Samsung PNXXc550 Owners Thread *NO PRICE TALK* - Page 2

How did you access the service menu? And where in the service menu would I find the menu to change the model designation?

Any of you owners able to hook a PC or Laptop up to your 550 and take some picture of a cloned timer to determine the input lag? Examples, links, and info in here.

So is the PN58B550 better for calibration than the PN58C550? Or do both units offer the same calibration options?

Well I'm getting close to the end of my 30 day exchange period. I am still not thrilled with my 50c550. There must not be much interest in this set as it has been out for over a month and still no review or settings to be found anywhere. How is everybody elses whites on this tv? This is my biggest complaint at this point. My whites are grey no matter what adjustments I make. They also seem extremely dull and not very bright at all. It seems to have good black level to my eye, but what is the point if the whites suck? The picture is just dark overall. The only way to get it near acceptable is to have the contrast at 100 and the brightness jacked way up. Basically in torch mode. Do I have a faulty set? Everyone else seems to be happy with it.

BTW jpm150: follow the same directions as for the 2009 B series to change the model.

Petem23, are you using movie or standard mode?

Standard mode. Movie mode looks absolutely horrible to me. It makes everything even darker, colors WAY off, and everything has a yellow/tan tint. The already grey whites look yellow/tan in movie mode. I adjusted settings with the avs disc in both modes. Standard looks 10Xs better to me. I am not a pitch dark tv viewer. I always have 2 lights on in the room
durring evening hours and there is a decent amount of light from the windows durring the day. I'm watching HDTV mostly with blurays and DVDs once or twice a week.

Thanks for any help.

I take it these sets are not going to increase in popularity any time soon, as all the hype is on the thin displays. I was hoping some people could give general impressions on the c model vs the 2009's.

I think the b550 looked dull and had grey whites too. What I did was too do some colour adjustments . I think there should be some setting to do a personal colour adjustment? At least there is something similiar on the b550 . What I did was to make adjustments for R,G, B and crank them up from 50 to 65. I have no idea what this does to gamma, greyscale etc. But the white look a lot whiter, and the picture looks quite vibrant. I am a complete noob, but the b550 I adjusted looks quite good punchy now. ;-) Not sure if you at least can try this on the c550? (and I use movie mode, gamma set to -1 I think, celllight max, black adjustment off, brightness 37 )

with best regards

Standard mode always looks awful on Samsungs.

If you look at this site, you can get an idea of how the various modes alter the white balance:
http://www.displaycalibrationonline....lasma_2009.asp

Warm2 is pretty much always the closest to neutral with Samsungs, sometimes needs a little red-offset boost though.

I went to check out the PN58C550 yesterday. I played around with the settings, and I thought it had a very nice picture. No high-pitched buzz either - just the normal, low plasma hum. I decided to pull the trigger.

It'll be delivered in a couple of weeks. I'm very excited!

I dont know if ppl have seen this or not but samsung now has the C5xx series info up on their website. They list the contrast ratio as 2,000,000:1, same as the B5xx series. Do ppl really think its the same or is this just another case of Samsung having incorrect info up on their site initially like they did with the PN50C7000?

If the set is not defective, perhaps you would be better off going with an LCD. I have a c450 plasma (probably similar picture/accuracy) and movie mode with warm2 provides the most accurate colors for calibration - not "way off" to me. Perhaps you are used to the dynamic/vibrant LCD-look? Whites in warm2 (movie mode) on my c450 look perfectly white to me - in Standard mode they look too "blue" or cool even on the "normal" color temp. setting. Its a chance you have a defective set, but maybe your preferences are different. If you like the bluer whites, try out the cool temp. settings in the various picture modes.

I'm considering importing one of these pn58c550's, but I believe that there was an issue with the psxxb560 and psxxb550 (euro models are ps instead of pn) that had a "screen tearing" effect with 50Hz video feeds (European standard)

This was from the reviews on avforums on last year's panel

Can anyone confirm if this has been corrected for the 50Hz signal? It would be real pity if not

Thanks

It's hard to say. After mine arrives and I do a basic calibration, I'll post what black level reading I get.

I had the PN58B550 a few weeks ago, but had to return it do to the dreaded buzzing. I measured 0.015 ftL on that set. (BTW, I was very happy with the set overall, but the buzzing bothered both my wife and me. I'm hoping the C550 is better.)

After nearly two weeks with my PN50C590, I haven't noticed any buzzing. There's a low hum if I mute my receiver, but it isn't noticeable with the sound at normal or even low levels. At times there seems to be a bit of noise in the image when up close to the screen (under 1ft away), but that isn't noticeable from my normal sitting distance.

I was a bit paranoid about IR/Burn-in when I first got the set, so I've been trying to baby it a bit. When streaming netflix over the Xbox 360, I noticed that the Netflix logo in the top right corner of the screen (White text/black outline/red background) will stick around for a bit - especially if I'm taking my time browsing movies. But this always goes away pretty quickly. I haven't noticed any other IR issues with XBMC, or TV logos/crawls. I haven't had the chance to play any games yet, but will try to find the time soon - I really want to get back into Mass Effect 2

I did a quick run through the picture settings with a THX DVD I had, and ended up with this:
Picture Mode: Movie
Color Temp: Warm 2
Cell light: 10
Brightness: 55
Contrast: 75
Color: 50
Tint: G50/R50
Sharpness: 2
Black Tone: Off
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Gamma: 0
Colorspace: Auto
Flesh Tone: Off
Edge Enhancement: Off
Digital NR: Auto

These seemed to look "good enough" for the time being - at least until I get a few more hours on the set. These settings look pretty good at night, but need some adjusting for daylight. I plan to go through this again once I find a bit more time, and hopefully will have something that works better for all lighting conditions soon.

Looking around the net a bit, I found a pretty long review someone wrote up about the PN50C550 on Amazon - Can't post the link yet I guess - just search for the model on their site. Anyway, the reviewer had positive things to say, and posted pretty detailed video settings there. I want to try to personalize my set again myself, but if any of you try these, please share your results.

Thanks for posting about your C590. That's good news about your set not having an annoying buzz!

I noticed the 50C550 weight is listed as the same as the 50B550 even though they aren't close. Looks like whoever is updating their site just copied last years specs lol.

Were you using the TV speakers or an external source? I'm wondering if the buzz is line noise passed to the TV speakers.

On my 50c450 the buzz is coming from the power supply.

Contrast stats aren't really info as such, they're just an invention of the marketing department, not a measurement made in a lab.

On that Amazon review, the guy just copied calibration settings someone did on last year's B series. The B series didn't have the E3 clear image panel did it? I would imagine those settings not to be very acurate. I'm still waiting for some real cal settings for this 2010 c series. Problem is nobody is interested in this set, so I may be waiting a while.

After I break mine in (it arrives next week), I will calibrate it and post my settings.

Man, I really hope I don't get a loud buzzer.

Yeah, I know this too but you can usually glean something from the manufacturer stats when comparing to its own TVs, but maybe not across model years. Was just more curious because this level of set isnt going to get any attention from professional reviewers to really compare it to last years sets (unlike the C6500/7000/8000 which will be thoroughly reviewed.)

I am trying to decide between the 58C550/58C590 or going with an LG60PK550/750. I really like what has come out about the LG60PK550 but I have a matte screen LCD right now and I dont know if I can deal with the reflections. Looks like I will probably have to wait another month before enough info is out about the C550/C590 to feel comfortable making a decision.

Thanks!

Picked up a 58". I thought we should go with the 50", but my wife suggested the 58"...who was I to disagree right?

First Plasma and first flat screen as well. Had to move all my mini-van seats around to get the box in. Big screen and an even bigger box. Haven't played around with it too much yet.

No dead pixels and only a small buzz (which I think is normal for plasmas). Can't wait to spend some time in front of it.

Cheers
CW

Why is the c550 cheaper than the b550? If its newer shouldn't it have a higher price?

Also from any current owners, how would you compare the b550 and c550?

here in Canada nobody is selling the 550 but rather a 540. Are they the same but just different names for the states and Canada?

Also does anyone know the differences between the 550 and the 590?

According to the samsung website the c590 has the crystal hd engine (cinema smooth) and a better screen

Is it actually a better screen on the 590, or just a filter/screen coating?

And also it may be possible to enable cinema smooth via the service menu. I checked on my C590, and the option to change your set's model number is available there again this year. I haven't tested actually changing the model number though, so YMMV.

Costco in Calgary,AB was selling the 550 today. I picked one up and got it setup tonight. I like it alot.