2008 Samsung DLP's Discussion (HLxxA650/A750) - Page 60

Thanks for the reply. If you look at some of the 120hz lcd's in Best Buy for example, the image looks extremely life like. It's like a video image. I am wondering if there is option in certain blu-ray players to output a 120hz image. Maybe the ps3 I'm using with my 650 doesn't have that option. Right now I have it set to display at 24fps, and I thought the tv would convert that to 120hz. Do you know of an option like this in certain players?

Just my opinion. Setting aside the huge difference in screen size - go with the Kuro. The other thing to consider would be how far you plan on sitting from the TV.

Also think about the light environment in your room, whether the Kuro will show a lot of distracting reflections.

At my place, got to have a non-reflecting screen.

So I'm guessing these still can't do real 120hz video for content? Don't see it listed in the specs. Only 24p and 60hz are listed.

EDIT: Someone in this thread seems to be really confident they are since they point out the PDF file which states it has a "120hz CinemaPure Color Engine" but I think that just means it has two subsequent 60hz images to make the 3D images. Just like the 2007 models have.

I haven't seen a single person mention the soap opera effect or video looking really fast which makes me even more suspect.

Define "Real".

There's no "Real" 120Hz source out there, they just multiply 24x5, 30x4, or 60(?)x2. That's the beauty of "120Hz," it works with any framerate source.

Apparently, some companies use an interpolation algorithm to add intermediary pixels, others just play multiples of the same frame. I would prefer the simpler method, too much messing around with the original is just begging for trouble, not to mention the increased complexity of the coding, the whole point of which is to eliminate complex schemes such as 3:2 pulldown.

But neither is "Real" 120Hz. I don't think they make too many cameras that fast.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no expert.

I think what the other poster is trying to say is that regardless of the tech. a TV uses to achieve the 120hz framerate, certain tv's don't get that "video" effect. It might have to do something with anti-judder technology or something else; I'm not sure. Anyways, my HL50A650 has 120hz listed, but it does not have the "video-look," rather than film-look, for blu-rays. That's why I was asking if there was an option for the my set or my PS3 that turns this effect on. Apparently 120hz by itself doesn't do it.

What I meant by real was a set that really does 120hz and can be easily spotted, like an LCD I saw in Fry's, or this set which no one has commented on how fast the action is. Only claims that it does but no actual eye witnesses.

The effect you are talking about is only peripherally related to the fact that sets advertise 120Hz video processing. The LCD's you are talking about are also using additional video processing to give that artificial video look. It's not a by product of it being 120Hz, but rather this other video processing that gives it that look. And, while certainly eye catching in a store, I think you would find (at least I do) that after a while of watching the weirdness and artifacts, you might prefer the content displayed naturally.

As stated above, 120Hz simply give this set the ability to display the content according to the source material framerate, without having to do any processing (like 3:2 pulldown) that can introduce video artifact, or "judder", or the so called "TBE" or triple ball effect. So, by having 120Hz video processing, this DLP can show you the source material exactly how it was meant to be seen, 24Hz or fps for Blu Rays and file, 30 or 60 for video, etc.

Today I spent some time calibrating my HL61A750. I used the AVSHD test patterns via my PS3 which are really ideal. Mostly I use three images...

1. Black levels starting at 0 IRE with 2 IRE steps upwards.
2. White levels starting at 255 IRE with 2 IRE steps downwards.
3. An image that combines number one and two (fantastic test image).

I picked Standard for Picture Mode although I think each mode is simply preset values for all of the other settings. Meaning the image would look the same if you set each setting to the same value regardless of which Picture Mode you selected.

I started with the premise that setting Dynamic Contrast to Maximum would provide the best pop (3D look). I also set LED control to minimum to obtain the best blacks.

Not knowing exactly what Black Adjust does I turned it off and without spending several hours (not at this time) I didn't want to adjust the Gamma setting so I left it at zero. However once I came up with Contrast and Brightness settings I tried the various Gamma settings and they would require you adjust both Contrast and Brightness but not to a large degree.

I gave the third test pattern the lion of usage as it reflects what the set can actually do with mixed content (both bright and dark) versus either all bright or dark images. My viewing environment had a fair amount of ambient light but there were no lights on in the room and the blinds were closed.

These are settings I ended up with...

85 - Contrast
63 - Brightness (with normal content 60 or so adds some depth)
0 - Sharpness (removed ringing without defocussing the image)
35 - Color (purely my personal taste)
Tint - 50/50

Off - Black Adjust
High - Dynamic Contrast
Min - Led Control
0 - Gamma
Off - Edge Enhancement
Normal - Color Tone

After the calibrating I spent some time viewing Crank on Blu-ray (my test viewing disc) and everything looked great. The black level appears a little higher than my Optoma HD80 projector however the projector doesn't display the best shadow details and I tend to set black level a little dark.

Then I spent a little time watching the Masters and again everything looked great. Shadow details appear much better than when I started with the Standard's default Contrast and Brightness settings.

There are literal thousands of settings and it's hard to say how valuable these are however they appear to provide an image with a lot of punch but not overly so. I'd say about halfway between what you traditional see as Movie and TV settings. It's life-like with just enough extra pop to say it looks better than being there.

UPDATE: I entered the same settings into the Standard and Movie Picture modes and they appear to give identical results. So I'm pretty sure they are just presets. However I did notice when you change Picture Modes it appears to set Black Adjust on High regardless of its setting. To get back to the Off setting (even though it states it's Off) I have to cycle through the settings back to Off.

You are referring to AMP (Auto Motion Plus) from Samsung and I believe Motion Flow from Sony on their LCDs. This technology combines with 120Hz, to insert calculated frames. The technology tries to guess what frames would look like in between the real frames. This results in very smooth and lifelike motion, when it works correctly (check out the Samsung and Sony threads in the LCD forums). There is nothing you can do on a Blu Ray or any DVD player to achieve this look. I hope this is helpful.

Nobody can answer that, not in RPTV viewing anyway. There are no DC4 RPTV's to our knowledge unless one of the 08 sets turns out to be.

I VERY much appreciate you telling us of your calibration, and would love to know more of your settings after some more tweaking/calibrating. I do have a couple questions. You say you use "normal" for the picture mode, am I to understand that you continued using the "cool2" color settings? (this is what normal selects, ironically not "normal" for color setting). Also, I definitely agree that Dynamic Contrast gives the best "pop" to the image, but I am more concerned about preserving what the filmmakers intend to be the image. Do you think there is a big difference in settings for the most impressive pic vs the most ACCURATE pic? (I am not saying your settings are inaccurate, I am just wondering your belief on this).

Thanks very much for your time, any further settings are greatly appreciated :-)

I'm using Normal for Color Tone since all of the other settings say they alter the image so I try to avoid them. I won't mess around with adjusting colors without a sensor as other wise you are simply blindly guessing at best.

Regarding the filmmakers intent remember the Samsung's Movie preset is just someone's take trying to present a film like look. Typically a darker and muted image with a softer look.

Whether one wants an accurate image or rather one to their personal taste I don't think they is a correct answer. I tend to set contrast, brightness, sharpness, and color accurately and then make minor adjustments based on the display and my personal likes and dislikes.

As I mentioned before my Optoma HD80 projector isn't great at displaying shadow details so I tend to crush blacks a little with it. Doing this adds a lot of pop. If I raise black level to help with the shadow details the image becomes a little washed out. So I personally lean towards accurate unless there is good reason to stray.

I'm such a geek! Brand new HL61A750, and I'm watching test patterns.

Anyway, here's a quick note after my first round of calibrating with HCFR and a Spyder2, using a feed to HDMI2 at 1080p60 from a Toshiba XA2 running the AVS Beta1 HD DVD. They led me to the following settings:
Mode: Movie
Contrast: 100 (no white crush)
Brightness:36 (no black crush)
Sharpness: 0
Color: 52 (easy to adjust using color bars with "Blue Mode" ON)
Tint: G52/R48 (also using color bars with "Blue Mode" ON)
Black Adjust: Off
Dynamic Contrast: Off
LED Control: Medium
Gamma: 2 (yielded 1.08 -- not happy with these results yet)
White Balance: -10 (helped lower color temp)
Flesh Tone: 0
Edge Enhancement: Off
Color: Warm2
Size: Just Scan
Digital NR: Auto
Blue Mode: Off
Color Gamut: Normal

HCFR reports 3818:1 CR, and color temp hovering around 7200K.
This set is plenty bright for me @ 118cd/m^2 (my wife keeps saying "this TV's so bright").
Gamut is ok, though there's too much green.
I had to replicate the settings over to HDMI1 for my Dish622.
I haven't climbed into the service menu yet, but expect results will improve further from here.

Bottom line, I'm delighted with the PQ so far. It's much brighter than my ailing HL-P4674 was, much bigger, and nearly as good for viewing angle. I sit 7-8 feet away, with three seats directly in front, plus one more off to either side. The picture from the side seats looks a bit less bright and a bit less uniform, but not bad.

More details when I have some, but I'm off to watch some actual TV.

That's what I suspected...I'm a little surprised Samsung hasn't thrown that into the DLP series, then. I kind of think I would prefer 1:1 (well 5:1, I guess) frames at 24fps, as that's how it was filmed and would be displayed in theaters.

I got the A750 today and am completely and totally in love with it.
First thing I did was configure the Blu-Ray player (PS3) for 1080p, super white, etc. and customized the contrast, brightness, turned off sharpness, etc. on the TV and popped in the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds show from Radio City Music Hall. Unbelievable picture quality. And for those saying "it doesn't seem very bright in-store", my wife complained that it was "too bright". In her defense, I did have the lights all dimmed to about 10% in the home theater. Anyway, I couldn't be happier with my purchase. I'll post pictures once the TV stand gets delivered on Wednesday.

Again, couldn't be happier and IMO the PQ looks just as good, if not slightly better than my 42" Sammy plaz and completely pummels my 2005 Mitsu 55" RP HDTV

DLP doesn't need to generate fake frames like LCD, it's MUCH, and I mean MUCH faster and better at displaying motion. No fakery needed.

Speaking of, I was playing around with the 750 today in Fry's, that had a Samsung BR/HD-DVD of Transformers playing. I switched the player so it was playing 24 fps, and I couldn't tell any difference than when it was playing 60 fps. Both looked DAMN good.

Of course I didn't have any hard core testing video or anything, just casually watching the movie I could tell no difference.

I know one thing, this TV just looks incredible with a High-def DVD going into it.

For those interested, a video showing a bit more extreme example of the "screen blanking" issue similar to turls' post earlier, with some minor tearing. I originally thought the XBox was giving me fits of the power cycling (like the PS3 / Blu-Ray), but this is obviously not the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTktulta-Qk

Timeline of key events:
0:12 - first screen blank
1:20 - screen tearing (bottom)
2:21 - second screen blank (five in quick succession)
2:38 - more screen tearing (bottom)
2:46 - third screen blank (two in succession)

Don't know if I have the patience (or time ) to capture a Blu-Ray power cycle, but we'll see.

I'll pull a complete 180 here and say I still really, really, like the set...the PQ is much, much, better than my old RPTV HDTV. Just hope the power cycling / screen blanking gets fixed soon.

One thing I just noticed is when you change Picture Modes it appears Black Adjust gets set to High regardless of the Mode's settings.

I have Black Adjust set to Off for both Movie and Standard Modes and I can see all of the black bars fine. When I switch modes I lose the two darkest bars until I go into Black Adjust and cycle back to the Off setting.

Which pattern did you use to set Contrast? If I used Basic Settings (all light image) 100 worked but the moment I used Misc Patterns (which has both light and dark content) there was quite a bit of crush. I found the same thing (black crush) with Brightness being set anywhere below 63.

Sorry, what is HCFR please?

I, for one, really dislike the "video look"/"soap opera effect" that the new LCDs have. People always say it's to give it a more "life like" appearance but I think it looks incredibly un-natural. I hope that this does not become the norm. I'd never be able to watch even one movie like this, much less every single thing I watch. I'm really glad this TV doesn't do that.

Have you tried using a 360 VGA cable?

I was wondering about this too, since this is how I am going to be connecting my XBOX 360 to this TV. I don't have the TV yet (next week hopefully) so I can't comment on this myself.

After two weeks with no problems, we were watching an On-Demand movie over Charter Cable. The movie was not HD and the signal was not 1080p. About 15 minutes into the movie the TV powered off/on. TV had been on only about an hour when this ocurred. Only happened once. I will call Samsung service and see what the Samsung plan is to correct this issue. I bought at CC, but have not yet purchased an extended warranty.

Its an OPTION that can be turned on and off. Its not like that all the time. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the 120hz refresh rate. If I had a buck for every time I've heard a misconception on the 120hz LCDs, I could buy a new 67" 750.

thanks!

I'm sorry. Did I ever say that you couldn't turn this off or that it was related to 120Hz? I don't believe I did. Oh that's right, it's because I didn't. Nor did I imply it. I only said that I didn't like it and I hope it didn't become the norm! If I had a DIME for every time someone assumed or inferred something from something someone else said, I could buy a whole digital projection multi-screen cinema!

Thanks!

Okay, whatever. What you inferred was that since the tv is 120hz, that it is going to have that 'look' to it, which is incorrect. Did you or did you not say this....?
"I think it looks incredibly un-natural. I hope that this does not become the norm. I'd never be able to watch even one movie like this, much less every single thing I watch. I'm really glad this TV doesn't do that."

That in itself is an inference that you believe the tv will look like that all the time.