Sharpness-0
Color-50
Tint-G50/R50

Advanced
Black tone- off
Dynamic-off
Gamma+1
Color space-auto

White valence
R offset 21
G offset 25
B offset 19
R gain 23
G gain 25
B gain 30

Flesh tone- 0
Edge enhancement- off

Picture options
Color tone- warm2
Size- 16:9
Digital NR- auto
HDMI black level- low
Film mode- auto

My 450B is not professionly calibrated. I do have a Pioneer Elite 151 and Sammy 650 LCD that is professionaly calibrated. These settings I use on my B is as close as I can get them to the other two. The blacks on the B are no where close but the color is pretty close to both the Pioneer and the other Sammy.

Given that this thread alone already has mutliple people with different settings resulting in different (accurate) calibration I think it's pretty rude and well, asinine of you to make a statement like that.

Is it ok to have a contrast of 75 even though the plasma is new? Any other number lower than that results in a dim picture.

hey all, I have the 42a450 that has that pink hue problem on the whites, well after 2 panel replacements and still have the problem, samsung decided to replace my tv with the 42b450 and I was wondering if they fixed the problem on these. I dont what anyone to look real hard for it because I dont want you to notice anything that you didnt notice before, so in casual looking say when there is a comercial like verizon that has a all white background do you notice and pink hue in the whites. besides that the a450 had a nice picture so Im sure the b450 looks even better, thanks

As per "Super Calibrator" Doug Blackburn in many Sammy threads the only proper setting for Cell is 10. Anything lower than that does weird thing to the gamma curve and throws thing off. He explains it's a hold over from the LCD line so they can use the same menu and all it does is limit how bright the cell can get.

If you search Cell Light I'm sure it will come up.

thank you plasma donor for the replay, I really liked a A450 picture was just the pink that got to me and since you say its not there and the blacks are even darker yahoo cant wait
Do you know if its has the 3d capability that the A450 did. On the back of the tv where all the hdmi and the rest of inputs are there is a input that looks like a "s" cable goes there and it says "3d sync out". just wondering because on the website it doesnt mention it but half the stuff on it is wrong thnaks

cool it has it, I know what it does, if you want to know I can explain it

the a450 and now the b450 have 3d capability, its the samething samsungs dlp had with the 3d. You have to buy the unit which comes with special 3d glasses. You need a pc. you hook your pc to your tv except the cable from your graphics card connects to the unit and then the unit plugs into the 3d sync input you play the game or movie on your pc put on the glasses and walah 3d on your tv.Supposedly you can hook up two glasses and play 2 people but its not split screen you each get your own screen. If you goto nvidias website you can find more information on it. from what I've seen it looks pretty cool especially if you are a gamer
link to nvidia http://www.nvidia.com/object/GeForce...sion_Main.html

My tv is in my bedroom about 12ft. viewing distance with one lamp with a 40w bulb. Only watch this tv at night.
I should add that copying settings is pointless because no panel is the same.

I have been reading posts in AVS and saw this post. I wonder how other people feel about setting the cell at 10 and never changing it. Cell 10 is the only setting that should EVER be used!

"Cell Light is a bogus setting Samsung added to fill an empty hole in their Menu system. Like all LCD panels, Samsung LCDs have a Backlight control that changes the brightness of the illumination behind the LCD panel. Plasma TVs don't have a backlight. Samsung wanted to use the same menu system in their LCDs and plasmas for simplicity's sake. So they dreamed up Cell Light. Which does nothing useful... at all.

As you increase the Cell Light setting, you stretch out the grayscale steps in below 25% white or so, and above 75% white or so, you compress grayscale steps so you end up losing both shadow and highlight detail. The Luminance curve becomes "S" shaped the lower you set Cell Light and "3" is a VERY low setting.

Samsung appparently realized that they screwed this up as early production panels had very large, very negative amounts of change between Cell Light = 10 and Cell Light = 0. At some point during production, they changed something and the later models have a much less pronounced change in response to altering the Cell Light setting... but STILL, the Cell Light setting DAMAGES the response of the panel even in newer production units. The only setting that give the correct response from the panel is "10" which is where Cell Light should be set and left forever."
The poster is Doug Blackburn and a certified ISF tech. This is his website. dbtheatrical.com
I am not qualified to evaluate his position but have never seen ANYONE recommend that the Cell 10 is the ONLY proper setting.

I've been watching everything in movie mode, with temp of normal for about a week.

Was messing with some HD trailers tonight and started switching back and forth between my slightly custom Movie mode and Standard mode. I would pause at scenes with skin tone that would be easy to tell and scenes with color.

By FAR, Standard has better color. I find it hard to believe that anyone could see it differently. Movie mode seems to have the same color, but it's dimmed or something. With Standard you get the "pop" of color that I think is actually intended by the "filmmakers" or CGI people, whoever you want to point at.

So I think from this point forth I'll be sticking with Standard until I try some calibrating.

Where'd you get the White Valence options from?

I suggest you set the Dynamic Contrast to Medium. It'll help your blacks. I noticed with it off, my dark scenes were much more gray.

anyone wants to share more settings?