Oh boy... what have I done... Samsung HPT5054

[AlNom]

I've been eyeing it for some time... It dropped $500 up here due to Best Buy's price-matching initiative in light of the Canadian dollar's strength against the US dollar. And this was also after an initial price drop a couple months ago.

$2000...

Mom wanted us to go to BB to look for a digital SLR. We didn't find it, but instead I ended up getting this 50" plasma. It gets here in two days because we don't have a capable vehicle nor the guts to haul it from store to the house anyway (it's just me and my mom at home these days...)

First the Xbox 360, Halo 3 Legendary Edition, Mass Effect Collector's Edition.... and now this. No more spending!

 

[_xxx_]

No more spending

Yeah, suuuure... if I got a dollar everytime I said this, I'd be rich by now

 

[Arwin]

Yeah, suuuure... if I got a dollar everytime I said this, I'd be rich by now

Assuming that you'd then spend more than a dollar on something each time afterward, no you wouldn't.

 

[_xxx_]

Assuming that you'd then spend more than a dollar on something each time afterward, no you wouldn't.

Oh, but I already spent that money. But those dollars would come in handy for the next purchase

 

[AlNom]

I found that link to the PDP burn-in: http://www.eaprogramming.com/downloads/download_main.htm

The TV will be used for some TV (SD quality for now) and the odd DVD movie every now and then, but mostly for gaming. I usually stretch the image, which is the thing to do?

From what I gather, I should stay away from dark movies in the beginning? But I also shouldn't boost contrast or brightness settings

Would the visualizer on the Xbox 360 be a bad thing to start using heavily early on (instead of the burn-in DVD)


Time to start reading the LOL-length AVS Forum thread -> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=826859

 

[slider]

$2000 - wow, you do realise Christmas is just ahead don't you??

Afraid I'll be no help with any of the points you raised but good luck finding answers.

Keep us posted on developments - I've finally convinced my GF that it's time to step into the HD age.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Nice tv. I thought about going plasma 50" but the 42" 1080P Philips LCD I bought last weekend is about the biggest I can fit in my living room without wall-mounting. Plus the money I saved was enough to get a PS3 as well

 

[AlNom]

$2000 - wow, you do realise Christmas is just ahead don't you??

They said they'd price match within 30 days, and I'd rather avoid the holiday rush.

Keep us posted on developments - I've finally convinced my GF that it's time to step into the HD age.

Will do

Nice tv. I thought about going plasma 50" but the 42" 1080P Philips LCD I bought last weekend is about the biggest I can fit in my living room without wall-mounting. Plus the money I saved was enough to get a PS3 as well

Yea, we're just going to use the old cabinet that we got with our CRT 32" Sony XBR (almost 10 years old now). The room isn't quite made for home theater in terms of layout, so it'll be at an angle in the corner of the room here.

 

[kyleb]

I found that link to the PDP burn-in: http://www.eaprogramming.com/downloads/download_main.htm

No need for that, the display will break-in fine on it's own though normal use.

The TV will be used for some TV (SD quality for now) and the odd DVD movie every now and then, but mostly for gaming. I usually stretch the image, which is the thing to do?

I prefer using grey sidebars to aviod image retention while mantaining the intended aspect ratio.

From what I gather, I should stay away from dark movies in the beginning?

Nah, no reason to do that.

But I also shouldn't boost contrast or brightness settings

Yeah, image rentention is the result of some phosphors fading with use while other phosphors aren't getting used as much and hence don't fade as much. High contrast and brightness increse the chance of that.

Would the visualizer on the Xbox 360 be a bad thing to start using heavily early on (instead of the burn-in DVD)

As long as the TV overscans the image enough to mask the fact that the visualizer is windowboxed, otherwise you'd be asking for IR with the pixels around the edges not getting used at all while the middle of the display is being used heavily.

 

[AlNom]

Many...

Many...

Many... Thanks kyleb.

For the visualizer I was going to do full-screen, so that should be fine, correct?

 

[Mize]

I found that link to the PDP burn-in: http://www.eaprogramming.com/downloads/download_main.htm

The TV will be used for some TV (SD quality for now) and the odd DVD movie every now and then, but mostly for gaming. I usually stretch the image, which is the thing to do?

From what I gather, I should stay away from dark movies in the beginning? But I also shouldn't boost contrast or brightness settings

Would the visualizer on the Xbox 360 be a bad thing to start using heavily early on (instead of the burn-in DVD)


Time to start reading the LOL-length AVS Forum thread -> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=826859

You can download a burn-in dvd/cd from the AVS forums.

But, as kyleb said, most newer plasmas don't have burn-in issues so long as you view completely filled for the fist so many hours. (see your manual).

 

[AlNom]

Games with huds might be a problem, but after how long? I figure a game like Guitar Hero should be alright given the <10 min songs (or attempts) followed up by the menu pages and such.

 

[kyleb]

For the visualizer I was going to do full-screen, so that should be fine, correct?

Well the visuallizer never competely fills the output resolution, as I said it is slightly windowboxed. However, as long as you display overscans that input enough, as most TVs do, you will be fine running the visualiers constant as you won't have any unused pixels on the display.

And you can even watch a letterboxed movie on a plasma straight out of it's box without causing any IR, it is just exessive uneven wear that will lead to a noticeably difference in fading between phosphors. So watching letterboxed movies and nothing but will cause image rentention eventually.

As for game HUDs and such, again it is just an issue of uneven fading. Guitar Hero is probably one of the most IR prone titles I've seen, with it's large high-contrast static areas it will cause IR quicker than many games. The breaks in between don't do much to change the uneven wear caused while playing. But even then there is nothing to worry about, as the phosphors fade quickest when they are new and slower with use, all you have to do correct that is run some full screen looping content overnight to fade those less worn pixels down to even out the fading.

 

[AlNom]

ah I see. I guess the TV's that I've used so far overscan slightly, so I never noticed.

I will have to monitor how I play games then. Seems I will likely have to do that full screen stuff whenever I play Halo 3 co-op (damn you Bungie ). So this is where that burn-in DVD comes into use?

Just thought I'd comment a little more on the price -> it's up in Canada, and I know it's like $1500 in the states, but no one down there is shipping that thing up here.

 

[kyleb]

I've played quite a bit of Halo 3 split screen with the black bars on mine without issue. It is no different than watching a letterboxed movies, you'll only get image retention from it if you do for hours on end with little else in between, and after you have put a few thousand hours you'll be able to do the same for days on end without ever seeing any IR.

And again, it is simple to, so it is hardly anything worth worrying about. If you do get IR from playing too much splitscreen Halo 3 or whatever, just loop something like a break-in DVD overnight to even out the wear, and if not after the first night then another night or two will most certainly resolve the issue and you have to play quite a bit more Halo 3 splitscren and little else before causing any IR again.

 

[AlNom]

Thanks so much for your help.

 

[AlNom]

Just finished hooking things up -> 360, dvd player, and digi cable box. Heck I might as well ditch the dvd player now...

I loaded up a few games just to check out how it looks and they're perty. I tried using the Bungie AV calibrator to set contrast, brightness and sharpness. Setting brightness was ok, but no matter the contrast setting I couldn't get the image the way the tool told me to get.

Here are the settings I'm using at the moment:

Mode:        Dynamic
Contrast:    48
Brightness:  48
Sharpness:  25
Colour:        55
Tint:           50% ? Default is in between Green 50, Red 50

Colour Tone:  Normal
Digital NR:      Off
Active Colour: Off
DNIe: on

Right now I'm watching Superman The Movie. I stretched the image as per the Xbox 360's setting, and it looks great. The PQ of the movie itself isn't exactly spectacular given it's a 30 year old movie, but they did a good job of cleaning up the film for the DVD release.

I'll probably go through the Star Trek movie DVDs in the coming weeks and the LotR trilogy just for good measure.

Oh and btw, the TV seems to have its own sort of anti-burn-in function where it shifts the screen from black to grey to white, scanning the entire screen. I'm wondering if it's better to use that or the DVD burn-in thing linked earlier, which uses other colours...

 

[kyleb]

I've got the standard Halo 3 and have never played with their calibration tool, but I'll guess the contrast issue is due to DNIe. I recommend turning that off for a more natural picture. Probably want to turn the sharpness down too to avoid false contouring, I'm not sure how Samsung does their sharpness setting but you should be able to turn it down to where you see details that should look sharp get notably blurry and just kick it back up a notch or two for that. As for your tint, it is at 0 as it should be, half way between red and green.

As for the anti-burn-in function, white is all the colors at once full blast, and effectively isn't much different than a break-in DVD.

Also, on the 360, have you turned the resolution up to 1080p?

Oh, and just wait until you see a good HD transfer, even movies far older than 30 years can look stunning in HD.

 

[AlNom]

With DNIe... hm... it seems to lower the contrast in a special way? When I turn it off, the screen gets very grey-ish as though the contrast settings were actually high (as I've seen on other monitors). I'll re-check it in a bit.

The sharpness is pretty low I thought. It's out of 100 units. Out of the box it was set at 70...75. TV quality looked like crap until I set it to 25. I didn't go any lower as per the Bungie calibrator. One thing I'd like to check out is that blue filter from the Bungie store. It works in tandem with a couple calibration images on the bonus disc for setting colours, and I'm really curious just how much it helps. (I'm also wondering if it's just blue cellophane ).

Yay, that means I don't have to use up a 30c DVD-R.

As for 1080p, that was something I did want to try over component to see if it worked, but alas this TV does not accept it. I don't have an HDMI cable to try it either.



And another thing -> The Game Mode seems to just brighten up the image (makes it look good), but what do you think about it in general?

I just don't see HDMI as being too important as anything other than a slightly more convenient AV connection (for the Xbox 360). It's something I may revisit if I get an HD disc player, but that would be a year away for me. I'm in no rush.

You know, I was just thinking about old movies transferred to HD DVD/BD.... Superman The Movie has an HD DVD transfer, and I'm curious to see if that's actually any better than the DVD transfer. The movie itself was actually filmed in 70mm, and they did do a lot of work touching up the film quality.

 

[AlNom]

hm... ok, so I turned off the DNIe, and that still didn't seem to affect the bungie calibrator in the contrast section. Regardless of setting, the image didn't change much. Although, outside of the calibrator things looked a lot darker towards the lower end of the contrast setting.