Samsung 81 Series anticipation thread - Page 148  

Why can't you accept that the 81 series is a home theater display? It's not for kitchens, laundry rooms or sun rooms. It's not what you buy to watch Oprah on while making brownies. Do you go to projector anticipation threads and post endlessly about how you think the manufacturers just dont get it because their projectors don't work well in anything but the darkest room? Do you go to Humvee threads and say the crummy gas mileage is a design flaw? How about visiting a speaker anticipation thread and complaining because their speakers dont sound good in your garage? I mean, it's the nature of the display, they aren't advertising it as a tabletop, bright room display, so why can't you accept it?

Some comments:
1. This shot looks like it's from a showroom floor with bright fluorescent lights. Those kind of lights will cause that affect on any panel.
2. Off-angle shots will provide the most glare. My MATTE LCD shows lots of glare off-angle during the day, especially on dark scenes.
3. It looks like that room is seriously bright!! I gotta hand it to the TV to decently display a dark scene under those conditions.

Anyhow, I think folks have beaten the glare topic to death.

Awesome...I vote for making this a sticky.

this thread is getting out of hands with this reflective crap. if you dont like what you see ( with your own eyes, dont buy. ) simple as that.

I think samsung made some decent advancements. I am sure it will only get better.and yes do give people the option for flat / glossy. I am sure there will be other manufacturers working on similar tech.

What makes you think that 81 series is stopping with first set of TVs. I personally think, if there is enough demand and support for Matte they will put them out, in this 81 series. The 81Ms would be simple enough.

And yes I agree with Westa comments, this is not an owners thread, but I am sure when release of the 81 is more than just a 1 or 2 TVs it will be started, and owners will be well aware of the tradeoffs of gloss or not.

Seems there is no reason they can no just use a different panel with all the same guts.......right?

Well said. I, myself, often go to forums about products I can't afford or don't want and endlessly harp on the fact that I disagree with some design decision the engineers made. That way I can make other people as miserable as I am without actually having to spend any money.

p.s. How does this 'ignore' function work? I'm feeling a need to exercise that option.

Ill make sure i hit up this samsung showroom in nyc this weekend as well. Ill let my eyes be the judge of this.

Amen!

I am looking at it at the 40 inch table top model....as an all the time TV....not just for dimmed lights movie watching. I believe I am at the center of the market....the Cinema only crowd is a smaller subset IMO

I do think my post are about the topic.....sorry that my anticipation for this TV has changed from when I first began reading. I am not really sure what you are expecting from a thread about the anticipation of TV series. I was hoping the new technology would be my solution....right now its not looking good. And after viewing 71s I am even more concerned. But I won't be done until I get my hands on one.

Maybe if you just ignore me its better for you.....you could just not read my post too...skim ahead or scroll down...you can do it....either way good luck with your personal issues.

That was so necessary and well-said, I think I'll quote it again:


In fact, for people who don't like reading long posts, I'll paraphrase it for you:

We KNOW it is reflective, we KNOW it won't work in uncontrolled lighting situations, and we KNOW that limits the target user base for this TV. We DON'T need pictures to remind us why this TV won't work in uncontrolled lighting situations because we already know that. We DON'T need everyone to repeatedly describe in detail why gloss won't work for them.

If you don't like gloss, the 81 series is not for you, so leave anti-gloss comments out of this topic!!!

/rant

Has anyone compared this set with the samsung 5084 plasma?

Ok guys i got the sku's for all the sizes in the 81 series. The 40" is 8457243, the 46" is 8458509, the 52" is 8457216, and the 57" is 8457234. When you have someone look the item up make sure they are looking it up at a magnolia store or it won't show hope this helps.

what we really don't need is a dweebish posting like this. Thanks for a summary of the last few postings.....maybe you should just ignore stuff....or do you think we all need to read it again?

How about this....an assignemed for you the self designated hallway monitor.....what should be posted on this thread....and what part of that has not already been posted?

You want reviews? Start and owners thread.

I don't take it on faith that the LED backlighted 81 series is a gloss only TV. Put me on ignore....and don't reply to me in a discussion thread if you don't want a discussion.

Again I am talking about the TV....you want to post your thought about me....get over it.

Good points....it is why I compared the reflection to the case....I do think its a very very harsh test....but I was surprised to see the bars extending and connecting right through the screen onto the case.
Some hate the gloss cases for its reflectiveness but I can tolerate that.

Agree on the off angle lamp...except that the image is so clear as compared to a muted and diffuse image that would have been with a matte screen.

I have not seen anyone thing the benefits of Gloss make it worth the negatives they carry. I mean in a dark room Matte works better too. Seems the gloss fans are the folks who like Vivid settings outside fo the showroom.

I do think Samsung has the option to make a 61 and 65 type of LED LCD....and its why I have posted it.

I have seen lots of people saying to shut up....but I don't see much of anyone talking about how significantly better gloss is.

IE nobody is saying they would have designed it this way. I still think Samsung can put out a press release about the up and coming 81M....the same tech as the 81 but in Matte.

Mostly agreed, if Tom and some of us that consider glossy finishes extremely distracting to the viewing experience just consider the 81 series to be a dark room videophile TV, then we should be able to admit that under those conditions the clear panel has advantages.

One point of possible divergence is that you do not distinguish quantitatively the affect on perception of ambient sources shining on the two screen types. The reflective screen will mirror image light sources, and those images defocus your eye and distract you. The matte screen scatters and absorbs light, so that concentrated room sources are diffused and frequently not even noticed. So yes light screws up images, but in different ways so that matte has a clear advantage in well lit rooms.

EDIT: Tom - gloss has a better viewing angle than matte in Samsung's offerings, it looks smooth like a plasma, blacks tend to look deep and not muddy, colors do seem more vibrant, and this is from someone who has carried the matte "torch" and received my share of flames. This rumor of an 83 series sounds good, now use the 61 box and put in CableCARD and I'll buy a 57".

This thread would be about 50 pages shorter if people weren't griping about the gloss. Most of us here understand that matte is a better choice if you have a bit of ambient light and that some of us like the gloss because it adds pop to the image. Regardless of your preference, the 81 series is gloss whether you like it or not. Yeah Samsung may release a newer 81 series with matte at a later time to give consumers a choice, but until then the 81 series is matte.

So does this LED technology remove things like flashlighting? I just noticed in the 71 thread someone posting pics of their brand new expensive TV with a bunch of flashlighting. Saw a bunch of it on the Sony TVs (along with clouding) at CC the other day too (the new XBR4s).

Geez...

I go on a road trip to the Philadelphia suburbs to look at this thing in person, I spend three hours there putting that little sonofagun through its paces, and I drive back here to four new pages, 3.5 of which are acrimony. I feel that our decorum is slipping again.

Anyway, on to the report, cheerfully entitled "I Can Tell You Where to Find Your Most Holy Gr-r-r-ail!"...

I tried to take photos of this thing with my dumb little digital camera, but all my pictures suck (I am not a photographer). I was unable to hook it up to a PC over HDMI, sadly (they just wouldn't haul one of their desktop PCs over for it), but I was able to do it over VGA and everything clocked in perfectly there (duh). It's not much consolation, but I was given repeated verbal assurance that it will do 1-to-1 pixel mapping via HDMI (for which the "Just Scan" setting is the best choice, apparently). All the images I brought looked predictably lovely over the laptop I used. I brought several pictures to try to test for black and/or white crushes and saw none whatsoever (my Westinghouse had black crushes like mad).

I brought three movies with me: Star Wars (I refuse to call it "Episode " because that is hooey), The Empire Strikes Back, and Fellowship of the Ring. Again, I looked for crushed blacks and whites and found literally none. Even in Moria.

I still cannot get over this display. God. Bear with me...

So I monkeyed around with its settings like crazy, and when I first brought up the desktop from the laptop PC, I thought I saw the feared halos off the toolbar at the bottom. Then the rep and I discovered that the local dimming function was not turned on. That taught me a little humility about psyching myself into seeing things that are not there. So we turned it on.

Holy crap.

Holy, holy crap.

Prior to that, I had no idea that I had been looking at a gray screen, but obviously I had. This new one was black, baby. So I monkeyed around with the computer some more and tried to find clouds, flashlights, etc. Nuthin'.

When I played the movies, the color gamut feature, the local dimming, and the motion smoothing feature all went bananas (in a good way). I tried really, really hard to find color crushes, halos, et al, but I simply could not find a single one. At first I thought I did in Star Wars when Vader first walks onto the ship they stormed, but then I paused it, got in close, and took a long hard look. Every single shadow, every single detail, every gradation that I know to be on the disc (I know that movie VERY well--that's why I picked it) was right there in front of me. In other words, there were gradations in the shadows that my own eyes had trouble catching, but that the Samsung faithfully reproduced. It turns out the reason I had trouble seeing some of those details is that the room was bright and yes, there is a glare (criminny, would you guys please relax about that and try some breathing exercises, or something). Is the glare a problem? Not for me, no. My computer room generally is kept dark even in the daytime, so I absolutely do not care. Also, the glare is NOT pronounced. It is enough to hide some details in a bright room, though. Shucky-darn. Guess I'll have to buy some other display with a lower contrast ratio, eh? Not bloody likely.

NO OTHER DISPLAY HAS ANYTHING LIKE THIS!! (I checked a ton of them at the Magnolia.)

The motion smoothing feature does have one expected cost: it dims the display. It also makes the movies, to my eyes, like butter. I mean, the second scene in Empire Strikes Back, where we see the Star Destroyer spitting out probe droids, is always just sooo choppy it totally bums me out. It was perfectly smooth (to my eyes). I could not catch a single hiccup or hesitation in the motion. It wasn't like I was watching footage at all. It was like I was seeing an approaching Star Destroyer.

Long and short of it: I bought one. How could I not??? Seriously--how could I not?

They didn't have any 40"s in stock, though, so I have to wait (get this) until 9/20 for it to arrive (my guess is it won't really be available for pick up until 9/22 or 9/24). I could have walked home with a 46" tonight, yes, but that would have made me dig into my zero-balance credit card and I simply will not do that. Especially not for a TV, man. That's rubbish.

So I got $1280 for my dodgy old Westinghouse (net loss: $1000), plopped down an additional $1900 (net loss: $1900), and in three or four weeks I'll have my new baby hooked up to my rig.

Oh, I should mention one last thing for tonight before I crash and allow myself to forget how much I hate driving. The displays, for anyone in the area, are in two Philadelphia suburbs. Five are in stock right now in Plymouth Meeting, with more due in a week or so, and 40 are due in stock in King of Prussia this Sunday, but delivery is more likely to be Tuesday or Wednesday simply because the trucks don't seem to be delivering there this weekend.

Right. Did it blow my mind? Yes. Yes, it did. I really didn't think this kind of image detail, shadow detail, and color accuracy was possible on an LCD display. It IS possible; it's just very, very expensive. (I still can't believe I just spent $2g.) Are the local dimming, the wide color gamut, and the motion smoothing all that and a bag of chips? Yes. Yes, they are (in my unprofessional opinion). Is it worth going into debt? No consumer product ever is; don't be stupid. If you have the money, is it worth it? Oh, God, yes. Absolutely. Will there be problems with it? Does the Pope where a silly hat and say impolitic things about Islam?

Good night,

David

I can't say for sure, but I can tell you that I looked long and hard specifically for flashlights, halos, and banding/pillaring. I found nothing. Nothing at all. Just a pure, clean image that is so deep, I sat six inches away from it and felt like a little kid.

Yours,

David

Awesome news....thanks David!!!

So we are talking Magnolia PM or KoP? Show us a pic anyway.

David that sounds fantastic! I hope it's everything you have made it out to be. I hope when I finally get the opportunity to see one in person I will have the same experience...

Can't wait!

Thank you for your input.

Hi Mark,

Indeed we are. Okay, I'll post one or two pictures in a few minutes after I upload them to my computer, but like I said--they totally suck. After that, man, I am going to bed because I'm wiped out.

Yrs,

David

Thanks very much for the informative post and taking the time to test it out, David. Great information!

Finally, some real information after all these pages of drivel. Seriously, some of you need to take the 'beating a dead horse' idiom to heart.

No, it's not there. The page your referring to looks like this:
▲More
LED SmartLighting : On ►
Feature Demo : Off ►
Reset : OK ►

Turning on the feature demo displays a hud showing SmartLighting On and Off, but nothing about Motion Plus.

For those of you worried about the glare I've yet to see a reflection on my screen.

There's a button for detailed settings somewhere. It's in there (at the very end, along with the wide color gamut feature).

Yours,

David

Okay...here are my breathtakingly lame pictures. I couldn't turn off the flash...

David

Thanks, David, actually those side speakers don't look too bad.
Glad to hear your excursion was worthwhile, get some sleep .
I'll probably be up there in a week or so.

There are 4 screws in the back that hold the plastic dumbo ears on either side of the speakers, behind those looks like a nice metal mesh that runs up the whole side of the tv for the speakers. I was actually thinking about taking off the plastic and do some before and after pics to see how it would look. Seems like an easy mod too.

Actually I just noticed a difference between my 71 and the 81. My speakers ( the gray part) is flush with my bezel and the plastic pieces are on the outside and stick out from the speakers. On the 81 the plastic is in between the speakers and the bezel. Interesting..