[mjf007]

I've spent a lot of time viewing various HDTV's in my local electronics retailers and I've decided that the Sammy DLP's have the best PQ IMHO.

I'm trying to decide between the HLN467W & the 567W. At first I was going to go with the 46 as it would fit in my current wall unit with little modification, but then I started thinking about the advantages of the larger screen. My viewing distance is about 9' & I will be using Comcast Cable with a Motorola 5100 STB (No DVI yet unfortunately). After reading many posts I have some concerns about SD reception. None of the retailers (Best Buy, Circuit City, etc) had the units equipped to show me an SD picture (go figure). All of their HDTV's were running either HD or DVD's. I'll still be using my Tivo to record SD & I'm a little worried about spending thousands on a new HDTV and being shocked by a poor SD picture. Hopefully some current Sammy owners could give me some input on this if possible. Does the 46 make more sense because of room size & a possibly less grainy SD picture, or should I expect minimal difference between the two and go for the 56? Having never seen any SD on the Sammy, maybe I'm overreacting & the picture isn't that bad? Please help.


Thanks

 

[Clamhead]

I have the HLN5065 and SD is crap. Don't buy this TV with the expectation that SD will look good, that's not this set's strong point. DVI input for DVD's or HD feed is it's forte'.

The picture you see in stores is mostly a DVD feed that they loop or on rare occasions a HD feed via satellite or cable.


You WILL be dissappointed if you think that you can just take it home, plug in to SD cable and be done with it. See many other threads in this forum for your subject as well.

 

[SethS]

mjf007- For that distance, the 50" would look great. As for SD material, it's all over the board. On a clean SD source, the Faroudja chip does an excellent job, and the image looks fantastic. Unfortunately, there is no telling what the cable company will send down the pipe, but like clamhead said, a lot of it is......not Scottish.

 

[jaseman]

mjf007

I have a Samsung 61" DLP. I sit about 13' back but my wife's chair is only about 10' back. We do watch a fair amount of SD material and the PQ is not nearly as good as HD or DVD's through DVI. However, it's not that bad either. You get used to it. In fact, the picture quality changes from channel to channel and sometimes the stinkin commercials look the best...go figure? But, all-in-all I think you will be pleased with the PQ. Get the bigun!

 

[htwaits]

Quote:

Originally posted by jaseman In fact, the picture quality changes from channel to channel and sometimes the stinkin commercials look the best...go figure?

The commercials look better because more money is spent on them per minute than on the programming.


I've never has a chance to see SD on cable or satalite. I did watch some SD for a month from an OTA antenna and a Samsung STB.


The best SD that I saw was from the channels doing a digital simulcast of there normal analog programming.


Some of the worst SD PQ was the evening news on a Fox station. The OTA broadcast was analog and all their studio shots had major sunburned looking skin tones. When they would switch to their remote shots skin tones would be good again. I blamed that problem on Fox. The problem is that your old (small?) TV covers up a lot that the DLP sets expose.


I would wait until you had good HD & DVD input through DVI along with HD Tivo. Or try one out with a good "no cost" thirty day return policy.

 

[TheMostToyzWins]

Clamhead is correct.


I'll add my $0.02.


The Hln46 will have a better perceived picture than the hln56. They both have the same bulb (amount of light) and the same resolution. That said, size does matter, so if you want big, go big.


Digital TV's will tend to reproduce digital signals better (more accurately) than analog TV's and vise versa.


Tivo (the ONLY way to watch TV digitizes and compress' tv signals. Depending on your Tivo version (in my experience, I can adjust the settings of my Series 1 to provide a less compression artifacts recording than I can get with my Series 2) and settings, your picture quality will vary. Analog SD TV signals are 480i (for arguments sake one could say 525i.) This works out to what is generally accepted as the equivalent of a 300p signal (yes, this can be argued, but this is a fair average.) So you will be taking an analog signal, compressing it (seems odd huh) digitizing it (and all of its flaws) then blowing it up to 720p (greater than 250%) and displaying its digital equivalent (remember the golden rule, garbage in and 250% garbage out.)


That said, high quality analog signals can be acceptable on these TV's. But especially for dark shows (like Alias for example) watching an analog SD broadcast of Alias from Tivo will look MUCH better on any analog TV than either of the Hln's.


There is a lot of information in this forum, spend some time (at least a full week) searching and reading and you will learn a lot.


Best of luck

 

[ted08721]

I have Sammy HLN 467 /Comcast cable and sit 12 ft. from set all channels look good even anolog channels look good. Have had set since beginning of Sept. no problems.

 

[CobraKahn]

I sit 9.5 ft. from a 617. Most SD is crap. some of it is okay - depends on channel and time of day and position of the moon.


I don't really mind. I am happy to watch The Simple Life in crappy quality to get The Lord of the Rings in all its DVD DVI glory as big as possible. Fantastic and makes watching SD bearable.


Life is full of compromises. Hopefully in 2 years or so we will have enough HD that we will never have to watch SD again.


And remember - HD Tivo is only 3-6 mo. away.

 

[Chipden]

Quote:

Originally posted by Clamhead I have the HLN5065 and SD is crap. Don't buy this TV with the expectation that SD will look good, that's not this set's strong point. DVI input for DVD's or HD feed is it's forte'. The picture you see in stores is mostly a DVD feed that they loop or on rare occasions a HD feed via satellite or cable. You WILL be dissappointed if you think that you can just take it home, plug in to SD cable and be done with it. See many other threads in this forum for your subject as well.

Where have you found the HLN467W to look at? None of the BBs, CCs or Sears in my area have them. Sales people don't seem to know they exist. I've only seen them on the internet. I just assume that all these stores will have to sell out of all the 43 & 50s before SAmsung will roll out the 46s. Am I right?

 

[ted08721]

Only the so called upper end stores such as Tweeters,Harveys Electronics etc. carry them.

 

[tyurek]

Can anyone comment on how SD signals look on the Sammys if they are

displayed through a PC as a 640x480 window inside a 1280x720 desktop?

Assuming you have a decent TV tuner/graphics card that does a good job.

I'm wondering how much the picture quality would improve if there were

no upscaling (= no interpolation).

 

[htwaits]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chipden I just assume that all these stores will have to sell out of all the 43 & 50s before SAmsung will roll out the 46s. Am I right?

The HLN467/567 models have been out since August in higher end stores.


I don't know what will happen when the new HD3 chip 'basic" models are rolled out this summer.


Here are all the new models. Maybe BB, CC, and Sears will carry the complete "base" line.

"Samsung's Base Models for 2004"

 

[CEB II]

I've had my HLN507W since late July. No HD tuner until 12/19/03. Up to that point my SD was via an E* 2700. Initially the SD really looked like crap. My wife was ready to send the Sammy back except she loved watching DVDs from the Sammy HD-931 via DVI.


SD PQ improvement involved a series of steps for us. After upgrading our coax and video cables, I installed a Monster Power 3600 - clean power center. Those actions made the SD PQ adequate from our 8 foot viewing distance for good sources like Starz, CMax, and several others (stuff like local channel SD via E* was generally marginal).


I bought an E* 811 HD receiver in December and hooked it up to our Sammy via DVI. Of course the HD is awesome and the ED is quite good, but the improvement in SD is remarkable. Source quality still impacts the PQ, but with the improved receiver, DVI connection, and the fact that the receiver is upscaling SD to 720P, I no longer have any issues with viewing SD.


SD is so good on most channels that I use the partial zoom control on the 811 to fill the screen with an SD broadcast and get little noticeable resolution loss. Best of all, with the OTA receiver built into the 811, I get local HD, ED, and SD DTV. OTA SD DTV quality is better than anything you've seen SD on before. A treat to watch while waiting for the world to go all HD.

 

[mjf007]

Thanks to all for the input.

Until yesterday I had only seen the Sammy 43's & 50's at BB, CC, etc. I was about to buy the 46 or 56 however sight unseen based on the PQ of the other sets. Fortunately, I found a Tweeters that had the 56 set up w/ a HD & SD feed so I went yesterday to take a look. The SD picture wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but the HD didn't look as good on the 56 as I did on the 50 that I saw in the other stores either. It's probably due to the perceived picture that TMTW discussed a few posts back. After actually seeing the 56 & factoring in my 9' viewing distance & the $1k price difference, I'm now leaning towards the 507W. I decided it's silly to consider the smaller 46 simply because it would fit in my current entertainment center (with modifications). I originally wanted at least a 50" screen & that is probably the best size for my room anyway, so I'll just buy a new TV stand. I'm under the impression that there is no real difference (other than the black bottom piece & thinner bezel) between the 507W & the Tantus models (46/56), so in my situation I'm thinking that the HLN507W is the way to go.

 

[STR3T]

If the 50" set they have is an older unit (been sitting on the shelf for awhile) it could have an older version #, which could be problematic for you if you use a universal remote.


I don't think the PQ is much different between the 46" and 50" though.

 

[lexx]

Not in an extreme rush for my Samsung 50". Would appreciate any comments on the benefits of waiting for the May/June models with a 7 segment color wheel as opposed to the 6 available now.


I'm also not clear on the major differences between the Texas Inst. HD2, HD2+ and the expected H3. I see the contrast ratio will be lower on the HD3. What if any impact is that expected to have, along with other expected changes in viewing quality of these newer chips?


Thanks

 

[lmychajluk]

"I decided it's silly to consider the smaller 46 simply because it would fit in my current entertainment center (with modifications)."


That's what I thought, and ended up taking out a $1500 wall unit and replacing it with $1500 of TV stands / stereo racks... :/


But I love my 617!