Samsung F8000 -- 2013 Flagship Models - Page 58

I can say that after two months the IR'd Oppo logo was still visible on the break on slides, so who knows if it would have ever truly disappeared, but suffice to say I was very annoyed that it was still there after two months.

That is crazy. I have had 3 panasonic plasmas from px60 through g25 and have never had problems with IR. On my last one, a 50" g25, I played about 300 hours of diablo3 on it shortly after I got the TV. No break-in slides, or babying the TV at all. I did see some IR on test patterns but never anything that I could see while watching actual content.

What ultimately got me to abandon plasma was the dithering effect. Not so much that the dithering itself is a bad idea, but when it got it wrong and randomly had some yellow or blue or purple or whatever dithered into a dark shadow just looked wrong to me and I decided to go check out LED/LCD instead.

It is weird that our experiences are so different.

Why is the Oppo logo so prone to IR? Doesn't the player have a screen saver? For what they charge, it certainly should.

It is a large bright white logo against an all black background. Yes, screen saver kicks in like 15 minutes or so after non use. I was still under 100 hours when it happened as I forgot to press play when running the beak in slides... But regardless IR certainly still remains an issue.

It does have a screen-saver, but it may not be on by default, and/or it may have been set to come on after too long a period. It is white and centered in the middle of the screen which might explain its higher visibility compared to a station logo in the bottom right or a thin ticker at the top of the screen.

Why on Earth would they use such a high contrast logo? That seems like a very poor design decision.

My Oppo screensaver kicks in after a few minutes. Doesn't stay in one place. Kind of bounces around the screen like the old pong video games

Interesting. Is it possible we are talking about different generation Oppos? I have a 103 that I haven't even taken out of the box yet. I bought it in anticipation of getting a new TV soon. I hope the screen saver on mine kicks in quickly like on yours.

the logo BEFORE the screensaver kicks in is large and white and centered, once the screensaver kicks in the logo goes smaller and moves around the screen on my 105. I'd have to double check to be sure, but I believe you can set the delay before it comes on.

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/samsung-ue55f8000-201303212755.htm

A review of the F8000 european model. Pay attention to this words..."One last thing: the American version of the 2013 Samsung Series 8 LED LCD television is advertised as having another feature, on top of “Micro Dimming Ultimate”, called “Precision Black Local Dimming”. We should point out now that this is our own research, and that Samsung UK has never mentioned such a feature. However, we live in the age of the world wide web (obviously if you’re reading this), and this has led to European buyers wondering if they’re being short-changed given that no mention of it is made in Europe. To clear up some of the confusion: neither the American model nor the European versions feature a fully local dimmable backlight array. European buyers are not being short-changed in this way: they are all edge LED TV displays. Samsung’s US site claims that the mysterious feature “produces a much greater increase in contrast and black levels by dimming LEDs behind dark areas of the picture thus making blacks darker without affecting brighter elements of the picture”.

Our first instinct upon reading this is, “How?”. It seems impossible to provide any hugely useful degree of localised backlight control without actually having a matrix of LED clusters behind the LCD module. Attempting it without this hardware would likely result in other side-effects, so even if there was such a feature, we would likely end up disabling it anyway. So, as far as we can ascertain from behind our desks, European F8000 buyers should feel no remorse"

I'm not sure why you say the plasma prices are higher this year/ According to the prices you listed, you can get the 51" 8500 plasma for the same price as the 46" 8000 LCD. The 60" does look a bit more expensive.

Mark I think there must be different ways that full array back lit LD is implemented. I certainly get the notion of overlapping circles, but a zone counting demo I saw was very obviously non overlapping squares. Can't recall the set unfortunately. It was a few years ago. Maybe the Samsung B8500 or whatever that model was (?)

Btw I could quibble too whether circles which overlap qualify as "local." After all, once light 'strays' into another circle it's no longer local only to its home zone. Again, semantics, but personally I think you are overly harsh on the application of the word to edge lit sets.

Regardless, I'm very much looking forward to seeing the 75" 8000 in action.

Hi everybody, here you go another review of the F8000 ( European version ), but only pay attention if samsung could get rid of clouding ... http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/samsung-ue55f8000-201303212755.htm . Sorry , It seems agustin_alonso and me were talking to u at the same time .
Edited by AGUSTINFOREVER - 3/21/13 at 10:44am

Curious as to whether or not you guys have ever read up on the technology behind (or more aptly, in front of) Amazon's paper white technology. As I understand it in laymans terms, it's edge lit from a single side, into a layer (above the text layer) of light directors that then aim the light down onto the screen and text, providing a rough approximation of a direct light source (ie reading a paper book with a lamp shining on it).

From the side, this layer of light directors looks like a a zig zag line where the angle of the zags gets steeper the further away from the light source it is. It's easy to understand if you think of the zags as mirrors that reflect the light down onto the text layer. It works surprisingly well IMO.

Anyway, I remember when I read about it it occurred me that some form of this could conceivably be applied to edge lit LCD sets, particularly if the 'zags' could be actively engaged and disengaged. It would provide 'local' dimming in the sense that the zags in the layer could shine more or less (or no) light into its designated area.

Have no idea whether this is feasible, or what it might cost to implement (especially compared to full array back lit LD). I guess my point though is who knows what Samsung has been able to achieve and how.

Interesting. I think this leads back to my concern for how CE-Dimming will affect the F8000. If the “Precision Black Local Dimming” can, in fact, "make blacks darker without affecting brighter elements of the picture", then there is no reason why the screen should be affected negatively by CE-Dimming, which dims the entire screen. So if this “Precision Black Local Dimming” has any truth to it, then the example of a dimmed image in this link

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20066138-1/contrast-ratio-or-how-every-tv-manufacturer-lies-to-you/

should not be a concern then, right?

Personally, I'm suspicious of the claims Samsung makes. They're experts at creating vague and confusing terminology that ultimately adds up to little more than marketing hype. Look how the screen is marketed in other regions as a "crystal black" panel, even though it's the same exact panel everywhere.

I think it's important to remember that there are differences between the UK model and the US model. The “Precision Black Local Dimming” for one, because really we have no way of knowing if this can be enabled or disabled at will, or how it will affect the image, either positively or negatively. Also, they run off a 50Hz system there, so motion could be affected. Note for instance where they mention last year's UK set had a constant Digital Noise Reduction feature that couldn't be disabled, even though the US model didn't have that issue.

So while it's nice to hear early reviews from the UK, it will be nice to hear some reviews from actual US sets getting tested.
Edited by eagle_2 - 3/21/13 at 11:24am

In that review posted above, pay attention to where they speak about per-input settings. I think this area could cause some confusion for owners of last year's model, and might be used to having independent settings for each input. It looks like you can still do that, but you'll need to know about "Apply Picture Mode", since by default it seems to use the same settings for all inputs.

A few thoughts from the review:

- Black level retention: Auto-dimming with full black screen, visibly stable otherwise (depending on setup)
A totally black screen causes the F8000 to shut the LEDs out

Sounds like the screen will still turn off when the screen fades to black. I've always hated this and it should be an option. It can be very distracting at times, especially in some situations, like Yellow Submarine - the very end of the film sent my ES7500 last year into a frenzy during it's quick on-and-off black screens near the end of the film. Last year bumping the brightness up a couple extra notches disabled that "feature", but that could throw off a calibration a tad bit. It would be trivial to give us the option to turn this feature off, yet Samsung doesn't give us that option.

Input lag: 44ms compared to lag-free CRT
The UE55F8000 does have a Game Mode, but it still feels laggy when playing fast-paced games. Labelling the HDMI input as “PC” from the Input Selection menu cuts the input lag down to half that of the Game Mode.
We measured it at 44ms using both the Leo Bodnar input lag tester AND the high-speed camera method

Very interesting, a bit of a concern for me. This sounds like game mode is indeed sluggish this year. That's a crying shame if true because pc mode offers almost no settings at all - not even the simple color settings and adjustments that game mode offers. So if you need to use PC mode for gaming, that's unfortunate, because it severely limits how you can adjust the image. This makes me wonder why there is a game mode at all, if it's not suitable for gaming?

Of course, being able to game on the 55F8000 LED TV for hours without worrying about image retention was very nice too!

Even they mention image retention being an issue with plasma.

Full 4:4:4 reproduction (PC): Yes, with 60hz signal and “PC” input label

Great news for those who will sometimes use the tv as a monitor.

Screen uniformity: Excellent for an edge-lit LED LCD, non-uniformity difficult to spot in real content

We keep hearing this, let's hope it's really true this year.

It’s also worth mentioning that Samsung’s implementation of active-shutter glasses (ASG) 3D is remarkably free of flickering.
The picture quality in the third dimension is almost a match for 2D, which is some feat.

Always nice to hear for 3D fans.

"The best LED LCD television that we’ve ever tested when it comes to picture quality."

Powerful statement.

It mentions viewing angle is excellent. I found last year to be rather disappointing - having a room of friends over would mean unless you all sit on a giant loveseat, some will get better views than others. We'll have to see if it's any better this year, or if it remains like last year.

Noise reduction and de-interlacing looks to be excellent.

It sounds like Cinema Black can only dim the letterbox bars in CinemaScope films, not 4:3 bars. The other site that mentioned it could dim 4:3 bars must have been wrong.

One thing that really impresses me is how accurate the color, greyscale and gamma look out of the box this year. That's very good news for those who don't plan on getting an expensive pro calibration. The color sounds like it's going to be excellent this year.
Edited by eagle_2 - 3/21/13 at 11:52am

This still has me concerned:

"The only problem is that, regardless of how we had the [Motion Plus] control set, the Samsung F8000 was performing motion interpolation (that’s the “soap opera effect”). If you want to defeat it, you can step into the “Game Mode”, which needs a lot of picture adjustments to look good, but can be calibrated for accuracy (yes, we’ll share our settings, because they’ll be an improvement on the defaults). However, in “Game Mode” the UE55F8000 can’t reproduce 24p content in 3D without a bit of stutter, which, combined with the extra-dimensional depth, might be a little hard on the eyes for some. In other words, we can see why Samsung attempted to conceal this limitation some gentle motion interpolation. The choice is up to you, in either case, but in the future we’d love to see genuine 3D 24p playback on a Samsung LED LCD, because the three-dimensional image quality otherwise is stunning."

I would really like to know how this "forced frame interpolation" in 3D mode compares to the motion of last year's 3D motion. Last year, I had no issues with the motion in 3D mode, and it seemed I had full control over the AMP settings. Off delivered very film-like motion in 3D, and if I turned on AMP, even on clear, there was a noticeable difference in smoothing.

I can't imagine why this would have changed this year. I'm wondering just how "gentle" this forced motion interpolation is in 3D mode. If last year did the same thing, then it is indeed so subtle that I never even noticed it. But if it's something that is noticeable, and it sounds like it is from the reviews I've hear do far, then I worry a bit. I really dont want all my 3D film viewing to suffer from soap opera effect. That would likely be a deal-breaker for me. I just don't see why this would be different from last tear. Maybe it's not, I don''t know.

This next phrase ties into that a bit more:

"The Samsung UE55F8000 still doesn’t feature native support for 50hz motion playback in 3D, meaning that with the [Motion Plus] system disabled, 50hz content with fast motion will appear with some motion stutter. Enabling the [Motion Plus] system will turn on inter-frame interpolation, which essentially means that the TV will be performing an internal standards conversion to its favoured update rate (which is surely 60hz or a multiple thereof). Tellingly, US and (South!) Korea-style 60hz 3D video is reproduced perfectly."

I wonder if the 50Hz system over there contributes to the forced frame interpolation in 3d mode the UK sets seems to have. I wonder if the US 60Hz sets won't suffer from that issue?

Amazon has pre-order pricing of the 60 F8500 at $3,000 and the 65 F8500 at $3,500. Samsung touts that its F8500 series has more pop than the ES8000 series and has the deepest blacks of all $6,000 and below HDTV's. It's hard to believe as this has yet to be confirmed by unbiased and professional reviews. If it's true, then I will go with the F8500 because it will have the best of both worlds. I'm a solid LED gut but I love the colors and realism of a plasma. If I can have both, then I'll have a new plasma toy sitting on the shelf.

Although good, I was not wowed by their description of black levels. Each time they complimented the blacks they seemed to throw a caveat in there. I rushed through the review, but I was also unclear as to what dimming controls they turned on and whether they could have further improved the measured black levels.

Regarding the Cinema black mode that dims the letterbox bars:

"In the scene we chose, Off and Low gave the same result, as did Medium and High. This did have the intended effect of dimming the letterbox bars, but during motion, it also caused the light output from the entire screen (not just the letterbox bars) to increase and decrease, occasionally “popping” after a scene change. We tested the feature with tests specifically designed to reveal such video processing, and found that the Medium and High settings have some dynamic gamma behaviour included. In our view, that’s a more noticeable characteristic than the letterbox bars not appearing jet-black. As a result, we stayed with “Low”."

Confused by how this is worded. So does that mean that Off and Low give one result, that are the same, and Medium and High give a different result? Or are all settings the same basically? They say Med and High use dynamic gamma which causes more auto-dimming misery. So does that mean low doesn't?

If this feature will end up doing nothing more than adding more types of auto-screen-dimming nonsense, then I want nothing to do with it, and it makes me question if I even need the F8000, or if the F7500 would do. One of the main things of interest to me with the F8000 vs the F7500 was this feature to turn off the letterbox bars, but if this results in auto-dimming the entire screen, then no-thank-you. There's already enough of that. A $2,000+ tv should not have to suffer from brightness pops. The cheap 19" CRT I'm currently using doesn't suffer from any "pops" or fluctuations, and I'm not about to accept it from a tv this expensive.

I haven't read it, but you bring up an excellent point. Many profess to 'know' what Samsung did and how this display operates. As you said, in reality, nobody really does know except the Samsung engineers. Every review seems to indicate they've achieved something nobody else has with the edge lit design. So there's obviously something different in their design that sets it apart.

True about that but if you compare same screen sizes:

60 inch:
F8000: $3000
F8500: $3,200

65 inch F8000: $3,500
64 inch F8500: $3,700

Usually plasma is cheaper for a bigger size but this year looks like Samsung's pricing is making the Plasma (F8500) pricier than the LED of the same size!!

That was my assumption. Remember that the LEDs are mounted vertically on the left and right edges. To dim 4:3 pillarbox bars with any useful precision, they'd surely need LEDs at the top and bottom.

Remember that the power line frequency (which as you say in Europe is 50hz) is no longer related to the display frequency. A 24p Blu-ray source or 60hz video game source sent to a European TV will not operate any differently to the US model - unless there are actual differences in that model.

Bottom line is that the power source doesn't affect the picture quality.
Correct, during the tests I carried out.

From what I've seen on the 55", it most definitely is.


I'm more concerned about absolute black levels. Each time they praised black levels they threw cold water on the statement. Unfortunately I haven't seen an F8000 in a truly darkened environment and if it's not very good under those conditions, it's a non-starter for me.

The other thing I'm unclear about, is have they tested LEDs like the Sony 920 or 950? If they have and they still say this is the best and better than a full array, then that is quite a statement. If they haven't, then it doesn't mean nearly as much.

Robert has already stated the 8500 is not as bright as the 8000. So I'm not sure the 8500 will have more pop, but it will have deeper blacks. With that said, Robert did say the 8500 produces an overall better picture.

I think they meant that Low had the benefit of dimming the bars without ill effects. Off did not dim the bars and Medium & High had adverse effects.

Chris, it's not too difficult to see whether screen A or B is brighter. Do you really need a meter to see that? For subtle differences in black levels (or brightness), then yes, I can see the need for measurements. Test instruments are great, but man, we really need to look at the screen at times.