Official UNXXB8500 Series Owners Thread - Page 2

AFAIK "SmartLED" is what Samsung calls it's local dimming implementation.

If you have to switch it off to get the picture look "normal" you actually switch off the sets most exciting feature. Without it you cannot reach the black level and contrast this expensive set is capable of.
In other words: You lose the very reason you bought this set and not a cheaper one.

You may be content with what you see because you don't have comparisons at hand or you are still too excited about this set but if you have to disable local dimming because it doesn't work correctly you have a serious problem.

=> Get it either repaired or replaced.

bye
Benny

Thanks benny and lindsey!

I automatically thought of what you just explained as soon as it happened. I bought this set for the local dimming and now I have to keep it turned off!!! Ridiculous...but thats new electronics sometimes. Only thing that im troubled about is that feature is now working correct, no halos or circles. Would you guys say it corrected itself or should I beleive its something that may come back, and maybe with a vengence?!?

You should first make sure that you have a problem that persists - by keeping SmartLED enabled.

If it does the set isn't alright and you should get it replaced or repaired. This is the simple solution.

If it doesn't then it probably was a "glitch" - very hard to track down (often impossible) as it can be caused by a combination of settings and signals that may be very rare. In that case it could very well happen again - unless the reason for this is eliminated. By a software update perhaps.

Perhaps a boot cycle put the set back in order, perhaps it could happen again. This is very hard to assess.

However, if it was a general problem then I'm sure more people would report it and up to now this isn't the case.

bye
Benny

Got my new 55" B8500 yesterday. It replaced a 9 year old Pioneer Elite 64" CRT. The old Pioneer was great in its day, but the Samsung .. wow! I did have to do quite a bit of playing around with the many picture settings to get it where I want (and I am still tweaking now), but I am really, really happy with the picture now. I imagine stepping up from an older LCD or a plasma might have some impact, but going from my old CRT to this feels like going from black and white to color

I think the off-angle viewing perception with these is highly subjective. I notice at extreme angles some off angle loss of blacks and color issues, but I see very little loss from about 11' away moving 4 or 5 feet to the left or right of center. The CNET review detailing problems when just leaning from the dead center position is not at all close to my experience. I guess your mileage may vary, especially with different picture settings, contrast, etc ..


I will have a more complete assessment in a week or 2, but as of now I have nothing but good things to say about it. Blu-ray is tremendous, even my Comcast HD looks very good now. I even like the widgets, slow as they may be to load(by the way, they are only slow to load the first time after turning my set on. After that they load much quicker for me).

I am so glad I read this forum, as I was close to buying the 8000 until I saw the thread announcing the 8500 here and started following it. I am really glad to be an owner of this TV so far!

Congrats don...this set is truly awesome. I have been on the fence for a bit and then started following the thread just as you did. I researched what I could until these came out. When I walked into BB and saw it live....It was in my living room within 3 hours lol

I tried waiting for sony's answer to the xbr8 (another jem of a tv) but once I heard they were going to lose the rgb led's and pretty much make a cheaper set, it was a no brainer for me. I felt samsung stepped up and regardless of the economy, made an awesome set. Very clean and slim features. So far everyone that has come to my house is blown away! I can put anything on thats pretty much HD and they sit there and watch with their mouth open lol.

Right now im watching the set very close because I thought I may have had an issue but it seems to have went away...pretty much a one night thing that happened. I have to agree with benny, it seems like the signal or settings had a little glitch but so far the last 2 nights its been flawless. I still have 3 weeks to make up my mind about swapping it for another.

46 inch 8500 just arrived Impressions so far are based on daytime semi-lit room only.

Blacks and picture "pop": great. Iron man looks awesome. Football game in HD was stunning. Was laughing when first turned on the game, it looked so ridiculously good. Brightness is excellent.

Motion issues: for the first half hour noticed a tiny bit of artificiality/artifact relating to motion, the technology is still not perfect, particularly when the camera is panning. However, with the antiblur near 10, and the antijudder at 2, I think its fine, and I stopped noticing anything rapidly. I dont like antijudder at 3 and above due to soap opera effect. Although I suspect Id get used to it if I left it like that. I was worried about the motion issues annoying me after playing with an A950, but I'm all but certain the 8500 solves the problem. Will continue to experiment with the settings.

Off-angle: noticed some blooming around bright letters on black background, but only when walking up to the tv, far off-angle in the vertical. I.e. who cares. Minimal loss of black at the edges when walking far off angle to the sides, eg. 45 degrees, non issue in partial light. No problems sitting on the sides of the couch vs. centered. Will test more tonight in the darkness.
No obvious flashlighting or screen uniformity issues, but this is better assessed in darkness.

Reflective screen: hasnt bothered me. Some mild reflections from within the room, I didnt notice while watching the tv. The reflective screens look far better than the matte screens imo, judging from what I saw in the stores. The blacks are deeper, colors look richer.

Sound: Havent really figured out how to hook up the sound properly yet, it has very few sound input jacks. Hooked up the sound to a separate receiver, and it seems to have a slight (minimal) delay... will work on this some more, may be due to the receiver or the tv image. Cant tell you if the TV speakers are awful or not yet.

Overall: Its great. No real problems, very happy so far. In the end its just a TV, but it will be a thing of beauty to look at for the coming years. Will test it more in darkness tonight.

I bought mine at Best Buy last night. Priced at $4400 for the 55", they met me half way of price matching Frys $4000. So I got it for $4200. I can get the difference when Frys gets it back in stock. So far, I only tested it on Troy for Blu-Ray and it looked spectacular and so did Uncharted 2. I have yet to fine tune it to my liking but so far, it's the best tv I've ever seen. I need a HDMI cable vice my component that I have.

I would like to get the 8500 since it seems to be such an improvement over its edge lit brothers. As I'm sure you all know, the sticking point is the price. An online place called provantage has the 46" for $2700 (yes, $2700). That's still a lot for a 46" LCD these days, but its less than I paid for my 36" plasma in 2002, and less than half of what I paid for my 50" in 2004, so I could be up for that.

This TV is going in my dining room (the two beautiful minimal Panasonic plasmas are staying in place ), so I don't want to go TOO overboard.

The Provantage retailer seems to have pretty good reviews, but I somehow think that it would be a spectacularly bad idea since the price is so WAY out of line with what everyone else is charging.

Opinions?

Barbara

I found that the shiping is $243, so that brings the price up to $2943...

Just wait until four weeks from now, when Black Friday sales flyers start leaking, I'm sure you'll get great deals right at your local B&M, so you can return it if there's any problem.

Check out Cleveland Plasma's web price by following their link at the top of the page (they are a sponsor). It's better than the price you mention here. Cleveland has a fantastic reputation among members of this forum, too.

I am planning on buying the 55b8500 this week. I have Directv and read on the Directv board that there is a problem with Samsung and Directv maintaining a HDMI signal. Does anyone have this problem?

Last week, I had a BB rep look up Provantage's pricing and they said they would price match. That is 2700+tax and you get to pick it up at a B&M location.

Really? They didn't give you any problem that it was an online retailer instead of a local store? I thought that they wouldn't price match online stores. If they won't give me flack about it, I'm super willing to do that!

after living with the 8500 for a while, I still love it. I do have a question for other owners though.

I do notice under some circumstances it has clouding - when the LEDS are all lit and the room is totally dark you can clearly see it. However, I cant notice any differences in brightness across the image when its actually playing a scene. This only happens in between shows or ads for a split second it seems, when the station broadcasts a black screen, or when I go out of my way to pause it on a black screen. Actually most times there is black screen broadcast the local dimming kicks in and the screen is totally, utterly black with no clouding.

Has anyone else noticed this on their set? Im thinking maybe I shouldnt care, since it doesnt seem to affect viewing picture quality. What do you guys think?

Well, I've had the 55" 8500 for a week now. My thoughts.

1) I don't see any of the problems that others have spoken about. I did have the TV Calibrated by Chad, throught Cleveland Plasma however, and I have not tweaked anything since. (except item #2 below)

2) The picture is incredible. I did tweak down the anti judder to 2. The picture has less soap Opera effect (that bothered my family). Sports, movies, regular SD TV is outstanding. I am going to be really happy with this TV.

3) We don't see any problem with reflections in our living room, and off angle viewing doesn't seem to be a problem for us in any position. As you go off centre you do lose a little bit of the punch, but we are sitting about 12' away and you have to go around 5' either side to really notice it.

4) Widgets are a little slow. A bit of a gimick really, as all I really cared about is a great picture, and this TV does it soooo well.

5) I would recommend the calibration. When I go to the other settings that Chad did not touch, there is a huge difference. The colors and settings look so natural and normal.

All in all, Great TV. A little expensive but you get what you pay for. I'll be happy for a looooong time with this one.

Mine has been returned...BB gave me no problem when I explained my issues. Gonna wait a few weeks and see if others have issues and then new ones are released with firmware updates (just how the xbr8's were in the beginning) All in all I love the set but if anything...atleest i'll get it cheaper the second go around.

Hmmm... why no settings being posted?

I have DirectTV and a 55" 950. Absolutely no problems with HDMI. Only annoying thing is the HD receiver takes so long to change channels it makes the TV think there is no signal.

Unless you can see it during dark scenes or letterboxed films, why worry? Enjoy your great new toy!

Okay so this is the official owners thread back where it belongs.Hopefully settings will be explored and any defects will be exposed.Would love to see D-Nice jump on this thread since he mentioned the 8500 a while ago before it became available.

Anyone mount the 8500 to a flat panel mount? I forgot to use the included spacers and I'm wondering if this is or will be a problem.

I'm really liking Standard mode with a few minor tweaks.

Does the screen come attached to the stand in the shipping box?

I have seen photos that some owners have posted that shows it does come attached in the box.

My 55B8500 was attached to the stand.

thanks

So it's 30-40us? Wow, if that number is correct, it sounds amazing. Can you just confirm that it is in microseconds (us) and not milliseconds (ms)?

Anyone using the cnet settings and if yes how are they for sd dvd pq?