Official Samsung UNxxES8000 Owner's Thread - Page 312

Originally Posted by thebignewt 

Good point. I keep mine in Standard, with Eco automatic backlight between 10-20. I can't notice the TV brightness changing suddenly nor any distracting variations in anything. Either it doesn't work or it does its thing pretty subtley (as it should be).

Originally Posted by mo949 

yay! new tv just got here. Zero buzzing and flawless uniformity across the screen!
btw, you normally just SEE them unveiled in march and its not that long to wait for serious savings when the price drops on the current line. I just got my new vt50 $700 cheaper than if I had bought it in october like my es.

Originally Posted by mo949 

yay! new tv just got here. Zero buzzing and flawless uniformity across the screen!
btw, you normally just SEE them unveiled in march and its not that long to wait for serious savings when the price drops on the current line. I just got my new vt50 $700 cheaper than if I had bought it in october like my es.

Originally Posted by Ricoflashback 

Are you on to something here? Does the Eco setting disable dimming in "Standard" mode when you have it at 10-20? A quick test - - when watching a movie and if you stick around long enough for the credits at the end, does the picture get perceivably darker?
If you set your Eco setting minimum to what you want your "Backlight" to be all the time - - does that affect dimming?

Originally Posted by thebignewt 

Good point. I keep mine in Standard, with Eco automatic backlight between 10-20. I can't notice the TV brightness changing suddenly nor any distracting variations in anything. Either it doesn't work or it does its thing pretty subtley (as it should be).

Originally Posted by thebignewt 

I dunno. We find that we like the BL way up during the day and for a lot of programming, so it's at 20. Someone said that turning the Eco thing on is a good idea, to dim things at night. But I didn't set it to 5 because we use the 3D glasses and that might be too dark. I set it at 10 and I can't say that I have ever noticed sudden/distracting changes in brightness that people have commented on.

Originally Posted by thebignewt 

I dunno. We find that we like the BL way up during the day and for a lot of programming, so it's at 20. Someone said that turning the Eco thing on is a good idea, to dim things at night. But I didn't set it to 5 because we use the 3D glasses and that might be too dark. I set it at 10 and I can't say that I have ever noticed sudden/distracting changes in brightness that people have commented on.

Originally Posted by Garnoch 

Not sure we're talking about the same thing, but are you saying your Eco sensor really isn't changing your backlight? I ask because mine hasn't worked since not long after the last FW update.

Originally Posted by Jestered 

The eco thing is really pretty simple. The brightness setting is set to the highest you want the backlight to be in a bright room. The minimum eco setting is set to the lowest you want the backlight to be used at in a dimly lit room. The TV will then adjust between those two parameters based on the amount of ambient light in the room throughout the day/night. It works very well too.
Regarding 3D it doesn't really matter because once you go into 3D mode you switch over to completely different settings. You are not using any of your normal non-3D settings when the TV switches to 3D mode. So, you could set those up differently based on how you want things to work. For example, you can have the eco stuff turned on with whatever max and minimum settings in normal viewing mode, but not have the eco stuff enabled at all in 3D mode.
I'm not trying to get you to change your settings or anything. I'm simply letting you know that you can set up the eco settings in normal mode and it has nothing to do with 3D mode. Just in case you want to mess around with those settings again...

Originally Posted by Garnoch 

Congrats, Mo! And thanks for keeping us updated, man. I hope you stay pleased.

Originally Posted by thebignewt 

Maybe BL at 10 at night is like BL 20 in daylight.

Originally Posted by mo949 

definitely pleased i can stop playing panel lotto Very liberating to not be behind 5 huge bars.
this thing is certainly an uglier tv on the outside though, which the wife hates already, but the picture looks right even to her. Funny enough it was scary since the tv starts in 'standard' mode. So panasonic has a problem with the tv's energy ratings and in order to get it to be as low a yearly cost as advertised it has to be in standard. The picture looked dull and lifeless just like everyone had said. BUT as soon as I enabled the THX viewing modes that up the power consumption the picture got just as punchy as if i had my es on backlight of 9, so very pleased by that revelation. Also noticed that whites actually looked perfectly white out of the box and all the flesh tones look natural.
So Turboman123, if you are reading, I think you are right about the THX modes basically being a good picture out of the box.

Originally Posted by Garnoch 

This is very possible but easily checked by bumping the backlight 1 point down while the room is dark. If it gets brighter, you know Eco was doing it job. .

Originally Posted by Ricoflashback 

Chris - ever since I put a "dish heater" on my Directv satellite, I haven't had any problems with weather issues (especially with snow here in Colorado.) I don't have to climb up on the roof anymore and fall on my keester.
Besides great audio (really a profound update over cable), I find Directv is a much better video signal than my previous cable provider - Comcast. We have two HDTV's in the house with two recorders - - and Comcast had serious bandwidth & compression issues for HDTV and VOD. Plus - - they're a major pain in the ass to deal with and they never showed up for two appts. a couple years ago and that sealed their fate.
Directv also has NFL ticket - - if you're into football AND three or four 3D channels - - I know this isn't a priority for you based on your previous posts, but 3D is very cool once you start watching it.

Originally Posted by thebignewt 

You lost me. I think in order to see if the Eco is working you must turn down the minimum BL setting in a dark room and the picture should get dimmer, because in a dark room the TV will drift darker toward the minimum setting if Eco is working. I mean you could set it at 1 and really tell if it works. You'd have to have a cave though. Bolt, you wanna try this in the cave dude?

Originally Posted by Garnoch 

You're correct and you said you already have it set up like that but are unsure if it's working, so what I meant was that being you have it set up already, you can easily test if it's working if your room is dark and you bump the regular backlight down one, you would actually see the screen brighten because the Eco was activated before you bumped the backlight down. Sorry, TBN, I know it's probably easier to show what I mean than type it.

Originally Posted by chrisjmccord 

Rico, I can't put a dish heater on mine and melt away cloud coverages and storms etc...the issues here in OK are that when severe weather comes, a lot of dishes have trouble getting a signal, and the buried cable stuff is ok up to the point a storm takes out the entire electricity. So I need to have my weather on up till that point, and the dish just doesn't do so well. I am into football and sports and not yet but I'm sure the 3D will be popular to me as well, but I just can't get a dish unless I move out into the sticks and its my best choice. I have to stick with AT&T or COX, which right now I choose AT&T. The best I can do...thanks for your input. Love it up there in CO.

Originally Posted by Jestered 

I know what you're trying to say Garnoch and it is kind of hard to explain. If the Eco is active and working, and you are in a dark room, the screen will be darker than what the backlight setting is set to (because Eco is working and darkening the backlight). You can then bump the backlight setting down one, which will force the TV to temporarily ignore the Eco setting so you can see how you are actually setting the backlight. If the Eco is working, the backlight will brighten back to normal level even if you're actually turning it down. You can do the same thing by bumping the backlight up one, but that's going to brighten the screen if the Eco is working or not, which will make it harder to tell if it's working, so the best way to test it is to bump it down. If it brightens in a dark room by knocking the brightness down, then you know Eco is working. If the brightness darkens, then Eco is not working. Sorry if I made more of a mess of the explanation.

Originally Posted by Ricoflashback 

Makes sense - - besides, a whole house generator doesn't sound cost effective at this point. Do you have a bundled service? If so, how high is the speed of your Internet?
I always wondered with cable companies if you signed up for a higher package (transfer rate - mbps) - whether that affects TV transmission or not. And I do not know if your provider is fiber optic or plain old cable, so to speak.
You'll like 3D - once you get a couple discs and watch it with your family. Avatar is still tops for me - - best 3D experience so far.

Originally Posted by chrisjmccord 

Ok, so just something I have to get used to and learn to live with, now that I know more. Gotcha. Its probably the same with most other services? Cox? Comcast? Dish/DirectTV?

Originally Posted by Garnoch 

RicoFB, after Hurricane Sandy, I'm actually looking into a whole house generator. Even if I never use it, I don't think I can take a change on ever losing electricity for 11 days again.
That being said, in my area, I use to randomly lose cable all the time. People around me still do, but I lose DirecTV for maybe 10 minutes a year. more than clouds, just make sure no tree are in the way. Everyone around me always wonder why I have TV when they don't. Even with Hurricane Sandy, I didn't lose TV until the power went out. Snow on the dish is a different story, but that only temporarily effected me once in 8 years.

Originally Posted by jamest26 

Has anyone successfully configured the smart touch control. One thing I'm wondering is whether my devices need to be directly connected to the main source on TV. Currently I have only one HDMI connected to HDMI 2 in the TV. I'm using an Onkyo receiver to do all the switching (stb, blu ray player, ps3). I saw a video about the setup and it asks for a source for each device. Do I need to rewire everything or can set it up as is?

Originally Posted by Ricoflashback 

Wow - I didn't know you were without electricity for that long. I've looked into a system and it's very doable. You have to limit what you can supply power for, but I'd like my next place to have backup power - - even if it's in Mexico!
Plus - - with our Sammy sets, we could be the envy of everyone in a storm - - power, heat, fan, HDTV, cold beer and ice cubes for the Jack! I'm sure I could turn off the sound system as long as I had a signal.

Originally Posted by Needis 

Ahh... so thats what what ive been seeing. Its happen 3-4 times...flickering. its the smart hub.

Originally Posted by Jestered 

Yep! Unfortunately for me, I have my URC remote setup to turn on the TV, then the AVR, set the TV to HDMI 2 and put the AVR on DirecTV. The problem is about 2 minutes after everything powers up, the Smart Hub flash causes my AVR to go into ARC mode and sit there with a black screen and no audio. This really throws off my wife and she can never get it back, even though I told her all she has to do is hold down the "Sat" button on the URC remote and it will put everything back. It never seems to work for her though. It works for me every single time, but it never works for her.