Official Samsung 81 Series LNT-xx81f Owner's Thread Part II - Page 2

What happens if you turn off SmartLED lighting? Can you mimic your 71 in that sense? Oh... I remember that one post you had. "Oh nevermind... they're both awesome sets."

You were just freaking tired of all the questions and calibrating the sucker right?

Yes but you will see that the 81 has a fraction of a deeper black, I am sure it is from an LED standpoint. I was starring at an LED flashlight at work today, and damn those things are bright. I am not saying that the 81 sucks at all, it is a beautiful tv, I really wanted the 24p and automotion plus features so I stuck with the 71. I can live with a little bit of grayness. It is amazing how far the 71 has actually come in LCD terms. I just wish, like most of us on here do, that the future was here allready with tv's. I hate the fact that every tv must be flawed in some form or another. Mura, crush, floating, poor sd, streaking, motion blurr, yada yada yada, I just want that perfect set allready. I hate wasting time facinating myself with what should be, I just want it now. Just the perfect set with no anomalies, and non of the above mentioned, just a windowesque tv to look at. But we are getting close. Looking at my row of 10 x 8 clusters just dissapoints. I wonder how much better the 81 would look if I had 100 x 80 clusters that idividually could dim from nothing to 1/4 brightness, to 1/2 brightness to 3/4 brightness to full brightness......

Probably alot better. Haha. So basically you could get the picture you wanted with the 81 w/o smartled. But that is pointless since you paid 1100 bucks more for it and it didn't have the motionplus features correct?

And I know that for a fact now. Even w/o local dimming, this is one of the better LCDs I've seen contrast wise. Its darker than alot of plasmas and LCDs (besides the clouding). Alot better than before I'd admit. I still would complain but I don't want to tear through it with an axe like my 3251D at the moment. Now if only color would just turn around!

Actually I think the true test here would be to find someone with an endless supply of cash to be able to buy one of these 81's pry the sucker appart and hook up a pc with dual monitors, one standard 16x9 monitor hooked up to the pc and the 81 hooked up as the second of the dual monitors, take off the front panal so only the led clusters are visible on the 81, run the all black screen on the pc with the mouse cursor floating around to see what these LED's actually do. So does anyone have an endless supply of cash, a philips screwdriver, and some free time?

I have a philips screwdriver and some free time ... someone send me the endless supply of cash and we're all good ...

I was looking forward to my Avia disc coming in through the mail but it sounds like it's not the least bit helpfull to use it to calibrate this tv based on your findings, Johnny and Sharp. I'll play with it regardless. I just hope someone gets it professionally calibrated soon.

I spent most of my day just enjoying the tv and putting together a Sanus PFFP2B pedestal stand for my 5281 and then redoing all the wire management. Everybody likes to see pics, so here is a little pic whoring action

@Sharpjunkie

Hi, new poster but longtime reader.

I'm following these Samsung 81/71 and Sony XBR4/5 threads for a long time, and if I'm correct you are quite a gamer too and you think the Samsung 71 series is the best choice for gaming compared to the Samsung 81 series ?
Any idea how the Samsung 71 perform against the Sony XBR4 keeping in mind that I will use the tv 90% for gaming (xbox360, PS3 and Wii) and 10% for watching movies (HD as well as regular DVD. No television broadcasts).
And what about the upscale performance of the Samsung 71 compared to the XBR4 -> playing in 480p on the Wii for example ?

I can still see wires, hide them hide them hurry.... LoL J/K. Looks sweet. Nice set up. I am watching 5th element AGAIN and man this 24p is so smooth. With the 71 calibrated, almost perfection with color and lots of depth and eye candy on the BD. It's nice being an early adopter isn't it? It's been a few days since I have actually sat down and watched a movie, got all tied up in calibrations and testing, I urge others that get the 81, just set it up and play with the settings till you get a manageable and correct picture to your eyes liking and just wait till someone hacks into the full potential of this tv. Don't sit there and tweak and tweak and tweak because you will drive yourself mad trying to get it just right.

300 comparison shot. Bare with me.

Samsung 4681:

Samsung 3251D:

Anyone else convinced black levels are overatted?

To not hijack this thread with 71 and xbr stuff I will answer on the 81 soley... I game about 70 percent and movies and tv make up the other 30 so I do have lots of input on it. I have a ps3, xboxElite, and used to have a wii. I have not played a wii on this set but have played it on the 66. To me the wii lacks in the graphical department but really makes up for it in the gameplay department. Most of the games are cartoonish and still look good on an HD set, recommend you get the 480p cables from Nintendo, they will make a difference. Imagine a 480 cable feed on a 1080p set, just don't expect to be wowed. PS3 and 360 look beautiful on the 81. Usually graphical blurring v-sync problems are system and game problems. Some people think it is the tv. You can test this with bioshock. Go into options menu and set framrate off and you will see a world of difference. LCD's are not great for gaming as apparent to all the people complaining at the madden challange how the LCD's induced lag into the games and made it unfair. Also the difference has been shown between many crt vs lcd timing tests. But as far as LCD's go, the 81 does a stupendous job at letting you play your games in visual beauty. The 81 is a great pair for your equipment. It might be an expensive display if that is your sole purpose but only you can make that decision. I kept the 71 because it just worked better for me. Imagine how many games and blu ray movies I could buy with 1400 or so dollars. But both are top panels that handle games and movies very well with proper tweaking...

Man that pause button is ugly. On a all black screen, I could still see the flashlight effect that it would produce. Then I would do some settings to get rid of the haze it would produce then hit play and now my screen would be too dark.. Endless battle...

Yep, fight on my friend hehe You can kinda see the haze for sure.

No one seems to be mentioning the 24p on the 81. I owned the 66 for a while then just had a costco samsung until I was ready to buy a tv that I would keep for a while. My question to you Johnny is, and all the other members, is that I just got a ps3 with this tv and just started some blu ray content. Was blu ray always this smooth for you guys back on 65's or other tv's that only did 1080p60 or are you guys seeing some amazing smooth results with the 1080p24 output from blu ray to the 81??????

I am not sure. When I ran 360 HD-DVD into the Sammy it looked fine to me even if it was 1080p/60. I don't see much difference.

Oh and another helpfull hint is to set the blue light for the power button to only display during standby. Turn off all the lights in your room in the middle of the night and turn the blue display power button light on with the tv off. Light's up the whole house, that sucker is bright. Good to keep it off during movies so it doesn't shine directly into your eyeballs...

Nice to hear that you are making progress, johnnyb. Keep up the good work. Have you looked into service menu yet or are you going to tweak just standard settings? There seems to be a learning curve with these displays.

Long time reader and posting for the first time

But how does this TV compare with its predecessor - the 61 series TV??? Is there much of significant difference in watching movies and especially while playing games and hooking up a desktop???

Thanks Johnny. Yes, I know some people on these LCD threads think I'm biased...and maybe I am, but only for the best picture regardless of technology. As I've said before, when I see one display is clearly better than another (whether I own it or not), I'm really really bad at lying to myself. At that point I NEED that display...just ask my wife!

I'm glad to hear you were able to iron out some of the issues and you're also confirming what I saw. I think you'll probably reach a point where you hit the 'ceiling' of the technology's current iteration. Keep tweaking man!

Actually regarding all the tweaks, you know me Johnny, from my perspective that's a GOOD thing! But as others have said, there's no way that Joe Sixpack will ever touch all these controls. He'll more likely make a bloody mess of the picture if he does. So Samsung needs to do a much better out-of-the-box experience. Of course other manufacturers should do the same thing, but I think it appears with this LED technology it's particularly important.

All indications show that the 81 series can already "infinitely" control the individual LEDs from "off" to "full brightness" - we've gone over this ad naseum in the other thread already. But we will undoubtedly see the technology mature with more and more zones for a given size. Beyond that, we'll also see the LEDs reinforce the colors they're lighting by throttling for average color as well as brightness. The response time of the LED throttling will also get faster and faster.

If anyone expected this set to be "perfect", they're were seriously fooling themselves. The better thing to ask is whether its better than previous LCD-TV offerings - in my mind, the answer is clearly yes especially if you're comparing it to the 61/65 series.

Of course all of these displays should be "out of the box" perfectly calibrated in my opinion but they are not. You don't buy a new car and then have to get it tuned up.

If I buy a new high priced car with the latest technology, I'm not going to attempt to tune it up. I'll have the appropriate professional work on it. And if Joe Six-pack wants to shell out Bordeaux money on a display, it would be prudent to have a professional calibrator tweak it.

Agreed. With something as complex as this display, with so many different adjustment options, some in conflict with others, it is like we are the lab rats that have been forced to pay dearly for the privilege of providing raw test data to the manufacturers on what needs to be worked on.

Does any one know the answer to a question that was posted on another thread: If someone has this set professionally calibrated, and later Samsung provides a firmware update, will the firmware update keep the calibration settings or will it restore the settings to default. Has anyone had any experience of what happened with previous Samsung firmware patches?.

Yes, I was talking about your comment about getting the colors right.

The 81 is limited by 96 zones, each zone having 21,600 pixels.

I would assume a STAR might be around 50 pixels, if not less. There is no way for the backlight to do BOTH the black space and brighten the star at the same time with 21k pixels per zone.

Nice setup....and picture.

Oh my. Stellar comparison. Hehehe. Where's the Calibration god? I want this set!!!!

I think the appropriate thing to ask of the 81 is ... Is it better than the current 71 series? If yes, then its worth the extra price.

Yeah, fair enough. It's a tricky question since they each seem to have their strengths - 71 for motion, 81 for good blacks (in certain conditions). For me, the 81 wins out due to my love of the Apple TV. I want to try out movie content with each before I pull the trigger though.

Or they could at least come out of the box without eye-torching settings that produce a gamma curve that looks more like a gamma square.

I guess this question applies mainly to Sharpjunkie (thanks for all the great work on the 81 vs 71 btw), but it seems like some others have some input...For me, the difference in price between the 71 and 81 is much less. So my question, which is hopefully answerable, is whether the 81 is everything the 71 is just with LED BL? Or put another way, is there anything the 71 can do that the 81 can not?

I am not going to spend countless hours tweaking my set. And I would choose better black levels in movies than motion blur. No pressure on anyone, but if I can get the 81 for $400 more...worth it?

Well..I realize the camera and your picture taking skills are distorting the reality a bit but I'm not really impressed by the pics.
They both look horrible.
But yes, I do see the black potential there in the 81 series.

Edit: I am checking it on mine using DvD version to see if I am being too harsh. Is that HD-DvD source with those pics, btw?

Since the 81 has so many settings to tweak, do you think than Samsung tech support might help out with settings that they might have used to tweak their own in-house panels? Maybe they can give a baseline configuration other than out of the box. Might be worth a shot.