2007 Samsung LED Owner's Thread (HLT XX87/89S) - Page 201

I measured the range of eye levels (sitting fully upright to fully reclined) to be 42" to 34" with the typical viewing level being 39". Thus, given that the vertical center of the TV is 22.25" from the bottom of the base, the ideal stand would be 16.75" (39 - 22.25). Obviously this is much too low given my eyeglasses issue along with the coffee table between me and the TV (as well as the required deco on the table to keep the WAF high). Assuming one can be slight below or slightly above the exact center, I prefer to be below the center (looking up) when sitting. This raises the level of the TV which helps with the eyeglasses issue along with (as you said) the ability to see the screen from a standing position. Why do you want the center of the screen to be BELOW your eyes?

Anytime you call Samsung support, be it level 1,2,3 or 10, they'll always claim to have never heard of the problem you're experiencing.
Must be in their policy to never admit to an issue, otherwise word might spread and stock will drop.

I purchased my HLT6187S about a week ago and I am pretty happy with it. However, I have the same problem as MarkM75 - hazziness and darkness especially in the corners. Has anyone had a service tech come out and actually fix this issue with the sweet spot? I want to know if this is something that can be fixed or if it's something that I should simply live with. It is quite noticeable on scenes where there is just a solid color background but under normal viewing it doesnt appear quite evident. Although when I was watching a blu ray movie the picture looked very impressive. Also, I do have that fingerprint pattern on the lower left side of the screen but you can't see it from 3 feet away. Overall this is a great tv. I am just trying to tweak it to perform as best as possible. I am using Mark's settings which look good. I just hate dealing with Samsung service I have already been through 3 HLT6176S's and Samsung Service falls short in many aspects. I do have the CC warranty for 4 years. I am just wondering about this bright spot issue and wonder if anyone had any luck fixing it or tweaking it.

Based on my testing , raising myself up and so forth, plus some other's comments.. it seems being a little above center forces any darkness to the extreme lower part of the tv, usually an area where you're not looking most of the time, making it less distracting.

Actually, for me, I'd rather have the bottom brighter than the top...that's where a majority of "tickers" and scores are...so I look at the bottom a lot. People will have differing opinions on whether a darker top or bottom is more tolerable.

Apparently my DLP chip is going bad. I had a Samsung tech guy over because I had black dots on the screen and he said those were pixels going out. Of course they have to order a new chip so it's going to be a week or two. Anyone get their chips replaced? Hopefully it's not a long process.

I'll be surprised if they just replace the chip. In the past I'm sure it would have been the whole light engine. Maybe the HL-T LED light engine is more modular. If you get to see it done, let us know what you see.

Will do. Hopefully the part will be in sometime next week.

I too seem to have the halo/prism effect on my screen, but it's very subtle. I've only just started to see it after weeks of use, mainly because it only appears rarely. It'll only appear on the screen if the affected area is black and there are light areas nearby. I think ALL of these sets have it, but to varying degrees. My reflection is white, but dim, so it's bearable. Others have a huge purple image, which is not acceptable.
Other than this the tv is perfect, so I'm not sure what to do. I have an extended warranty for a few years, so I'm in no rush. I'm not sure that even replacing the TV will fix the 'problem'. I was watching an SD DVD of The Forgotten and there are a lot of high contrast scenes in it; the prism reflection appeared numerous times. It was distracting because I was looking for it. I'm going to train myself to stop doing that!

Mark,

The interesting thing was back in the beginning of August, Comcast listed on their info channel that CW would be available via HD on some date in August. Well August has come and gone and I can't find that channel down here in Harford County, MD...so it makes me wonder if they have some licensing agreement issues or something?

Edit - Nevermind...seems we have CW in HD, they announced that MY channel for HD and then never provided it...but today they just listed TBS-HD and Food Network HD coming in October.

Well I did my homework on the TV but where I screwed up was not looking into the retailer. I received my TV from Leons (Toronto, Ontario) on Tuesday and immediately noticed the purple blob/prism in the lower center of the screen. I called Leons to arrange for an exchange and they said they have a no refund/exchange policy but they would send a repair person out. I won't get into all the details of the pi$$ing match we had the bottom line was that Leons protects the manufacture not the customer in this situation. A TV maker can skip QA because stores like this will make the customer fix any discovered issue once they take ownership.

Please excuse my bitterness. I will post an update of the repair attempt once I arrange it.

Up here there have been no mentions of it in PGH.. what station number is it down there? (CW) I did hear that the sci fi channel and usa are going HD on Comcast in November (up here).

EDGE Enhancemant

I have a HLT-6187 it has firmware 1021 and a build date of 4-20-07.

The ONLY issue I have with it is that there is to much edge enhancement. I turn the edge enhancement to OFF, and set the sharpness to 0. I see the shimmering some have reported, and I think it is caused by excessive edge enhancement. If I put black text on the screen from my computer which is set up for 1:1 pixel mapping, I see bright white edges all around the black text.

If I run the sharpness from 0 to 100 I see NO change in the picture, it like it is set to full on all the time. I use the HDMI inputs only for my cable tuner and computer.

Does anyone know if there is a setting in the service menu that controls edge enhancement? I have not tried looking there myself yet.

Also does updating the firmware change the user settings?

Thanks

Mike T

Well its been about a week since I got my TV and I must say this has been a great purchase. I must also say that I am impressed with other TVs though like the Westinghouse LVM-42W2 I have in the bedroom, unfortunately it has a couple of stuck pixels. There will be issues with most any display device, so I think you have to chose the TV with the least amount of issues that would bug you personally, HL-T5687S does that for me. I still have a tech coming to correct some slight tilt and I see some very faint prism on occasion but I really feel that this is still one of the better sets for the price.
I love watching Blu-Ray movies on it and games. Picture looks great and I really don't have much to gripe about. I would recommend this TV to anyone who likes movies and gaming. This is my second Samsung DLP purchased. I was impressed with my old HL-P5063W but wanted to go to 1080p and get rid of the lamp replacements. I am very pleased overall.

ANYBODY?

This is from the BD movie.. "the wild" around 1hr3min / chapter 16.

Here were the settings used for each photo:

(keep in mind the exposures can be off on each one from reality as the camera's timing may have differed each time)

Also.. recall.. my stand is 25.75" , i sit back 16 feet (zoomed in with camera) on a 17" high couch.. So my eyes hit about 4 inches below center, causing the hotspot to be a little lower and the top darker (though not as noticeable here I think).

Dynamic:
I left it at the defaults that came with the TV:
Contrast 100
Bright 45
Sharp 75
Color 55
Tint G50
Cool1
DNE on
NR off
Active Color on
Wide colors

Standard (these are the settings I use in general now, thanks to combining some of your results with my liking):
Contrast 70
Brightness 46
Color 63 (using 58 on cable)
G51
Warm2
Black adjust set to LOW (I think I have been using Medium with Cable) Gamma +2 (using +1 on cable) Wide colors DNE on (note.. I didn’t see a huge improvement with this on, like I did with Comcast Cable) NR off

There are two different frames here.. hence the naming. Note the one with the lights on.. a little bit of detail is lost (or the camera underexposed etc).

Which one would you say looks the best? (Also note the rock in the back right.. the shadow detail changes a bit from type to type, camera may have not focused perfectly from frame to frame too.. probably not the best test for colors since this is "cartoonish")

When I saw this movie playing on the Sony at the store with its default vivid settings.. I thought the two chameleons seemed to pop out of the screen more so than they do on the Samsung.. Ill know for sure once I go see these side by side on Friday or Saturday I will take photos of both, if I can, at the store.

Here are the photos:

Dynamic:


Standard:


GameMode On (had it on standard settings, switched to Game):


Standard(frame2):


Raised up 5" (to simulate being at or above center, central brightspot)



Also.. curious.. which Avia disc are most using.. is it the Avia Guide to Home theater? (DVD)

Seriously, do any of you have the DVR625, or vip622, or vip722 dishnetwork receivers? If so, what code do you have assigned to the TV button on your dish remote? If you don't know what it is you can hold down the TV button till the sources light up across the top of the remote, then push #, #. The tv button on the dish remote will blink three numbers in succession..

SnakeDoctor you mention sitting a little above the sweet spot. I've read in this thread and experienced where someone has the tv sitting higher and they are sitting below center and they were quite happy with the viewing angle. Have you tried this to see if it would work for you. I know that I have been at a BestBuy store where I sat on a shelf across the aisle way on and was looking up at a HLT5687 and was pleased with picture quality.

jim

it really depends if you're bothered by darkening sky or darkening tickers/ground: I can't stand darkening sky so for me sitting above center is best, others are the other way around.

I have tried some of the settings you guys are talking about but they don't seem to suit me. I ended up reset them to default only changing the Cool1 to Normal. That seems to give me what I am looking for.

Guys (and gals): Would it be smart to put dust covers on all the unused tv input ports (rca/hdmi/etc..)? I know dust can cause lifetime issues, and also degrade connections.. so is this a real problem? I have found some rca dust caps, and s-vid caps, but not hdmi ones. Any comments?

Hi Jim,

I'm still in the homework phase. My 6189 is on the way and I expect to have it up and running late next week. I will be using the same stand I have now (which is 27" high) until I can decide for myself what will work best in my situation. Thanks for the feedback.

Can you / anyone quantify how far above / below center you can move before this darkening becomes noticeable?

Is your DNIE Off? That may help the edge enhancement a bit. Can't comment on your other questions...

Frankly, even about 2-3" above or below and you can see the image sorta shift in brightness.. so.. like 3-6 degrees above or below .. its not that good.

That doesn't sound so good. Is this typical of all RPTVs? I'm sure there are some that are better than others but is this an extreme or does it fall within the typical range of most RPTVs?

From what I've seen, no. I've compared Sammy LEDs to other sets in stores and the image seems to fall off substantially more, both horizontally and vertically. Although I was looking at one earlier this week and it didn't seem as bad as the ones I'd seen a few months ago so maybe Samsung is making improvements. Hope so, because I think the sooner the industry replaces mercury lamps the better. Mercury is nasty stuff.

The sony a3000 doesn't drop off quite as bad.. though the picture still gets dimmer as you go below center (i cant say on the above center part)..

Though the 60a3000 is about 1.25" higher.. ie: the bottom of the screen starts 1.25" higher than the LED 6187

I thought at the one store.. the horizontal on the two was pretty close though.. or maybe it was a fluke.

I own alot of AV equipment and some are over 10 years old. I never used dust covers and I never have any connection problems. Unless you plan to keep the stuff for 50 years I don't think dust is ever an issue with the plugs. Constant unplugging and replugging does the most damage.

Yes, DNIE is off.

I wonder if the others that talked about shimmering and flickering of fine detail have firmware 1021? Guess I will right down all the settings and update to firmware 1026 to see if that changes anything.

Mike T