Samsung HLT5687S 56" LED DLP Picture Box Review
(Samsung xx87 LED DLP series)
Why I bought it
- Price: on sale for $1600 last week (compare with $2300 regular at BestBuy)
- Value: more viewable real-estate per dollar compared to other TVs in the >50" range
- Heat: doesn't produce light via EXPLODING gases, unlike plasma; runs cooler than both plasma and LCD at similar sizes
- Weight: it's lighter than smaller plasma and LCD sets, and I don't care about wall-mounting
- Burn-in: I'm under the impression this is not an issue with DLP, so HAH (lawl plasma)
- LED: apparently it's the best-looking and longest-lasting of the DLP technologies
- It's not LCD: I don't have to worry about LCD's historic ghosting/blurring issue, at all
- Wii: in-store test play (Samsung 6187) with Metroid Prime 3 was acceptable
Negatives
- The factory settings are lousy, for both movies and games. Considerable picture tweaking was necessary.
- LLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL HD Revolution sucks. Pixels from SD sources become smeared blobs of fail. The impression of crispness that was attainable from even an S-Video source on a SD CRT is lost. Using component cables doesn't rescue the situation (DVD movies are less affected than game consoles, since film produces more natural, smooth images, while games display objects with well-defined pixels). Scaling decently softens jaggies at the expensive price of image sharpness. The Sharpness setting in the Menu has little effect on the appearance. Such is the pitfall of fixed-pixel resolution displays. SUPER SAI EAGLE 8X ENGINE ROFLCOPTERS
- The "DNIe" image enhancement feature is nice but I don't think is necessary. It mainly brightens up the whole picture. Maybe too much. It significantly brightened up dark color ranges in games that I think should not be bright, sorta ruining dark/shadowy areas in games that are supposed to be DARK AND SHADOWY. So I turned it off. But the feature is nice in DVD movies.
- Noise Reduction and DNIe settings could not be indepently saved for my separate video inputs (my 2 component sources were labled DVD and GAME). One setting seemed to apply to all the inputs, which was not desirable. So I have them both off.
- When using the Source remote control button to change inputs, a mini-menu for the various sources pops up, but I have to push the "enter" (or "exit")button to make the GUI crap go away; it won't disappear after a few seconds.
Video Game Lag
- I chose Metroid Prime 3 as the game to evaluate HD display lag at its worse.
(1) The game displays at a smooth 60 fps (59.94 Hz), which means the screen updates every 1/59.94 of a second, or 0.0167 sec. If a lagged/delayed frame is drawn onto the screen in less time, our eyes shouldn't be able to perceive lag. The Interweb says that "Game Modes" in modern HDTVs minimize lag to 10 ms, or 0.010 sec, at best -- at 0.010 sec, things are in good shape. DVD Hollywood movies didn't have to worry about lag, since 24 fps updates every 0.042 sec, so HDTV-design with (only) DVDs in mind always had decent breathing room.
(2) The game's targetting reticule is much cleaner than Wii Play's. The points are small, defined, and lack the blurry cursor trails produced by Wii Play's cursors. There is less visual junk to interfere with my assessment.
(3) Of all the "best" cursors I've come across on Wii, MP3's reticule has the greatest inherent lag. It's even noticeable when playing on a CRT, which should not introduce extra lag in the first place. Apparently the game spends a bit more time crunching numbers to achieve such a stable cursor. Thanks to the lag already in MP3, extra lag would exaggerate it, and noticeably affect performance and comfort.
The Test
- Played in 480p widescreen mode.
- I run Samus to a spot where there's a floor or a wall with somewhat dark coloring so I can see the green reticule clearly. I aim up/down to fill the screen with said floor/wall then lock the view in place by standing still and Z-targetting the entire time.
- I look at my TV and hold the Wang(TM) Remote such that I can see the reticule and the Remote "race" each other. I have one eye closed and i don't necessarily focus on either object; I just make sure I can see their relative positions to each other. I tried not to pay attention to the Arm Cannon, since it was animated with intentional lag, and threw my judgement off.
- Then I do whatever. Draw circles with the reticule, snap the reticule from one side to the other, draw Zorro symbols, quick left-rights and right-lefts.
- Then I run around and try to play like normal.
The Results
- With Game Mode turned off, the lag feels obvious. Seeing the reticule play catch-up with the remote was obvious. Playing normally wasn't comfy becuz, additionally, the CAMERA was playing catch-up with the reticule.
- With Game Mode (any) turned on, the natural lag was noticeable, ketchup was less obvious, and normal play felt "right". That made me satisfied with my purchase
- On the flipside, the Mii Channel has the MOST accurate and responsive cursor.
(1) It SHAKES LIKE HELL, because we do. Apperently there's next to zero stability processing performed.
(2) With Game Mode on, my eyes can't trace any lag whatsoever.
Final Score:
FULL FIST
- great price
- has color
Why it missed DOUBLE THE FIST
- LOLOLOLL;OLOLOLOL HD next-generation pixels come at the price of ruining SD-everything (the win-generation)
My DVD (480p) settings:
Mode: Standard (doesn't matter)
Contrast: 55
Brightness: 50
Sharpness: 65
Color: 60
Color mode: Normal
Digital NR: Off
DNIe: Off
Color Gamut: Normal
My Gaming (480p) settings:
Mode: Game (Sports)
Contrast: 54
Brightness: 44
Sharpness: 74
Color: 64
Color mode: Normal
Digital NR: Off
DNIe: Off
Active Color: On
Color Gamut: Normal
I adjusted my DVD settings based on Kill Bill Vol.2. There were some good dark spots during night time around Bud's trailer, and the Pai Mei chapter had some very bright, white spots. When things are too dark and/or too bright and/or too saturated, details get smothered & lost in the intense areas. So I tried to avoid all three while still maintaining richness in color and retaining detail on things like night time soil and Pai Mei's white hair against pure-white sky spots, and to present skin tones that aren't too rosy or too bluish.
My gaming settings were based on the Wii Menu and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicle's "brightness check". Same objectives as above, to retain details while having rich colors, but also not washing-out dark regions in games like REUC. Decent saturation is nice to have in games, but at the same time I don't want the rich reds, blues, etc. to make the picture seem biased towards the saturated colors.
DNIe has the effect of darkening darks and brightening brights -- too much, based on my other settings. The dark/bright spots lost some differences in tone, which made color banding obvious in regions that would normally have smooth color transitions, like the bottom borders of the Wii Menu (Channels and Wii Management). Therefore, I disabled DNIe for good.
Topic: Buying my first HD set, I need advice (Read 26199 times)
