Official Samsung UNxxES8000 Owner's Thread - Page 70

The Dark Knight really shows it off.

I'll be watching both of those tonight then. I haven't watched Up on blu-ray in a while.

I would normally be annoyed that The Dark Knight swaps aspect ratios throughout the movie, but It really shows off how good the tv is.

I think it's very obvious that something is working incorrectly in movie mode. Either that or Samsung is out of their minds for wanting it to look the way it does. Whether or not it's micro-dimming is still debatable I think since it's not like Samsung is going to actually admit it and tell us anything.

I don't get why in standard mode it actually auto-dims the tv-generated menus and volume control. It looks ridiculous to me that if I have the menu up or the volume control up and suddenly the screen auto-dims because the screen goes mostly black then suddenly the menus or controls dim with it - it looks absolutely awful. The menus should be nice and bright at all times - not all dull and dim - which is why it shouldn't be auto-dimming in the first place. I was watching my girlfriend's folks' Vizio tv earlier today - they paid around $550 2 years ago - and though the image doesn't compare to these sets, it was nice and stable - no auto-dimming nonsense. I don't know why when we spend this much money on a set that we have to make "compromises" like either have lousy blacks or auto-dimming. We shouldn't have to have either one. Movie mode would be awesome if it had the blacks of standard mode, and standard mode would be awesome if it didn't auto-dim like it does. Ridiculous.

GUYS I just downloaded the latest firmware/ could you point me to Nitra's settings?

At the very least they could have an advanced settings to enable or disable that feature, how hard is that to do?
Most other features are controllable, why not that one?

Absolutely! Why have an advanced menu and then not give us control over things like this?

I made the tweaks gas suggested and it did indeed help quite a bit. I stuck with brightness at 40 cause I think it makes the blacks richer and doesn't effect the color. However during the day black bars at the top and bottom are jet black and cannot be seen, but during the night I can slightly see them there not as jet black is that what others are experiencing?

The one thing I am still puzzled by and I'm leaning towards this being just the cameras used to take pictures and different monitors that its viewed on, but is anyone elses Smart Hub this blue?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIPCIogKrhM

My smart hub is much less vibrant then that. However when I have the PS3 hooked up to the TV i have it set to the blue color and its rich like hell. I tried going to best buy but was not able to get the smart hub up to compare.
Edited by Riftburn - 7/28/12 at 6:03pm

@ 4x4Cableman,

page 63, post # 1877.

Those are the current updated settings by Nitra.

After having the TV turned on for a few hours, here are my initial impressions (Standard Mode; Sharpness 0, Auto Motion Custom (judder/blur 0,0), LED Motion Plus On. I made a few other changes but I can't remember which ones. I think I turned brightness down a bit as well or turned the backlight down.):

1. The out-of-the-box settings created a ton of noise with all of the added sharpness plus the motion processing. Had to turn that off quick
2. Contrast on standard mode really are impressive, especially compared to my old XBR4
3. The footprint (or lack thereof) for this TV is amazing. To be able to add 9" of screen space, but have more room behind the TV for wiring/cable management is awesome. I actually took an old OTA HD antenna from the closet, hooked it up and put it behind the TV, there was so much space back there.
4. The black levels when viewing credits are amazing. The black blends into the buffer just before the bezel. The only problem is the auto-dimming kicks in a split second after the screen goes black, and the white credits turn to an off-white grey. It's very subtle and I doubt any of my guests would notice.
5. When viewing in Standard Mode, some advanced settings are disabled. Expanded color range isn't available, for example. It doesn't matter for movies, but for some PS3 gaming it could be useful. This is exacerbated by the current problems that make Movie Mode unusable for everyday viewing.
6. Lastly, the extra 9" of picture real estate is incredibly noticeable. 4 years ago I wouldn't have thought 46" was too small, but 55" is definitely a good fit for my current living room dimensions.

I guess I lost the AVS 709 disc that I burned several years ago, so I'm burning another one now. I popped in the HQV video essentials disc, but that only really helped with noise reduction and checking out some of the motion processing adjustments. After I finish burning the AVS709 disc, I'll pop in The Dark Knight and Up and really see what this thing has to offer. But if the early indications are representative, this set is going to be dynamite. So far the only negatives are the compromises between Standard/Movie mode and the auto-dimming.

What is the best way to calibrate the Color Space and White Balance settings?

Here are my current settings using the AVS 709 DVD after I just ran it again. There are not Color Space or WB settings because I don't know how to do those. The only ones listed below are options that I have the ability to change. Some options in the menu are not editable.

Picture Mode Standard
Backlight 11
Contrast 92
Brightness 47
Sharpness 14
Color 53
Tint G49/R51

Advanced Settings
Dynamic contrast Off
Black Tone Off
Flesh tone 0
RGB mode off
Gamma +1
Motion lighting off

Picture Options
Color tone Warm 2
Digital Noise Filter Off
MPEG Noise Filter Off
Film mode Off
Auto Motion Plus Clear
LED motion plus Off

System/ECO Solution
ECO Sensor ON
Minimum backlight level 8

But why would Samsung disable Micro-dimming in movie mode? I have read multiple times that Micro-dimming is supposed to be enabled for all modes and running at all times, with no option to disable it. So then why would they disable it on the mode that is most likely to be used by home theater enthusiasts? It just doesn't make sense. They went on and on how micro-dimming pro and ultimate would be such a great thing, then not use it in movie mode? Why would they do that?

I would not call the dimming subtle. It's actually quite noticeable. My girlfriend sees it and usually doesn't notice or care about that kind of thing. The black levels during credits is awesome but what good is that if the credits themselves dim to half their brightness? My girlfriend's folks' crappy $500 Vizio looks great with credits, too - and it doesn't dim the credits - the credits look just the way they should. It also doesn't just affect white titles - text that is already grey or some other color dim also, so they look even harder to see. The little info screen that pops up when I put in my Galactica blu-rays is outlined in blue, and is against a black background - the screen dims so much at that point that it's actually kind of hard to read the text because it's so dim.

No matter how you look at it, the credits (and other types of text, objects, and subtitles, and built-in menus) should not be auto-dimming to half their brightness. The tv should not be doing that. Sets this expensive should not be doing this type of nonsense when a $500 Vizio doesn't feel the need to. We have an advanced menu - we should have the option to disable auto-dimming, and movie mode should have the same blacks as standard.
Edited by eagle_2 - 7/28/12 at 7:29pm

Depending on what you read fom Samsung, here's what they say on their own site about micro-dimming:

"Micro Dimming Plus ensures that the image is as close as possible to what the camera saw when the video or film was made."


"Micro Dimming Ultimate

Ever watch a movie and find it’s hard to see an object in the background? Micro Dimming Ultimate analyzes each frame of video in hundreds of areas to optimize the LED backlight and video signal for each frame in real time. By increasing brightness in the areas of the frame that are too dark to see, an overall 20% increase in brightness is achieved and finally you can make out that zombie lurking in the dark! Along with an overall brighter picture, Micro Dimming Ultimate will also produce more vibrant and richer colors."


"Incredible Contrast with Micro Dimming Plus

Samsung's most innovative LED picture contrast technology delivers the deepest dark tones and brightest whites, while eliminating the "halo" effect and image distortion associated with diffused light."

Yeah I read that review, that part about black levels confused me. I don't know what to make of all this but something just can't be right. Between the forced auto-dimming in standard and such weak blacks in movie, something can't be right. Who would want to use movie mode with such weak blacks? I think most of us here agree that right now standard looks far better than movie - is that really what Samsung intended?

I actually just finished calibrating with the AVS709 disc. That disc is awesome. The last time I used it was like 4 years ago and it didn't have all of the features it does now. Anyhow, I found that the White Balance was one of the most critical changes I made to my set. Out of the box, the color on this Samsung in standard mode is among the best I've seen in HDTV sets. I used the standard settings of the 709 disc to adjust the "color" setting. First go into

Menu>Advanced Settings>RGB Only Mode>Blue

Then go into the AVS709 disc for the Color/Tint adjustment (#4 - Flashing Color Bars) and adjust until the blue is barely distinguishable from the flashing box. I actually only had to adjust my set 1 notch for color and tint (to 49 for both).

But then when I went to the "Misc Test Patterns" of the disc, I came across test patter A-4. This test pattern showed that while green and blue were great, the Red color was clipping at a different level than the other two. It was actually clipping the entire range just about.

To adjust this, with the A-4 test flashing, go into Menu>Advanced Settings>White Balance, and then adjust R (or G or B) gain or offset up and down until only values above 35 are clipped.

After that my set was really dialed in. Here are my other settings:

Standard
Backlight: 8
Contrast: 75
Brightness: 40
Sharpness: 5
Color: 49
Tint: G51 R49

Advanced Settings
Dyanmic Contrast: Medium
Black Tone: Off
Flesh Tone: Off
White Balance: I only adjusted "G-Offset" to 50 and "R-Gain" to 10 (most sets should differ on this adjustment)
Gamma: 0

Picture Options
Color Tone: Standard
Digital Noise Filter: Off
MPEG Noise Filter: Off
Auto Motion Plus: Custom (Blur-0; Judder 10)
LED Motion Plus: Off

One other thing I should note (which I'm sure you guys already know):

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what adjustment LED Motion Plus made. It had no impact on any of the vertical/horizontal resolution tests I ran, nor the deinterlacing/cadence tests. I also didn't see a big difference with any motion tests.

However, Auto Motion has a huge impact. The "Smooth" setting will fail a lot of video resolution tests. Going into Custom and turning Blur Reduction down to 0 causes it to pass again. Judder at 0 and 10 had no impact on most of these tests.

But then I ran one of the AVS 709 motion patterns (Section G of Misc Patterns, which tests 2.976 frames per second interlaced fields), and the Judder Reduction at 10 caused the moving object to be completely smooth in motion, while still not failing any of the tests. This is a big improvement over my XBR4.

The strange thing about micro-dimming, it was working in Movie mode when I got my set, before the firmware was updated, however my set was running release 000 firmware. I agree 100% with everyone else, we should be given controls that are not burried in the service menu to enable/disable these features. And if they don't want to give us controls like that, at least add it back to movie mode, and leave it off in Cal-Day/Cal-Night. I suspect the reason movie mode ended up with it disabled was they needed to disable it in Cal-day/Cal-night, and those modes are directly tied to movie mode.

Regarding the Auto-Dim, there is a way to disable it in the service menu. I watched Star Wars Episode 1 last night, and the auto-dim was only noticed in 1 scene, and only because I was looking for it.
Edited by nitra - 7/29/12 at 6:22am

The section in the SM where CE Dimming is grayed out, at this point we can't make changes to auto-dimming.

Demo material... "Thin Red Line" is jaw-dropping ridiculous along "How to Train Your Dragon". The problem with this tv is that it makes any bluray I throw at it so much nicer than previously seen.

Product Comparo...Compared the Sammy to the "Elite" yesterday when shopping for bluray disks.....
i feel like I am missing nothing ....especially at that price difference.

Firmare...what is the official current version?

1031

Question for the group... Whenever a change is made i.e. adjustment to backlight, contrast or just anything that has to do with brightness, does it automatically kick off the ECO? I have noticed a couple time with the ECO is off. Thanks in advance, Mike

Backlight adjustments will always disable the ECO.

Thanks nitra. I thought that might be the case.

Our new 60" ES8000 set was delivered yesterday. I used Nitra's settings in post #1877 for set up parameters and the PQ is outstanding. I also noticed Movie mode seems to be dull and grey. We are glad we got the 60" size rather than 55".

This set replaced an older 50" Samsung 720p DLP RPTV and the PQ of the new set is significantly better. However, the audio quality is worse. I know TV audio is no match for a sepeatrate system, and I am going to install a surround sound system for this TV, but the older DLP set was a satisfactory interim solution in terms of AQ while the new set is not. As a temporary solution, I borrowed a pair of stereo speakers and receiver from another room and am using that instead of the TV audio, so now the audio in this room is much better than with the former TV.

We watched Avatar, some HD movies on DirecTV, and a couple of BluRay concerts yesterday and with the improvement in both PQ and AQ we were impressed. Even older movies like You Only Live Twice had a lot of detail and looked much better than I expected.

One observation is that on the new set, some HD material looks a bit like it's video sourced rather than movie sourced. By comparison, I have a 71" Samsung 1080p DLP RPTV in the big system downstairs which was ISF professionally calibrated and movies on that look like they are movie sourced, not video.

Thanks
Bruce

Use standard mode right now, something in movie is broken.

It's possible you have motion interpolation enabled and what you're referring to could be the "soap opera effect", which can cause film-based material to look like video. Check under picture options>auto motion plus. If it is off you will get film-like motion. If it is enabled, choose "custom" and drop the judder reduction to 0 - the judder reduction is responsible for the motion interpolation. Some like that effect, and some don't. Personally I hate it for film-based material in general, but in some instances, I find it is useful.

Not sure if that's what you're noticing but that came to mind because it is often described as looking video-sourced when it is enabled.