Samsung HLS-5679W LED DLP Owners Thread (*NO PRICE TALK) - Page 39

We also try to calibrate Samsung DLP displays so that their factory default settings are correct. But these sets default to the "Wide" color gamut. Was that also adjusted?

BTW, why would the brightness be higher for cable? Or is this for daytime viewing?

Eliab

I believe that he's referring to the mid position (G50/R50).

Eliab

That's a good idea too. Thinking about it, I currently have a bright back wall, a bright display and a jet black bezel frame reminding me how black should look.

Eliab, is there any other display tech you prefer over DLP or other tech you are interested and/or keeping up with?

P.S. I happen to see an HD interview once of someone at CES that just happened to be standing in front of a HL-S5679W and even under the show lights, I could see the display is not made for dark rooms as the demo material went to black dissolve transitions and the like. Oh well. This was months after purchase.

I've been collecting reviews of this set and of couse reading the AVS Forum.

One thing I have noticed is that reviews that mention poor screen uniformity and the like don't mention color banding. Reviews that mention color banding don't mention poor screen uniformity.

The CNET review is online. Engadget HD review is online. Sound and Vision December 2006 in print. And the one closest to my findings to date: Home Theater Magazine January 2007 in print (except they don't mention color banding - got a lucky set I guess).

But they do mention the poor contrast and brightness. This display will loose in just about any direct comparison or face-off. And at what premium in price?

Reincarnate

Have you read the write up that HOME THEARTER MAG did?

color me impressed

More than any other aspect of this TV'S performance, what impressed me the most
was the accuracy of the color points. Of the products' we've reviewed, only the near-reference Yamaha DPX-1300 front projector, has color points this close to perfect. The Yamaha is a $12,500 front projector, despite its accuracy, even it's not as close to the SMPTE spec as this RPTV.

THIS WAS JUST 1 SECTION FROM ' HTM '

This tv has no issue's competing against any tv out there.

Anyone heard any rumors when they might be offering other sizes for this LED DLP? My seating distance is about 9-10 feet, and was wanting to get a 61" (going to be moving into bigger place soon, so don't want to short myself).

*Edit* Looks like the only rumors are "Sometime in the spring" One would think they would have pushed the other sizes for the holidays. I might have to go with a color wheel 61 (I'm giving my older HLN to my brother, and he has already ordered the furniture for the TV).

Also, are there any reports on how long the LED's are supposed to last. Not sure how much it would cost to replace them as opposed to just bulbs.

the HT mag article seemed to indicate the LED's last the lifetime of the tv.

I believe Samsung is holding off until CES (next month) to announce the new 61" LED tv, plus Eliab indicated their 2007 line will have hdmi 1.3 connections. Most likely 1.3 will be in all vendor's 2007 lineups.

Well, that's kind of dubious - what if the lifetime is 5 years?

According to Samsung web site. it should last more than 20 000 hours. that's much longer than any bulb based set.
I can't justify the price to get this set so instead I picked up toshiba 50" RP. at CAN $1169 it's no brainer for cheap person as my-self

That's the earliest that Samsung has released any new DLP RPTV sets during the five years that they have been building them.


That's not the way the RPTV market works.


My guess is that any new models from Samsung will start arriving in early summer but I doubt that even Samsung is sure when they will get larger LED sets into stores.


Samsung estimates that it's 20,000 hours or four times the expected life span of lamps.

Outsiders think 20,000 might be a conservative estimate. I don't know how to estimate cost that far into the future. The manufacturing process for the LED modules just got started this year. It should get cheaper as volume increases.

At four hours a day, 20,000 hours would amount to 13.6 years.

htwaits - thanks for the replys

Still on the fence regarding getting a 56 LED now, or the 61 witha color wheel. Guess I'll use the old standby of flipping a coin : )

What ever. Enjoy.

Hi,

Long time lurker here. I originally was interested in the 5679 due to my sensitivity to rainbows. The huge price difference between the 5679 and the 5687 put a damper on my enthusiasm however. I finally gave up on the price coming down and resolved to get the 5687 or the Mits 57732. I noticed that the rainbows aren't near as bad as in the past, probably due to the faster color wheel.

My problem is that I noticed obvious pincushion in 4:3 mode on more than a few Samsungs. The Mitsubishi's seem to be visibly better. I don't really want to watch in stretch mode. Now recently, I noticed a large price drop online and at Best Buy on the 5679. I went to look at one today, and it had the pincushion as well. I was hoping that the 5679 would be better.

I searched this thread and found no mention of the problem. What is the consensus among the owners regarding the pincushion? Are some 5679's better than others? My understanding is that this cannot be corrected by a technician. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Thanks.

PolarBare: I am in the same boat. The local magnolia has 2 5679s in stock but none in display (and not planning to). The 5687 picture looks pretty good to me. After reading about color banding and other issues I am not sure I want to buy one without seeing it.

Anyone here can influence me one way or the other? I have a 12% off coupon in hand ready to call the shot in next 2 days!!

Thx in advance
lmuxer

the 5679 is beautiful post calibration. pre-calibration, the banding can be reduced using the recommended settings in this thread.

the pin cushion is not fixable w/out opening the set by samsung techs. most people just swap the sets out for another set.... but who uses 4:3 anymore anyways?

Unless you have the resources to get the 5679 calibrated on your own, don't buy it from Magnolia. They have no idea how to calibrate these sets nor will they help you. Their sales dweebs are useless.

Now I'm on my own to find someone who can calibrate my set. It's really poor as it comes out of the box. Movie mode is the only mode acceptable for low light scenes and renders everything a murky green.

When the image is bright, the set really shines (except in movie mode).

Check the people doing Samsung HLS and 5679 calibrations in the link at the bottom of my post. UMR and the partners, David Abrams and Eliab, are outstanding. They travel, and encourage interested folks to contact them directly.

I don't know of any dealers that get involved in professional calibration.

My guess is that you are referring to Magnolia Home Theater areas of BB stores. They are NOT the same as Magnolia Audio-Video stores.

When I had my tv calibrated we had found that we had to turn off SNI-PROC
setting's this really helped reduce banding. And diffently disable dnie in the
SM panel.

among other things

I think you will probably find that the pincushion on the 5679W is no better or worse than on the other Samsung TVs. I have some on mine, but it doesn't really bother me. The general advice I keep hearing is that if a little pincushion bothers you, then you'd better go with a flat panel technology. Though of course with the flat panels you get into other problems.

That's a good question as this would be my first Hi-Def TV. I have no idea what percentage of programs I watch would still be in 4:3.

It's pretty easy to tell. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How much do you watch premium channels (HBO etc.) and network stations (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX) that have high-def versions?
2. How much do you like Discovery Channel programs?
3. How much do you like sports?
4. Are you getting a high-def player soon and going to buy all new movies, or rent a lot from NetFlix?
5. How much do you play HD video games (XBox 360, PS3)?

Positive answers to the above questions favor HDTV.

6. How much do you watch other cable channels?
7. How much do you watch DVDs?
8. How much do you watch VHS tapes?
9. How much do you watch low-res digital movies (AVIs, MPGs, etc.)?
10. How much do you play pre-HD video games? (XBox, PS2, GameCube, Wii)?

Positive answers to these questions favor SDTV, although admittedly you asked about 4:3 and some newer programs in SD are letterboxed. It's fun to zoom up Stargate and various TV movies even if it magnifies their imperfections.

For me, I watch a lot of standard def (Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network, History Channel, Travel Channel, Food Network, Discovery Channel (only a small number of programs are on the HD Discovery Channel)) and DVDs. We haven't gotten any HD equipment yet for our TV, aside from a little cable. It's been great to watch Lost and Heroes in HD, but other than that and an occasional fun program on Discovery Channel, we just have a big nice looking TV which at least, to our eyes, doesn't ruin the SD experience.

That said, I'm very much looking forward to HD-DVD and XBox 360, and eventually maybe PS3.

There is no reason this item shouldn't be included in the HDTV list.

Other than that, I think your two lists can be very helpful.

6. Depends on your source. some dss receivers output 16:9. and the sources who dont output 16:9, you can stretch, if you can get used to it
7. all the time, and they are widescreen, and the dvd player is 480p w/ 16:9 output (before I got one w/ upconversion)
8. whats VHS stand for?
9. via #10
10. xbox also has 16:9 output.

Your list might be a bit skewed. However, if your pincushion is really that bad, you need to call samsung or get your set swapped. I had a relative who had pincushion on the bottom third, was obviously a problem w/ the set.

Noted. Of course with different equipment, things change. And obviously different consumers care about different things. My personal thinking is that a DVD, and most XBox games, are SD, and that even if you upscale and can view certain things in 16:9, it's still an SD source (with a few exceptions on the XBox. But I'm much more picky about SD vs. HD than I am about 4:3 vs. 16:9 and pincushion.

I hope I at least gave a decent list for people to think about.

I just picked up my 5679 today.
I had a 20% off coupon to UE, so I am returning my Mitsubishi 57732 in favor of this.
So far so good. I do not notice much banding at all outside of movie mode, and movie mode looks really good to me anyway.

One thing I do notice and I want to see if everyone else has this too: The screen itself has a concave-ness to it. More so than the HLM it ultimately replaced as well as the Mits. You can especially see this when the set is off. Light reflects off the concave screen and you see a lot of little distortions in the reflection. Is this just mine, or is this common to the new Samsungs? It's almost like the screen isn't "pulled" tight enough.

I am heading up to UE now to return the Mits, I will look at the floor sample Sammy and see if it has this as well.

Well, after 2 weeks of use, this has just happened to me too... Seconds after turning it on, the right half of the screen went black. I turned the set off and then right back on, and now it appears fine. Not a huge deal, as long as it doesn't start doing this often, but it is somewhat annoying to see it have happened once. I really don't want to have to deal with some LE replacement down the road, especially after a year, when it'll become really expensive for me. I was just curious if you've been able to contact anyone to find what the root of the problem might be.

raab, I don't know the root problem, but I will try to offer my two cents.

I have been enjoying my 5679 for about three months now; that is after I turned it on for the first time and made the recommended user adjustments. I have a high def cable box connected to the 5679 with just an hdmi cable, and have not had a single problem; certainly nothing as major as the one you describe!

Did you register your tv with Samsung? I think if you do this within a certain time frame it adds three months to your factory warranty.

I think you have answered your own question, if the problem continues in the least bit, I would contact Samsung or the store you got the tv from. We have spent too much on this tv for it not to be darn near perfect!

I hope this helps.

Dave

If you see it again, call Samsung. Get the ball rolling on repair. A tech will come out, and if you cannot demonstrate the intermittent problem, he will at least report it and possibly tentatively order repair parts in the hopes that on a second visit, it will be more reproducible. And if the repair parts aren't available (they weren't in my case) they will order a new TV. Actually getting the new TV can take a good month right now--I know because it has taken about this long...but my new 5679W is due to arrive tomorrow. This is why you want to get the ball rolling before the problem gets too bad. The tech told me that most intermittent problems become worse. Believe it!

I wonder if this means I need to call up the extended warranty place once I have the new serial number? Probably.

In any case, I'll be very happy to have a new one. My TV has been great 80%-90% of the time, but the red flicker I've gotten, and the fact that during half of yesterday I couldn't even power it on, have been quite frustrating.