Got my HLN-4365 (from TVAUTHORITY) and here are some first impressions, after much pre-buy research:
1. Stunning picture
2. Playing with the service menu, it for sure does have a FLI2300 chip (Farouja). There is a live menu for it and all appears to be active.
3. The PIP does allow side-by-side mode with internal OTA tuners, and video in+internal tuner. The manual states that the side-by-side is only available in the Tantus models, but mine works.
4. Rainbowing ? I did see it, but only when there is a fast flick of the eye passing and not focussed on the screen. It also seems to be material dependent, since it was nearly impossible to voluntarily replicate, and I never saw it while "watching".
5. OTA signals, if they are crappy or noisy, the line doubler seems to magnify the noise. If they are clean, they look great (BTW I am antenna and big C band dish only, no cable).
6. OTA HD stuff is breathtaking in picture quality. The PBS demos and CSI were amazing to watch. We just need more HD programming.
7. DVDs were also amazing. They were the most "film like" that I have ever seen on any system. The total lack of scan lines, artifacts and jitter was more than I expected. Even my wife, who has been very cold to the whole HD thing ("It's big and it's ugly") got sucked in and watched Return of the Clones and remarked at the experience.
8. I see now why discrete codes would be nice. Let's hope Samsung is listening and come up with a firmware upgrade.
9. Menus and remote lack some user friendlyness. Hit surround on the remote to enable surround and BBE is shut off; turn off surround and you must use the menus to re-enable BBE. Also lack of input labels and the why not show only the connected inputs.
10. Connected to my Sony SAT-HD200 with DVI. No problem, they play well together. Too bad the Sony remote has very limited functionality on the Sammy, and the Sammy remote can not control the Sony receiver.
11. Power cord too short
12. No dead pixels found yet
13. Blacks are black, great contrast ratio (BTW there was a recent study that the human eye can only perceive contrast ratios of 100:1 to 150:1. It could be that the advertised specs on some products are more hype than benefit. I'm sure this will cause some flaming over the issue)
Overall great RPTV. I have no regrets in my decision and feel that this product line and DLP in general are on the leading edge and setting the bar for others. I have yet to see a CRT based unit with the overall pix quality. I also felt that the current level of LCD was not there with regard to contrast, blacks and pixel fill.
paul
1. Stunning picture
2. Playing with the service menu, it for sure does have a FLI2300 chip (Farouja). There is a live menu for it and all appears to be active.
3. The PIP does allow side-by-side mode with internal OTA tuners, and video in+internal tuner. The manual states that the side-by-side is only available in the Tantus models, but mine works.
4. Rainbowing ? I did see it, but only when there is a fast flick of the eye passing and not focussed on the screen. It also seems to be material dependent, since it was nearly impossible to voluntarily replicate, and I never saw it while "watching".
5. OTA signals, if they are crappy or noisy, the line doubler seems to magnify the noise. If they are clean, they look great (BTW I am antenna and big C band dish only, no cable).
6. OTA HD stuff is breathtaking in picture quality. The PBS demos and CSI were amazing to watch. We just need more HD programming.
7. DVDs were also amazing. They were the most "film like" that I have ever seen on any system. The total lack of scan lines, artifacts and jitter was more than I expected. Even my wife, who has been very cold to the whole HD thing ("It's big and it's ugly") got sucked in and watched Return of the Clones and remarked at the experience.
8. I see now why discrete codes would be nice. Let's hope Samsung is listening and come up with a firmware upgrade.
9. Menus and remote lack some user friendlyness. Hit surround on the remote to enable surround and BBE is shut off; turn off surround and you must use the menus to re-enable BBE. Also lack of input labels and the why not show only the connected inputs.
10. Connected to my Sony SAT-HD200 with DVI. No problem, they play well together. Too bad the Sony remote has very limited functionality on the Sammy, and the Sammy remote can not control the Sony receiver.
11. Power cord too short
12. No dead pixels found yet
13. Blacks are black, great contrast ratio (BTW there was a recent study that the human eye can only perceive contrast ratios of 100:1 to 150:1. It could be that the advertised specs on some products are more hype than benefit. I'm sure this will cause some flaming over the issue)
Overall great RPTV. I have no regrets in my decision and feel that this product line and DLP in general are on the leading edge and setting the bar for others. I have yet to see a CRT based unit with the overall pix quality. I also felt that the current level of LCD was not there with regard to contrast, blacks and pixel fill.
paul