Samsung F8000 -- 2013 Flagship Models - Page 35

Both the 60 and 65 should arrive sometime in May.

Wow CoolCoolCool!

Way to start with a wedgie and a swirly. Get ready for an IRS audit and some "nerd" hacking your Facebook.

If you happen to be from a country outside of the US, get ready for more taxes then.

And I agree...let the reviews BEGIN!!!

Eclipse, I wouldn't worry about it. By Black Friday, you will definitely know what issues to look for and will be able to tell if you have a keeper fairly quickly. Don't be shy about exchanging. Do it as many times as needed if it means ultimately getting one you like. Now, the big question is if BB will still be in business by Nov.

LMAO... Someone beat me to it

I was considering the F8000 but I won't use the gesture control or camera. Besides you guys seem
a little down it. I might look at the F7500, Sony W900a or Vizio's "affordable" Ultra HD.
I'm really looking forward to see what the W900 looks like but will have to wait until April.

Let's not forget that Robert from VE was the first to say how great the new displays were and some doubted him.

I wouldn't call CES glances reviews.



All measurements in Foot Lamberts, ANSI black is average off all black squares

F8000 MLL .0116 ES8000 .014 65VT50 .002 Sharp Elite .0004
F8000 ANSI Black .0145 ES8000 .0157 65VT50 .002 Sharp Elite .0055

If the US versions have the same numbers there is a slight improvement over 2012. If clouding and flashlighting are no longer present the F8000 will probably be a buy signal for a videophile who doesn't require off angle viewing.

I had some time to play around with the F8000 today and I will say it looks much better then it did when we first got it. Maybe it needed to break in, not sure, but def an improvement from last years model. Uniformity has improved and so has flash lighting, only noticeable on some scenes. While I am a fan of cinema black feature, if you have a movie that changes aspect ratio mid movie, like batman movies, the constant fluctuation of the lighting on the top and bottom is irritating. Luckily most movies are not like this so I shouldn't happen too often. Overall I would recommend over last years model, but I'll still stick to my plasma

nu02wrx, did you notice whether the Movie Mode allowed you to engage micro dimming?

I believe all settings I could change except motion lighting. But I will double check tomorrow for ya

Is there anything that looks like a setting that would allow CE-Dimming (auto dimming) to be disabled? People have been asking in the threads for years for the ability to disable the auto-dimming if desired. This is separate from the micro-dimming which of course we have no control over. To explain what I mean, in the C-series Samsung LEDs, there was a setting called "shadow detail": Here is the description of what it did:

"The Shadow detail option on the TV functions to automatically dim the TV for low light scenes to enhance the black levels. Because this dimming is automatic and based on the signal depending on how this option is set it can enhance or degrade the image.

Setting Shadow detail into the negative (-) direction makes the TV dim more for darker images.
Setting Shadow detail to 0 disables the auto dimming.
Setting Shadow detail into the possative (+) direction makes the TV brighten the darker images."


This page from Samsung describes how that setting could be changed in the menus:

https://support-us.samsung.com/cyber/popup/iframe/pop_troubleshooting_fr.jsp?idx=161759&modelname=UN46C9000ZF&modelcode=&session_id=NJ2H4hpMLRzlGdj4RzLXr0K8VYwppbvcSQyjslnTxmD1RWX8QFQq!640189940!1761676348!7501!-1!-944161233!1761676444!7501!-1!1296659975846

Last year they didn't give us this option, so we were forced to use full auto dimming whether we wanted it or not. I'm really hoping this year we get an option to disable it. It can be extremely annoying and at times can ruin a dark scene completely by over-dimming the whole screen - anything lighter in the scene dims as well, looking dimmer and muddy, then when the scene brightens the screen pops up to full brightness. I really hope this can be disabled.

Well after reading that AV review, I dunno. Same ol low contrast and almost same black level as last year. Gaming lag is high too :\
And there I was was thinking that I'd get an improvement over my D6500 lol Guess I was expecting too much from Samsung

Well, last year's ES series sets had no option whatsoever for any control over micro-dimming. And they told you nothing about when it is active and when it isn't. It turns out it is forced on in Standard, Dynamic, and Natural modes, and forced off in Movie mode, with no way to set it on or off. And there was nothing in the menus for it. It was just off no matter what in movie mode and we had no option.

The same for the auto-dimming (which some refer to as CE-dimming). Auto-dimming automatically dims the screen when the screen hits a certain threshold of darkness, to try and deepen the dark scenes, but the result is dimming whatever lighter parts are on the screen too. It was most noticeable during end credits of movies, where most of the screen was black, except for some small text - you would see auto-dimming kick in and make the black screen even darker, but the white or lighter text would dim to half it's brightness, looking muddy. That same thing would happen during night scenes, and space scenes,where you see a starscape - most of the screen is black so it's dimmed, but that makes the stars look dull instead of bright.

You could see the difference immediately in those types of scenes by going back and forth between movie mode and standard mode - movie mode lost it's deeper blacks, but the other objects in the screen (stars, credits, etc) were full brightness. Sadly, not a single review mentioned anything last year about movie mode not using micro-dimming. Samsung keeps a lot of these things to themselves.

You could "disable" auto-dimming by bumping the brightness up to around 50-60; the higher the brightness setting, the less the screen would auto-dim, until at some point it would just be essentially disabled. Setting the brightness super-high raised the threshold for when the screen's auto-dimming would kick in. Of course then the screen would look waaay to bright, so somebody in the thread figured out a trick: lower the offsets evenly under the white balance setting in the advanced menu - that would drop the brightness back down to compensate for the higher brightness setting - sort of cancelling out the higher brightness setting, and this would essentially disable auto-dimming because as long as the brightness was set at 50-60, auto dimming wouldn't kick in. It didn't take the offsets into account, so it was a neat way to "disable" the auto-dimming without actually having any setting to do that.

This was discussed in some detail for a while in the ES8000 thread, that's how we finally discovered it's forced off in movie mode and forced on in all other modes. I was hoping they would find a way to get the blacks deeper this year without the full-screen dimming. At least if we had control over that "feature" I would be happy.
Edited by eagle_2 - 3/8/13 at 10:09pm

The other review mentioned that the lag was low - around 37ms I think they said, and that it would make a descent gaming monitor.

trustedreviews:

"...and how little input lag it suffers with. We measured just 37ms, which is low enough to make the Samsung UE55F8000 an adequate gaming monitor."

avforums:

"We measured the input lag at 77ms in Game mode but found that renaming the input to PC reduced the lag to 41ms. Whilst we would prefer to see the lag lower, this is about average these days and certainly low enough for the casual gamers amongst us."

The problem is that last year, PC mode meant losing virtually all your image processing options, and most of the advanced settings too. Which was very unfortunate. And I did some gaming last year on my set in just game mode, and it was most certainly an improvement over regular viewing mode. The lag was too great in regular mode - way too laggy. But game mode was much better and my games were very playable, and I didn't notice any annoying lag. Nothing that would affect my game.

But this year according to avforums, it sounds like lag is higher. That's a shame if it's true. I didn't need to use pc mode last year for gaming - game mode was just fine. And game mode allowed most settings to be available, except AMP of course. I would have thought with the faster processor lag would be reduced, not increased. I definitely plan to game on the tv with my pc connected over HDMI like last year.
Edited by eagle_2 - 3/8/13 at 10:08pm

Guess lag can't be lower because of all the processing that's going this year. Microdimming + Cinema Black and other things. I really never saw trusted reviews as professional as avs/av flatpanelshd or hdtvtest. Because they most likely sound like PR to me
Only real reviews will be user reviews, time will tell if it's a flop or a great set. After reading all the threads about plasma issues and it's pink blotches, I probably will be getting one of this sets if it's band/dse free

p.s. Never liked Game mode myself, but some games are almost unplayable without it

From the F8000 AVforums review:

"The smooth motion handling and lack of judder or flicker were also impressive but the motion was a little too smooth. There was clearly some frame interpolation going on, even with turned it off and whilst most won't notice it and many will like the effect, as purists we would prefer the option to completely turn it off."

"Our feedback for Samsung

It appears that there is some frame interpolation in 3D mode that can't be turned off"

This has me worried. Very worried actually. Last year having AMP set to off meant off - no motion interpolation. No soap opera effect. And that was the same in 2D and 3D. If this is true, and even with AMP off there is some motion smoothing (soap opera effect), I'm ruling this set out right now. Both myself and my girlfriend hate that effect, and there is only a very small amount of material we would want to use it on (for general tv viewing it is sometimes okay, but never ever for blu-rays or DVDs).

I really, really hope this isn't the case. Why would Samsung force motion smoothing when last year the motion was excellent. In fact CNET praised the ES8000 last year for having perfect 24Hz cadence with zero motion smoothing:

"First and most important, it delivers the correct cadence for 1080p/24 film-based material, namely when Auto Motion Plus (AMP) is set to either Off or Custom with a 0 on the "judder reduction" slider. Other AMP settings affected film cadence negatively to my eye; Clear showed the slightly halting cadence of 2:3 pull-down, which is still preferable to the buttery smoothness of Standard and the buttery-while-listening-to-Kenny G smoothness of Smooth."

Motion was perfect in 2D and 3D last year. If that has changed, I'm giving up now. I'll be waiting to hear what others, including CNET, have to say about the motion. This is a European review so perhaps the motion is different with their 50Hz sets vs our 60Hz?

Does the 200Hz native and high clear motion rating mean there's always some motion interpolation going on? I can't believe Samsung would go from perfect 24Hz cadence last year to forced motion smoothing this year, even if it is only in 3D mode. CNET will certainly mention this if it's true.
Edited by eagle_2 - 3/8/13 at 11:11pm

Yeah, if the lag really is that high on this set, that's going to be an issue for me. I definitely will be factoring gaming into my decision here. Last year I could game fine in game mode, so I was assuming with the better processor this year it could only get better.

The review states that movie mode "is designed to approximate industry standards and thus it should offer the most accurate out-of-the-box setting". Yet as we discovered last year movie mode doesn't even use micro-dimming. I was actually told this myself by a Samsung rep after inquiring about it - others received the same confirmation in the ES8000 thread.

Yet this review refers to the micro-dimming ultimate working wonders, after they said they were using movie mode. So very confusing.

That's what has caused so much confusion in there - Samsung presses the importance of its micro-dimming, but then it wasn't even functioning in movie mode last year, which we're then told should offer the best, most accurate image. Very confusing. If anybody over the next few weeks can find out more about this it would be very helpful to all of us.

They also say that setting AMP to clear smooths out film judder without losing the film effect. I'm very surprised that they can't see the mild soap opera effect that clear introduces, because both my girlfrind and I both dislike even clear when watching films because even on clear we notice the soap opera effect with clear. How can they not notice it when they're experts? Clear does not retain correct 24p cadence.
Edited by eagle_2 - 3/8/13 at 11:06pm

I just opened one up to put on display in my store. Indeed, I can confirm they only give you the smart remote. The 2013 smart remote is about 3/4 the size of last year's and IMO is much easier to use.

Picture quality looked very good. Under the bright store lights I wasn't able to notice any flashlighting. I tried natural and movie and they both looked great. If I recall, micro dimming control (smart LED) was adjustable in movie mode. 3D looked incredible on it.

I stopped at my local BB last night on my way home from work (Baton Rouge, LA). They received the 55F8000 Thursday night and had just set it up a couple of hours before I got there. The PQ looked very good. The salesman said that they had not had a chance to calibrate it yet, so once that was done it would look even better. There was a short camera angle on the movie that was playing that made it look like it might have had some flashlighting in the lower right hand corner. It lasted about a second and I kept waiting to see it again, and I never did. I'm not sure if it was the movie, or the angle I was looking at the tv on, or what, but that was the only time I saw it in about 15 minutes of looking at the tv. As far as pricing goes, BB had it at the same price that Amazon shows as the list price.

Looks like we finally have a definitive answer.

Why would Samsung give 2 remotes in Europe and only 1 in America? This makes zero sense, especially since it's confirmed that the standard remote does work?

Since the other 2 reviews indicated that you got 2 remotes, I am sure that you can order one from them since they are obviously still being produced.

Actually looks like big improvements made in uniformity, the biggest roblem with the sets the previous few yrs.

How was picture compared to lets say ES8000? Especially blacks - any improvement over last year?

Just a long shot but I was wondering, since Samsung just yesterday told me that the sets aren't even shipping yet or in stores, and since the few stores that seem to be getting one are just getting a single one for display, I'm wondering if Samsung is maybe shipping these few out in advance, knowing they're only meant for display, and therefore not including all the extras?

To those who got them in your store - did it include the additional IR blaster for controlling other devices? The reviews say you get one of those like last year, only it's smaller this time. But that wouldn't be needed just for display purposes. Did you guys get that in the box? Maybe they're only packaging what's necessary for display purposes?

I agree. It was a very strange decision not to include it. Given how little Samsung's actual cost for the remote must be, it seems insignificant compared to the overall cost of the set.

If you look at the photo of the back of the set in this review, there is clearly a jack labeled "IR OUT" ...

http://www.avforums.com/reviews/Samsung-UE-F8000-55F8000-55-47F800-47-75F8000-75-Inch-3D-LED-LCD-Smart-TV-Review_491/Review.html

It seems from what I've seen & read, if you're expecting the 'pop' the E8000 gave you, then you might be disappointed. Other than that, it seems clear that substantial improvements have been made.

anyone notice that Amazon now has them in stock! Matched Beach Camera's price.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-UN55F8000-55-Inch-1080p-240Hz/dp/B00BCGRLUI/