Samsung 71' 1080P DLP HL-S7178W (owners) - Page 22

I've been waiting on this day for about 2 years now and I'm hoping that I made the right decision....took the plunge and ordered the 71 Sammy today from OC...have been following all of the 70+ inch TVs and reading all of the AVS owners forums for the past year and for me it all came down to Sony SXRD-2 vs Mits 732/831 vs Sammy. It helped me to see the SXRD-2 and Mits 732/831 and Sammy all lined up for comparison at the local Tweeter store in Cary, NC. I was able to play with the settings and spend plenty of time comparing them to each other. IMO the Mits 732/831 and Sony are about equal in overall PQ while the Samsung is virtually the same PQ. Any differences IMO can only be seen while side by side with the other two. If they were all priced the same I would probably go with the Mits 732/831 to get the extra 2 inches diagonal size, however I would never spend more than $300 extra to get it and as we all know the difference between the Sammy and the others is $1K+ which is not worth it to me. The lower price of the Sammy will allow me to justify upgrading again more quickly. I plan to keep this TV about 5 years and by then there will be significant improvements out there at amazing prices.

I need your help on one thing. I can't find anyone that has the TR71B stand in stock and ready to ship at a reasonable cost. Any help would be appreciated. The big Sammy should arrive sometime next week...thanks.

I downloaded the manual and it says this TV canNOT be connected to a PC via DVI/HDMI (p. 132). Is this true?

and is this the model that CAN do 1:1 pixel mapping, or is that the xx88?

The 7178 can do 1:1

Well I finally got a chance to take some pics of everything all done. Problem is that I dont know how to shrink them down to under 500Kb so that I can post them on here via attatchment. If anybody could let me know how to do so, Id be happy to post them if anyone would like to see. I can also email them, so just send me a pm if youd like. thanks

So are you happy with the new TV? I'm looking to do the same exchange and want some experienced advice. I love the 65732, but I can get the Sammy for just a little more on exchange and am interested in any improvements OR disappointments.

Can anyone tell me whether you can disable the internal speakers on the 7178 and attach external speakers directly to the set (without going through the amplifier), either unpowered or, if there is not enough power in the tv, possibly something like the Polk Atrium 45P amplified speakers? I would like to be able to get higher quality sound without having to use a separate receiver all the time.

Establish an account at an image server and hosted and uploaded. You don't have the image size limits if the photo's are hosted elsewhere. I have a Webshots account and there's many others like image shack, photo bucket. With my Webshots Premium Membership I can load entire galleries with click on enlargement as I've done in some of the LCD FP threads.

Once you have an account you can right click each photo and select/copy the properties and click "Insert Image" icon and then paste the photo pathway properties in there and then each photo will appear like this new 63" Samsung plasma HP-S6373: In this case of this photo you don't have to host anywhere - it's a public domain photo from a press release and you can right click grab the properties and paste into "Insert Image" and the original Press Release is doing the hosting for you with these type postings.



http://www.cinenow.com/uk/image-repo...30648.jpg.html These guys block right click captures

It's very possible that on your particular display, the Movie/Warm2 setting brings you lower than 6500K. Many do, which would explain why you felt it was yellowish. Even so, these are merely starting points for a more involved DVE user-level calibration. But even that is no substitute for a professional calibration.

BTW, DNIe does not really expand contrast ratio the way we would want it. It creates an incorrectly "enhanced" CR by crushing the blacks. And that's just one of it's negative attributes. It is very possible to attain an image with over 100 fl on these displays after a proper calibration (if the iris is left open) that would give you all the neutrality, light output, deep blacks, and crispness that you seek.

Eliab

Thanks westa6969. I just registered with photobucket. Ive only uploaded three pics so far, and the screen shot does NO justice to this set. I am by no means a good photographer and my camera sucks, but I gave it a whirl for anyone interested. Heres the link
thanks

Thanks Eliab, you've no doubt done a lot of good for a lot of people here. I wish I could afford a pro calibration, but alas it's not in my budget right now since I have so many other pokers in the fire. I'll have to use what Samsung gave me, along with my SpyderTV, and hope for the best.

I think the two things about your suggested settings that didn't work for me were the Warm2 and turning DNIe off. When I went to a Normal temperature and turned DNIe back on (after reducing the extent to which DNIe crushes blacks via the DNIe service menu), I'm pretty happy with the result. The rest of my issues are due to the lack of skin tone correction which I had in my Pioneer set. Perhaps I was spoiled with that unit, but it did an exemplary job at making sure color was consistent from one channel to the other -- you'd never see a difference, everything looked marvelously consistent. With my Sammy and Dish receiver, however, color varies widely depending on program source -- not sure if it's the fault of the Sammy for not having a skin tone circuit or the Dish receiver for not properly decoding color spaces.

Absolutely - I think out of the box, the Samsung pic quality is better than the Mits. The first thing I noticed was a better representation of greens - my Mits had a tendency to cast a neon glow to greens (especially when watching sports played on a grass field).

Second, without question, the Samsung affords significantly better parameter adjustment within he service menu if you ever decide to hire a professional calibrator. Unfortunately I cant afford it right now, but the reviews I have read on this forum after calibration are exemplary.

Third, the "immersion factor" is awesome. There is certainly a noticeable difference bumping up the extra six inches.

At this point I have no regrets moving to the Samsung. If you decide to make the jump, I would certainly suggest using Eliab's User Menu adjustments as a starting point when tweaking your pic. The only regret I guess is not buying the Samsung in the first place.

Eliab calibrated my 7178 yesterday! What a HUGE difference!!! I'm in HD-DVD and Blu-ray heaven right now. For those who have not had their set calibrated by a pro, I highly recommend it. It's money well spent and the difference is far from subtle...

Thats great news. Im actually in the process of booking a slot for his next Georgia tour. I cant wait to see the results first hand.
Have fun enjoying your set!

Your display has quite a few things wrong that will have a huge impact on overall image quality. Grayscale, gamma, color space, color decoding, etc. Of course, it is also only as good as the incoming signal. But once calibrated, it is actually far more accurate than a Pioneer CRT/RPTV.

Eliab

Thanks for the short review!

Evereything looked amazing but Batman Begins on HD DVD took my breath away! ATL was a knock out as well.

Eliab

As long as you also own an HD DVD player - you will....

Eliab

Hi, what does "more accurate" mean? Does it mean deeper blacks and shadow details? That would be pretty impressive since I thought CRT was still king in that department.

My replacement 7178 arrived today. The folks who delivered it for Samsung were great and the set seems fine upon preliminary inspection.

Calibrators own and love the Sammy's. Could it be that to get a decent picture on the Sammy requires a calibration by someone that knows all the service menu codes that Joe Blow would take forever to figure out?

My sammy shuts off after like 20 min of viewing and the lamp/temp on the front flashes. After about 2 min it stops and the tv can be turned on again. Does this mean i need a new bulb or can it be something else? The thing is only a month old and it just started this yesterday. I called the tech support from the place i bought it but they are closed on the weekend... somebody help!!!

Make sure your fan is running. You should be able to hear it. There's a fan interlock switch that is actuated by the lamp access door on the back of the set. If the switch is not correctly actuated by the door, the fan will not run and the set will go into overtemp protection mode which is what you are experiencing. There have been a few reports here of the lamp access door being installed incorrectly and not actuating the fan switch. Instructions on removing the door are in your owners manual.

Ohh yes I do....thinking of getting the PS3 for Blu-Ray also.

This is why Samsung replaced our TV.

not true, I'm running my MacBook to the Samsung via a DVI to HDMI cable and it works great..... full 1920 x 1080 resolution...

What kind of 1080p signal does this tv accept? 1080p24? or 1080p60?

Im wondering if the new XA2 hd-dvd player will be a benefit over the A1 since it might output 1080p/24 (native rez of hd-dvd).

I was wondering the same thing! Also, can the firmware be upgraded to enable support for HDMI 1.3? Otherwise, our sets are already obsolete!!! :-(

What on earth do you need HDMI 1.3 for? All things being equal, I challenge you to see a quantifiable difference between 1080 via component vs. HDMI at normal viewing distances. HDMI 1.3 increases the color bandwidth, but this increase in bit depth won't result in any noticeable improvement. We're at the point of diminishing returns, and manufacturers are just trying to "out-spec" their competitors without these specs truly having a significant impact on picture quality.

Hi,
I am really interested in possibly getting a 71" Sammy. But the problem is that there are no stores in my area that carry the 71" screen.

I've gone to BB and CC, and compared units there. I was very satisfied with how the 61" Samsung compared to the other TV's including the 62" Tosh and the 65" Mitsu.

I would have to purchase a 71" Sammy online, though. In one way this would be a benefit as I would get a better price online. But on the other hand, I don't get any benefit of seeing the actual set perform before I buy.

Has anyone purchased the 71" without previously seeing it in action? Has anyone seen the 61" Sammy and then ordered the 71"? If so, were you satisfied or disappointed in the result?

Is there anything I would need to worry about ordering one online? I know I will be stuck with what ever particular model I order, so I want to make sure the 71" will be very comparable to the 61" I personally evaluated.

Do you loose alot of brightness in going from the 61" I saw to the 71"? How about picture quality? I evaluated the 61" at about 8 foot viewing distance, as I figure that might equate to a 12 foot viewing distance on a 71" screen, and I was very impressed with the picture, at this was even with the SD feed they had at BB. I went to Sears where they had a HD feed going to the TV, and was even that more impressed.

But I would really want to make sure I would be just as happy with this 71" as I was with the 61" in the stores. Do you have more chances of seeing RBE or other anomalies going to the bigger screen.

Any feedback would be great.

Thank you.

I did. I swapped out an HLR6168 (last year's) site unseen. All I needed to know was it had the same guts as the 6188s (which I was comfortable with), and that was enough for me.


I sat about 10 feet from the 61, and now about 12 from the 71. Looks great! You don't lose brightness out of the box ... but you can tweak the Service Menu to lose some brightness (which is desirable, in my opinion).

QuantumVision,
I personally think youd be happy with the 71. I did see the 61 and think the pic quality is very similarto the 71. Of course thats just my opinion. I did get to see the 71 before I purchased though. Where do you reside? Is there not a Tweeter nearby?

Online orders can be tricky, some people have great experiences and others have bad ones. Ive heard good things about ABT. Sorry I dont have the exact web address.
Good luck.