Samsung 1080p Owner's Thread --- HLSxx87W/HLSxx88W DLP Models - Page 356

The "sag" you speak of is also pincushion I'm guessing, just along the horizontal axis. The only way to correct pincushion is to replace the screen as far as I know. Your new screen may also develop the same amount, less, or more pincushion than your current screen has. Believe it or not, my screen started out with almost no pincushion, then it had a noticeable amount on the vertical axis, and now it's almost back to none again.

What I'm trying to say is that unless the pincushion is something that is really affecting your viewing pleasure, the "cure" may be worse than the "illness". Up to you of course. I'm happy with what I have now and have read too many posts about people scheduling service for minor issues only to regret their decision as the fix didn't completely fix the original problem and now they have additional problems.

Silly question to ask in a forum of HLS owners. From the research I've done, the Samsung HLS is one of the best pictures (after calibration) and best prices out there. True bang for your buck.

You need to turn off overscan in the 5688's service menu, and set your nVidia card to display the full HD resolution (1920x1080).

The directions for turning off overscan.

Since you're using your 5688 as a computer monitor, you're either lucky or smart to get the 5688 vs the 5687. The xx88 models can turn off overscan, while the xx87 models can't (actually, it can but the setting won't stick...)

I saw one of the Samsung 1080P DLPs at CC that was showing a letterboxed DVD. I'm not sure which model the TV was, but it was at least 56 inches. Where the black bars meet the image, there was alot of jitter. The line between the black bar and the image was not an even straight line. Is this normal on this type of TV?

I am still deciding about the BB warranty or if I should find a third party or if I should go with Samsung's.

on a side note, I am not 100% sure but if I use a HDMI cable from my Time Warner Cable Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD to my 5687 should I have both sound and video? right now I only have video going to it and no sound

raspar; What video card are you using to even get anything above 1280x720 on the HDMI input?

I'm pretty darn sure you need a separate audio connection, but I'm a bit of a n00b.

Speaking of the XBox 360 HD DVD add on (which I own and it was the first one Eliab had calibrated), I had my HL-S7178 calibrated by Eliab last weekend and everything looks awesome! The "sunburn" I simply couldn't get rid of is gone and all sources (even SD) look spot on. Unfortunately, Eliab pointed out several instances where DirecTV HD signal is clearly "HD-Lite", but HD DVDs played on the Xbox at 1080p look stunning (I Had Batman Returns previously recorded off HBO-HD which we compared to the HD-DVD version - no contest).

BTW, I have the 360 hooked up to my HL-S7178 via the Microsoft VGA cable and, once calibrated, Eliab felt the picture was on par with the Toshibas players hooked up via HDMI (and maybe even slightly better in some areas? He was going to do further testing before stating that definitively so do not quote me) with the added start up and menu speed bonuses. So no worries out there with regards to the Xbox via the VGA port being up to snuff on the HL-S models.

Gizmo Joe

I just saw a post from Gizmo Joe as well...are you serious that the 360's HD-DVD is so good? I'm considering getting a 360, and getting HD-DVD out of it for a mere $200 would be great. Is the quality only achievable over VGA though? I also use my computer through the VGA sometimes, so I'd either have to swap, or get a VGA switchbox. Also, isn't it impossible to get 1:1 pixel mapping with VGA at 1080p? I've always gotten small black borders which seems suboptimal for extended movie viewing.

Yes, you should have both. With that being said, you will find it is better to internal mute the TV and run an optical cable from your 8300HD to your stereo system. The speakers in the TV are not very good.

I purchased the warranty for piece of mind, though I've been taught to never purchase one. I may never use it, but I felt better about my purchase after I did.

The "sag" seems to be a misalignment with the chip. The right side of my 61" set was about a 1/2" lower than the left side. A service tech came out and replaced the light engine and now it is perfect. Still has a slight pin cushion but the the horizontal is perfectly straight.

You can (and I do) get 1:1 pixel mapping via VGA. The trick is to hit the P.Size button on your TV remote (lower right of the remote) and use the 3rd icon to "zoom in" the image to fill the screen. The image just fills the screen when I max out that setting, but I do have a HL-S7178 set with overscan turned off, so you might not max out that setting for your set (thus no 1:1 pixel mapping), but it will allow for a full image without overscan.

Gizmo Joe

For anyone in SoCal about to buy a HLS5087W, Fry's has it on sale for $1,499, which seems like a great price. Not sure how long the sale will last. I'm going to head over there today and see if they have any left.

I have the 5087.My cable box is set to 1080i,my xbox360,and PS3 is set to 1080p.When I watch tv and hit the info button it says 1920x1080i@60hz,when i`m playing the 360 or PS3 and I hit the info button it says 1920x1080@60hz.Where is the p?When it says 1920x1080 with no p,does that mean 1920x1080p?I assume it does cause the picture looks awesome.Does anybodys HLS tv say 1920x1080p?

Yes when it says 1080i@ 60 its not 1080p.. But when it says 1080@60 without the i , that means 1080p.

Last Monday I had my HL-S6187 calibrated by David Abrams (www.avical.com) I can highly recommend his work, worth every penny!

Our Thanksgiving guests noticed how great the picture looked without any prompting from us. Great flesh tone and vivid colors on King Kong HD DVD. He also allowed me to program the "Factory" button on his factory remote to my Harmony 880. Now it is easy to turn off overscan, it does make a difference even on D*.

Thanks for the report. It's now included in the calibration list that is linked at the bottom of my post.

not necessarily. I have two Comcast Motorola boxes, one DVR and one standard HD box. I use the DVR with a DVI to HDMI cable on a plasma, and the other with a DVI to HDMI on a DLP. Both work fine and have from the start. I have had both boxes for about 2 years.

I just bought the 5087 and the HD picture is pretty good. Xbox 360 looks stunning. But the SD TV is absolutley atrocious. Its 3 times worse than my old CRT television. While watching a college football game today on SD TV, they showed a "stadium shot" from the above the stadium and I could barely tell what it was!! Is this normal in these new HD TV's?? (I obviously have never had an HDTV before and this is my first).

I also have the HL-S5087W.
What is your video source? [Comcast, DirectTV, etc.]
I have Comcast and I have my HD DVR box set to:

• TV Type = 16:9
• HDMI output = 1080i
• 4:3 Override = 480i (that will give you the best signal for your SD channels and my SD channels look very good)

It depends on your source. I get very good digital SD images from Comcast cable and the local stations that also do HDTV. I also get good PQ from digital SD from the cable channels like ESPN that switch back and forth between SD and HD.

The analog SD local channels don't look very good. Especially live broadcasts like the news and sports.

What you are seeing on your TV was probably there on the old one but now it's enlarged a lot.

If you provide some detailed information about how you get your SD signals, which type connections you are using, and how you have your TV configured, then I think you will get some help.

You might also look into doing a little owner calibration using the tips provided here:

Eliab on User Calibration using the DVE disk.

Hello,

I'm a newbie to this forum, but I'm definitly buying a 61" 1080p over this weekend.

Looking at:

Sears HL S6187W without stand
Sam's Club HL S6167W with the real nice stand made for the 61" series

The TV at Sears is 100 dollars less, but I'll have to spend at least $250 for
a stand.
I know I can buy both TV's cheaper dealing online, but I prefer to buy from
either of these two vendors because of their return policies.

I looked up the specs at Samsung's site, and can't really see any difference
between the models.....did I miss something?

So, this has been driving me a bit batty since I got my 5087 a couple months ago. Even over component or HDMI connections, the picture looks a bit grainy or noisy. I notice it mostly on 'natural' subjects - e.g. it's not really noticeable on flat, computer generated colors (news channel overlays, etc.), but when watching the Blu-Ray Talladega Nights DVD that came with my PS3 (what a horrible movie), for example, it's almost like watching it over a composite connection or over an old-style antennae. In one scene, where they had a green couch, it was almost 'moving' due to the noise.

Anyways, I'm sure everyone's probably heard of the issue - the forum has a good score or two of posts about it. =) I haven't seen any conclusive 'solutions', however. Has anyone been able to resolve the problem, either through some particular change in settings (it seems a bit reduced with DNIe on, but that has its own set of problems) or through calibration? Is it a wobulation timing issue? Is this something that the omniscient and omnipotent eliab could resolve, were I to beg and prostrate myself before him (and, well, pay too) on his next trip to the bay area?


Thanks guys. =)

Is your new set also 3 times as large as your old set? Due to the limited resolution SD going to fall apart as you blow it up.

You can get a relatively decent picture out of SD, but it depends a lot on your sources. The difference between the old S-Video TiVos and the HDMI TiVos is night and day on my 720p Samsung DLP even on the SD channels. And SD DVD on my setup is really, really close to HD and in many ways better. Comparing the Cinemax Star Wars HD broadcasts with the SD DVD is pretty close. The DVD has better color accuracy and is a bit sharper. The HD on the other hand gets the increased resolution which really lets you resolve tiny detail in the complicated backgrounds. Of course I should mention that my set is precisely calibrated and all my video is run through a relatively high-end video processor before it hits the display. Even directly connected however my HD TiVos look pretty good on SD.

As a starting point use Eliab's recommended settings and tune the user settings a bit using DVE or something similar. I'd also suggest getting the set professionally calibrated. See if you can upgrade your sources to ones with HDMI outs. And if you do nothing else turn off DNIe and see if that makes things better.

- Collin

Well, I have a calibrated 720p set and if it looks grainy or noisy its always the source. If I get close to the set I can start to see the dithering which is typical of how a DLP makes a picture, but from a normal viewing distance I don't see any noise.

Does the noise continue even if you pause the source? If so you may be seeing dithering for some reason.

It's unlikely to be wobulation. A mistuned wobulator will just blur the image. My guess would be that the set is not calibrated well and it's therefore exacerbating noise inherent in the source.

- Collin

jfg71; Questions:
1. What is your source?
2. If it is cable, are you using their STB? If so, have you tried it w/o the box?
3. Have you tried OTA (over the air, as in an antenna)? Almost everyone has that available to them.
4. Have you taken it out of torch mode (i.e.: switched to movie & warm2)?
5. Is this analog SD or digital SD channels??

PS; welcome to the forums.

I finally got around to actually trying to record something on my two 2160s' but to my dismay (putting it mildly), while it appeared to record something, when I played it back there was nothing. There were three different programs, on two different channels (through cable) all in the clear (network) and with an entry showed and it showed occupying space on the HDD, the screen was blank and no audio.

I took the AV-HDD to my other set (HP/Sharp LCD flat panel) where it was used originally and tried to ply back those programs and still nothing. I then made some test recordings on a couple of channels and they played back ok (as before).

Then I reconnected that deck back to the Sammy and those recordings that were made on the HP played back ok. I tried to make another recording (manually) from the Samsung and nothing.

Mind you, these playback entries do show and there is a size and time associated with them. Also, these are just network programs that show as "copy free". I have unplugged the set for 15 minutes and tried it, but still nothing.

Any ideas??

Turn down the color on the video adjustments

Hello,
I love this forum. I need some help. I have ordered, but have not received delivery yet, of a 5087. I am exhausted on trying to select the right tv and it came down to what looked like best picture and future proofing. I hope I have made the right choice.

I live about 30 miles from the antennas in our city. I am hoping I will be able to get HD over the air, but am considering upgrading to DirectTV HD service.

A couple of questions if somebody wouldn't mind?

1) I just read an article on MSNBC about buying HDTV's and the author suggested that the TV should be HDCP compliant. I can't find anything on the Samsung site suggesting that these TV's are compliant. Thoughts?

2) How does regular Direct TV look on this TV with the DTV DVR (non-Tivo). Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that this has component out.

Thank you all for your help.

The 5087 is HDCP compliant.