NYC Home Electronics Expo

In fact I'll post a few notes/observations here:

Samsung HD3 - all HLPx63 sets were on display, running DVDs on Samsung 931's and 841's via component. As far as edges go (aliasing/jaggies) I honestly don't think it was any smoother than the HD2/+, although in areas of smooth color transitions they did seem smoother as far as banding, dithering, "insects", etc. Pixel structure is still visible, but it's of a funkier [and in my opinion more disconcerting] variety. Mr. Wigggle's predictions in the FP forum of what it would look like were right on the money. Everything else was pretty much the same as the old HLN's, including rainbows. The one thing that really did bother me was when video of textured surfaces moved across the screen- there was alot of "breakup", I guess as details crossed pixel boundaries.

* Specs claim seven segment color wheel at 10,800 rpm. Inputs include VGA, DVI-D and HDMI.

Samsung HD2+ - they had a "Kirk" HLP-5085 on display. Being fed with DVD from samsung 941 player (not sure of connection) it was very nice.. noticably sharper and cleaner than the HD2/HD3 sets. Dithering, banding, aliasing were all pretty good. I think rainbows were much better than the HD2/HD3s but that's pretty subjective. Specs also claimed 7 segment wheel at 10800rpm. Identical inputs to x63's.

Samsung's new 50" (5083?) plasma was easily the best display in the samsung room. I used to think the DLPs were better. Hmm.

TI xHD3 prototype was mounted in an HLN617 case, as before. Peering around the back you could see that it really *was* a prototype, with all kinds of circuit boards and unknown contraptions wired together on the table. Pretty cool. It was very impressive overall. More importantly, compared to Samsung's HD3 presentation, it was vastly better. The same weird pixel structure was there, but it was very difficult to notice, even from a 1-2' away. Any dithering, aliasing was well below what I could see. Rainbows, however, were highly noticable in the dark room, but they told me basically that it would be up to the manufacturers to optimize. They said that it would only be in the two larger sizes for awhile, and probably wouldn't make it to 56" and smaller for some time.

JVC DILA (?) FP - an amazing projector. We'd all kill to have an RPTV made with this technology. Both 1080p and 480p sources were as close to ideal as I've seen. Getting up close to the screen (80-100"?), I could just barely make out the pixel structure- very tiny pixels. Actually, I was trying to see signs of the bleeding effect descriped in the FP forum, but could not.

Sony didn't seem to have anything new on the RPTV front. Their Wega plasmas are redesigned and slightly better than the old ones, but their new big-screen (40?) LCD panels were really pretty impressive.


Not sure what else might be of interest... I was blown away by the Epiphany/Tenor Audio room's presentation- absolutely beautiful to listen to. Irrelevant, but I had to say it.

Get the new Samsung front projector $12k, that demo was awesome. Made me really happy I just built an HTPC. I thought the best picture was on one of the Samsung LCD displays (think it was a 43" or 46"). It was really bright (could have been turned down a bit even), colors popped, with no screen door effect at all. Beautiful smooth picture, really nice $10k. I thought the plasma set had screen door all over it. I'm waiting for a "formerly known as Tantus" 46" or 56" set to hit the market around Sept. Talking with the Samsung guys Steve P. included - they were saying they had tons of trouble with the signals. They said the VOOM network signal was messed up and it was because every set looked like crap when they were playing VOOM. My friend and I were like why have all these nice sets and play a bad signal so they switched it over to some HD content. All the DLP TV's seemed to be on the same signal except the Kirk model. The plasmas and LCD's had their own signal too. On HD content I thought all the DLP's were good with a little better detail on the Kirk model especially the blacks. The brightness on the Kirk seemed to be turned down a bit. I think with all HDTV's it really comes down to the signals you display on it. With a good signal the Samsungs are really nice and I must say they were some of the nicest guys at the show.

I've got two questions for now.


1. Why is Samsung using component connections for their demo sets?


2. Samson's news release announced their "... new Cinema Smooth(TM) Gen 3HD and Gen 4HD advanced light engines". I assume that the "63" series sets will have the Gen 3HD engine and that the "Pedestal" sets will have the Gen 4HD engine. I hope someone asks Steve's guys to tell us which engine will be in the "77" series.


3. That didn't last long. How do the engines differ?


4. Is the "Pedestal" engine unique to that set because it is "vertical"?

I’m no A/V expert but I too saw the sets at the show yesterday. I already posted this information in another post but think it should have gone here instead so please accept my apology for reposting it.


I definitely saw rainbows on ALL of the Samsung DLP sets at the show when moving my eyes back and forth unnaturally quickly just to try to see if they were visible. I would describe it as a definitely annoying effect, but certainly not something that would give me headaches or otherwise make me want to stop watching. It seemed that they were marginally less visible on all the HD3 and the HD2+ sets than on the HD2 however I was quite definitely able to make myself see the rainbows on all of them. I was also able to see them on the otherwise extremely impressive HD2+ projector demonstration by Joe Kane, even more so than on any of the rear projection sets. I also found the rainbows more noticeable on the largest rear projection set than on the smaller HD3's so I assume that perception of the effect may be related to the size of the screen as well as the chip and/or wheel. I don't think I found them annoying enough to make me avoid buying a DLP but it was somewhat disappointing to see them at all.

I really think the rainbow effect is subjective. Some see them some don't. This was really the first time I had seen a Samsung DLP set live and in person. I was fully aware of the rainbow effect from reading this board and I have to say I didn't see any rainbow effect on any set there, not even the front projector. If I had $12k to blow I'd own that little beauty in a heartbeat. Even over the 3 chip infocus which I sat through the demo on.

Honestly I couldn't really say which I thought was better the HD3 sets or the +HD2 Kirk model. They were both excellent but were playing different source material so I couldn't make a great comparison. Both were excellent playing HD material. Both looked terrible with non HD material. I did see something rather disturbing on one of the HD3 models while they played some old 1960's cowboy movie from the Voom network. The edges of the actors head were completely burred and out of wack. It looked horrible and didn't last long but wasn't good at all. I have a feeling it was the source material and not the set itself. I'm no expert either, just calling it as I see it the best I can. I definitely think there was an improvement over the current HD2 sets and I also thought that the +HD2 Kirk model had nice black levels and good contrast. The projector was awesome though, loved it.