Samsung PNxxD450/PNxxD490 Owners Thread - Page 5

The real question...

I want the pn43d450, but the 490 seems pretty cool with the 3d and all. I don't really know what to do. I could save the $200 and keep that money to save up for the oppo BDP93, which I'll need for 3D. Then a few years down the road, pick up a 59" 1080p 3D plasma, and move the 43" to the bedroom.

I'm not really thrilled about downgrading to 720p from 1080p. Although I'm sure I can't tell the difference, just knowing is bad for me.

The Reason:

I'm replacing a Sammy 32" 1080p, 120hz, LCD. Wondering how different it would be to have a 720p tv.

okay, just to get this straight, you are outputting 1080p, HD DVD from your xbox 360. But your input is 720p, correct?

okay eckohb, thanks for the input, now I just have to wonder how bad the buzzing is going to be. I live in Mammoth Lakes, Ca, so I'm up at 8,103ft. I know they say not to have a plasma above 6K ft, or it will buzz like crazy.

Neither.

The 43" are 1024x768p.
The 51" are 1360x768p.

You must be referring to this post I made; I wrote there, what the native resolutions of these TVs are (which are par for the course on plasmas in these sizes, btw)):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post20211375

Thanks I just wanted to know if it had the options to do Red only, Green only and Blue only modes to dial in the colors.

yup! It was your post...I still can't figure our how they can advertise 720p when the tv's native res is something completely different. Makes me want to save up and wait for a 1080p tv.

I don't why people have it set on 1080p, it should be set to 720p. Setting it on 1080p means more scaling, and more scaling means that it will looks worse.

No it doesn't. There is more scaling involed when set to 720p.

Maybe the European models are different. I tried viewing a .AVI movie file on the USB drive and it will only find audio files and JPEG video files. You can only choose to view "photos" or "audio".

The D450 doesn't have video playback through USB. You'll have to use the Blu-ray player.

The D450, however, does have .AVI playback, plus 3D, plus swivel base. $500 vs $700 for these features

When I press content and then left on the remote I go to the My content section. There is video - pictures - music in that order. You can play content from there. (European model d450)

Although I don't use this feature, it's nice that it's in there.

FYI, my samsung actually is PS43D450, I'm in asia, That TV is made in Indonesia, and the USB is capable of playing .AVI .MKV, music and photos. I tried plugging my ext HD to the TV, my ext HD format is FAT32 and it can detect perfectly.

I finally made the decision and bought one of these off of Amazon! Hopefully I will be getting it wednesday next week. Relatively new to the whole plasma tech and wasn't sure if anyone here had recommendations on breaking in. I was reading some of the break in sticky and just wasn't sure what the general agreement was on this.

I have the North American model of the PN43D450, anyone know how to get it to play .avi files?

I don't think it's possible. I only have photos and music options through the "media play" function. It would be nice if we could get a firmware update from Samsung to have this capability. For now, I would have to use my son's PS3 but I would prefer to leave that in my family room and be able to just plug a flash drive in the Samsung to watch video .AVI files.

Yeah me too. Didn't someone say earlier that their european model could play movies through a usb drive? Or was that something else

Yes, apparently the european model can so I don't see why firmware wouldn't allow the US models to do the same. Perhaps it's worth a shout to Samsung?

Great! Thanks for the tip. I will not bother with running those slides or whatever. I will probably watch out for letterbox bars just in case though.

- You mean the D490, which is the 3D version, does have .AVI playback etc, .

Can someone here tell me about 3D viewing on the 490 please?

Does it look good even thought the native res is not 1080?

Do you have to sit centered to the tv? How does the 3D look when viewing is done off center?

Do I need to have the expensive Sammy 3D glasses, or will any cheapo pair work?

What is happening is you are having the Xbox 360 send a 1920x1080p signal to the TV, and then the TV is downscaling (downconverting) the signal to the TV's fixed resolution of 1024x768p or 1366x768p (depending on TV size). The TV can accept many resolutions, but it can only display one resolution.

None of the D450/D490 TVs are 1280x720p; it has been said numerous times by me, that the 43" are 1024x768p and the 51" are 1360x768p; there is scaling in either case. The difference is what type of scaling; up, down, or up and down; this is all detailed in that previous post.


Well, the key is that resolution is being thrown away in unnecessarily downscaling 1920x1080i to 1280x720p, and it can't be recreated properly when the 51" TV upscales vertically and horizontally to the TV's fixed resolution of 1366x768p (or in the case of the 43" TV, it upscales vertically (and downscales horiz.) to 1024x768p).

Never downscale a signal vertically and/or horizontally to less than the panel's fixed resolution; which is what happens with 1080p/i signal going to 720p, and then to TV's 768p fixed resolution. (I left out the horizontal res. to make it simpler, though it matters, as I explained before.)

If your cable carrier is Comcast see if you can get the Pace RNG110 STB and use HDMI. It allows you to set the video output to "pass through" and the TV can handle any necessary conversions.