Official Samsung PNXXE7000 - PNXXE8000 owners thread - Page 58

Yeah.

Anyone, who did thorough research, didn't buy a 2012 Samsung for the blacks.

It is widely known, by those who follow these sort of forums and the shootout, that Samsung failed to advance their tech where blacks are concerned. They failed to fix, or advance, several things that weren't right with last year's models.

So what glasses did you use to watch 3D on the ST50 (sorry if you've already answered and I missed it)?

Could you elaborate on what they failed to fix? Both floating blacks in 60Hz and 96Hz modes were fixed. I agree they did not advance baseline mll by much, 20% improvement at most.

Well I wholeheartedly agree with you there. They were too busy working on their hand gestures and voice recognition. Yay!

I only used the supplied Panasonic glasses with the ST50 - Best Buy included 2 pairs of the new glasses as part of a deal they were running.

I noticed they did fix the fluctuating brightness at least during dark scenes, though as CNET noted, I think they are sometimes still present during 3D viewing. I've noticed it a few times but nothing too major yet though I haven't watched a full movie in 3D yet on it.

Floating or Fluctuating?

In case there's anybody who is interested in seeing Samsung look at this issue, they called me as a follow up, and connected me to a tier 2 rep. I explained the issue to her, and read her the relevant part of CNET's review where it's mentioned. She said she noticed that I have owned several Samsung products including last year's D7000 and blu-ray player, and said she will escalate the issue to their next department and investigate the problem further.

By the way, I watched that segment of the HDTV shootout sheshechic linked to between 5-9 minutes in, where they talk about 0% black. It just reinforces what I'm saying. They thought it was on 0% black but it wasn't at first and once they switch to 0% black the E8000 immediately switched off the screen. Then the following exchange:

"Why is the E8000 off?"

"Because it turns itself off when it's full black"

(loud laughter in the room)

"And we thought that was an LED trick"

Somebody (I'm assuming maybe Samsung) then goes into explaining how when it gets fed a black screen it turns off the screen and when it gets a single pixel on it turns the screen back on again.

That's what I've been saying all along. It's built by Samsung to do this but it shouldn't as none of the other plasmas do. It's goofy and it shouldn't kick in so quickly that it affects your regular viewing. And as I've said it isn't always so nice and neat - often it flickers and can't decide if it should be on or off.
Edited by eagle_2 - 6/8/12 at 2:50pm

The 2011 sets never had a fluctuating black problem (believe me I'm an expert in this area). The blacks float on 2011 sets, either quickly (called pops) or smoothly (if you have applied a logic board firmware update). This behavior has been eliminated in 2012 models in 2d mode, I can't comment on 3d mode as I never use it. The 2nd problem with cinema smooth (96Hz) black float was eliminated as well so one could assume it was related to the first problem.

So to summarize the differences between 2011/2012 models that have been established to date are:

1. Floating blacks eliminated.
2. Cinema smooth fixed.
3. Black levels improved ~20%
4. Peak white has been degraded 10-15% (maybe a trade-off because of 1?)

I think you are a fan of panasonic (which is fine) and I agree that they did make bigger strides this year. They fixed some color issues and had a much more dramatic improvement in contrast by both reducing blacks by more than a factor of 2 and increasing efficiency of the entire display chain to achieve higher full field peak whites than samsung can obtain. Stick to the facts and that way people get a fair assessment of the differences between the two brands.

My PN60e8000 is on the way as a replacement for my 58c8000 from samsung. I have spent some time reading through this thread but cannot seem to find Chad's calibration settings. (I would rather use his than CNET's)

Can any of you post the calibration settings or post a linky?

Also, this is just a starting point as I will be utilizing the free calibration posted early in the thread.


Much appreciated.

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-19410_102-561058/samsung-pn60e8000-picture-settings
here you go i also have a PN60E8000 and love it

Not sure if anybody remembers but I mentioned back when I started breaking in my E8000 that it appeared to randomly stutter when I changed cable channels sometimes. Well I mentioned that I got a brand new FIOS box with larger capacity and a newly designed case. Well tonight my girlfriend and I tuned into a Cinemax channel for a bit and noticed the image was extremely choppy - almost like stop-motion it was so bad. I changed channels and then went back to that one again, and though the other Cinemax channels looked fine, that channel was still choppy. We shut down the FIOS box, waited a minute, and restarted it, and then the channel was fine. I believe now, after seeing that, the FIOS boxes are to blame for the random stuttering we've been noticing with the E8000. For some reason the older and even the newest FIOS boxes just seem glitchy. The box also crashed twice on us while watching an on-demand title, forcing us to start it over again. A restart of the FIOS box seems to reset it. So after experiencing those issues it does seem like the box is to blame, so I guess the tv's off the hook for that one.
Edited by eagle_2 - 6/8/12 at 9:06pm

@eagle_2:

Ok, I'm going to throw myself on the proverbial grenade for you. I'm going to force myself to watch 10 minutes of the Watchmen. I swore after seeing that movie once I'd never do so again. If I survive the experience, I'll post my observations.

I did watch the two videos you posted on my PC -- and honestly, I can't tell anything from them one way or the other.

Regarding your service techician, what you are seeing there is either a) someone making a change to get paid for it whether it is necessary or not, or b) Samsung placating you. Sharks are always happy when swimmers arrive -- because they get to eat.

Regarding your brightness setting... don't take this the wrong way, because I believe that personal preference trumps all, but why would you set your brightness to a lower value that the test patterns indicate you should? You can argue until the cows come home about color balance or other arcane topics, but brighteness is pretty straight-forward as settings go -- its is either correct or not correct. If you set it too low, you lose shadow detail -- and considering how much you are paying for picture quality, it just seems that losing detail defeats the whole purpose. Consider this scenario; when my wife and I are driving down the highway with all of the windows open our car suffers from wind buffeting. Care to guess what the manual says about that? Close the damn windows. I'm sure Dodge is (probably) capable of eliminating that problem but I'm also sure they don't care to do so -- because they expect people to use the product the way it is intended to be used.

You mentioned you would try setting your brightness correctly -- what was the result of that?

Anyway, I'm off to make my eyes bleed watching as little of the Watchmen as humanly possible. I sincerely hope I see the problem immediately.

Chad B does not post his settings, just a review and calibration reports.

Too funny about your comment on Watchmen.

I tend to agree about your ideas about the technician. It's so strange how he was so certain it sounded like it was intentional behavior, though maybe undesired (which I agree with, and think it's obvious after seeing it discussed during the shootout), then turn around and want to swap the board out with no explanation as to why he thought it would make a difference.

Regarding your question of why I'd purposely set my brightness lower than the test patterns indicate - let me emphasize that I have not yet had a chance to use the AVS test disc I have. I spent around 10 days breaking in the set, at 50% contrast/brightness, then I was anxious to see how the set looked so I quickly threw in CNET's settings for a start, just to get through the weekend and enjoy the tv a bit. I had intended later to use the AVS disc and dial in the settings more accurately, but when I started to see the screen turning off I became concerned, and started focusing on that issue. I had no reason at that point to think that a few clicks one direction or the other in brightness would affect the screen turning off. Why would I? It wasn't an issue with the D7000 and it wasn't an issue with the ST50, so why would I know how to deal with this here when I encountered it? So I started reading in here and elsewhere and realized that I'm not the only one having the issue and that bumping up the brightness can overcome it.

So it's not that I am purposely setting my brightness too high or too low against my AVS disc, I just haven't had the time yet to use the disc to find the proper settings. Again, people have been a little sharp with me and quick to accuse me of setting my tv wrong so it's my fault that the tv is acting like this, but really, why would I know that brightness would affect this until I got a chance to play around with it? All I knew was the screen was turning off and I was concerned because the D7000 never did that. When I first threw in CNET's settings into the D7000 I'm sure it wasn't perfect either until I tweaked it with the AVS disc, but the screen never turned off on me just because the settings weren't perfect. The screen shouldn't be turning off so quickly just because of a few clicks in one direction or the other in brightness. The tv should be waiting a bit before blanking out the screen, to accommodate credits, film fades, commercial fades, etc. - that's the bottom line.

I do plan on using the AVS disc and I will report back how it affects things for me. Thanks for putting yourself through the pain for me and giving the Watchmen a look. I do appreciate it.

Ok, so here is what I found:

1) If I deliberately set my brightness to a low value (42) and therefore cause excessive black crush, I do see what eagle_2 is seeing during the Watchmen. It is immediately apparent during the fade-to-black sections between each of the group photograph scenes which are shown after buddy gets thrown at a window. I even saw one fade where the screen went off, then on, then off, then on in rapid succession.

2) If I raise my brightness to a more correct setting (46, though I haven't actually run the test pattern yet so I can't say for sure whether that itself is even too low) then the issue goes away completely.

I don't think you can hold the TV accountable eagle_2. This is user error, plain and simple. If I leave my windows open because I like a nice breeze, I can't complain to the people that make my air conditioner that my home isn't pleasantly cool. Yes, it would be nice if the air conditioner was so good that it could acommodate my tastes, but they didn't build it that way and its not fair for me to expect it to behave that way.

Don't get me wrong, though -- you'd have a valid argument if you had to set the brightness to a higher value than the test pattern indicates is optimal. Try that and see what your experience is.

Also bear in mind, I'd be happy if Samsung simply provided an option to disable that behaviour entirely -- but I certainly wouldn't be bitter if they didn't. Set your settings correctly and you'll be a happier camper, I think.

Thanks for checking out the video. I really do appreciate it. Still, I'm shocked how everybody in here wants to call it user error!!!

Seriously, user error? Then since I don't know how to use my tv, why did the D7000 not do this? Why did the ST50 not do this?

I've never, ever heard of a plasma that turns its screen off or even worse flickers back and forth just because the user, for whatever reason, has the brightness set a tad bit high or low. I'm simply amazed that people in here are okay with this. Just amazed. My brightness is set at 46 and it flickers wildly or shuts off regularly. As I said, I'll use the AVS disc and see what number I end up with. Nevertheless, this is ridiculous behavior for a plasma and I'm just amazed that so many are defending the tv and blaming the user for setting his/her tv the way he/she prefers. Users should not be penalized just because their set is not dialed in perfectly according to a test disc.

Let me ask this: How many people who buy one of these sets end up in here? I'm willing to guess that most people who buy a plasma do not even know of this forum, or don't read it regularly. Most users walk into a store, ask a few questions, and buy a tv. The other day I heard somebody in Best Buy ask a sales person about tvs, and within minutes seemed interested in asking more about plasmas even though he started asking about LCDs. Is he going to come in here to read about how to optimally set the tv? Possibly, but likely no.

Most people buy a tv, LCD or plasma, and go home and watch it. They may make some basic setting adjustments, or even just use a built-in preset, and leave it at that. I know the mere thought of that must make you all squirm in your seats, and it does me too actually - I could never do that. But that's how people use their tvs. To think that so many people might encounter this "feature" where the screen turns off, just because they don't know how to perfectly tune their tv, is a shame. And don't blame the average user for being ignorant or not doing research, etc. - my girlfriend's folks bought an LCD last year and if it wasn't for me they would be watching a preset mode. They have had only experience with a CRT their whole life - now what if they had bought this set because the sales guy swayed them over to it and they went for it? They would have no previous experience or reason to think that if it's not perfectly calibrated then one wrong click too dark would mean the set behaving this way.

It's unnecessary behavior and unfair to blame users for their settings when my settings are very well within what I believe to be acceptable quality. I am very picky about my image quality and though I admit this isn't set up perfect yet, it looks very very nice, and I'm pretty frustrated to keep hearing how it's all my fault for my lousy settings. You are acting like my brightness is on 10 for crying out loud. I'm only 2 clicks away from what others here are mentioning. Two. That my set can look this nice with the numbers the way they are, and to have people say that it's my settings that are so far off that it's my fault, I just don't know what else to say.

Thanks again for torturing yourself with Watchmen and reporting back. Thanks for verifying what you saw. I'm just surprised that people in here expect the average user to know that they need to get their settings this perfect to avoid this behavior. You should be able to buy this set, take it home, adjust it to your liking, and enjoy it, without it turning off the screen like it does. I do very much agree that proper adjustment is really necessary to get the best out of these sets. But for those who just buy it and enjoy it, they shouldn't be affected by this "feature".

Thanks! I will use this as a starting point. Sheshechic, I could swear I had someones calibration done by chad copied in the C8000 but I guess I was mistaken.

thanks for posting this your explaination it's very accurate. i would like to know what viewing mode you are in? movie, dynamic, standard, or relaxed. i personally switch between standard and movie mode. does this shut off thing happen more in one mode more than another????

I'm in movie mode, with CinemaSmooth turned on and playback set to 24p on the source (Playstation 3).

@eagle_2: I get where you are coming from -- but I have to say that the sort of people who just take their TV home and use it with one of the default presets are probably the sort of people who aren't going to be terribly bothered by the panel turning off/on occassionally during fades to black. Also, the value at which the bahviour stopped was 46 for me, which is the default brightness for movie mode so odds are that they won't see the issue at all. Frankly, those people will be a lot more bothered by the very annoying "Eco" mode constantly changing the brightness since that option is on by default. I actually am very curious what your test disc says the correct brightness for your TV is -- because if you have to set the brightness higher than the test pattern suggests, that would definitely be a problem.

Well I'm going to be out today, hopefully seeing Prometheus if I'm lucky, but if I get a chance this evening, I'll try to pop in the AVS disc. If not this evening then hopefully tomorrow.

I see where you're coming from, but my brightness wasn't as low as 42 to crush the blacks like that - it was actually 1 step brighter than CNET listed so it seems to me even though the set isn't calibrated perfectly, it's still not anywhere close to completely crushing black levels. And again I re-iterate, and my girlfriend agrees - it shouldn't matter what I set it at. Even if I am crushing blacks - the tv shouldn't be turning off the screen. Why is that acceptable under any circumstance? Last year on the D7000 I could set the brightness to 30 if I wanted and it still wouldn't do that, and neither would the ST50. This is not user error - this not proper behavior for a plasma.
Edited by eagle_2 - 6/9/12 at 10:48am

Trying to use identical setting "numbers" from set to set is problematical as well. Maybe if the Samsung folk had talked to you first and your desire to use particular setting numbers they would have done something differently.

Zoyd, can you elaborate if this is the larger panels (60" and 64") or strictly the 6500/7000/8000 series? I have the 51E550 and it DEFINITELY has floating blacks, but the E550 also shares the same firmware as the E6500 so I would think they would have virtually the same picture quality. As is well known, 50/51" Samsung panels have routinely higher mlls than their larger counterparts, so could the floating blacks be related to panel size as well?

I had Adrian S measure a couple of different test patterns on his E6500 and his measurements indicated no black rise on that panel. I'm not sure what size panel he had but the D series showed it in every size only less noticeable in 51" due to the higher baseline mll. As far as the E550 you'd have to measure or find someone else who has one and can measure it to confirm.

In my country i could get 60E6500 for 2000€ or 64D8000 for 2300€. Which one would you guys get? Im leaning toward the 64D8000. I love my 51D555, but i want bigger pictrue with better antiglare. Also do you guys know if new build D8000's have different(worse) real black filter than the older ones?

i have a PN60E8000 i personally will not settle for anything less than the best and the price is not that diff here is the U.S. like 3 or 4 hundred dollars

Thanks, it's comments like this that are so very helpful.

Yeah well 64E8000 would cost 3000€, so 700€ more than 64D8000. NO 60E8000 here. Differences between D8000 and E8000 seems subtle:

E8000

+ Little better blacks
+ nicer remote
+ touchpad remote
+ more unnessesary features
- dimmer picture
- less accurate colors

So yes E8000 has little better blacks, but less punchy colors? Ambient backlight will kill the mll difference. D8000 should be better in brighter rooms too.

this honestly has me a bit nervous, I am waiting on my e8000. It is replacing a c8000 and I honestly thought the only bad thing about the c8000 was the dim performance in lit rooms. Lots of comments via D series vs. E series but how about the dimness C vs. E (brightness)??? Any thoughts?

Well for the money spent the 60E7000 I have doesn't have good enough black levels. It mainly bothers me on black bars on movies. I guess it's back to my old 58C550 which has poor blacks but was cheap when i bought it. I guess no new set this year. I have already returned panny 60GT50 due to the less than sharp picture and poor performance with satellite. Oh well.

I have a PN60E8000 and i have a PN50C7000 ok so watching them in the day the e8000 is better then the c7000. Viewing at night they are amazing.during the afternoon that is one time of day just before sun set when the sun will shine into the room right on the set. My c7000 use to be in this spot where my new e8000 sits now. The sun shineing in on the c7000 was horrible but the e8000 is much better. but again the best viewing time is at night in my opinion. SO I DON'T THINK YOU NEED TO WORRY. this tv is amazing. mine has no buzz or humm i love it

i have a pn60e8000 the blacks are great my black bars are black matter a fact i love watching those black bars so much that i forget about the movie just kidding LOL
BUT MY BLACKS ARE BLACK are yours a grayish black???? please explain