Just got a Samsung SP50L7HXX

[chuffster2005]

Took the plunge and sold my NEC plasma,which I was none to impressed by and now would really appreciate your expertise on recommended connections and colour settings etc.
I`m connecting-Pace Sky +.Samsung HD945 dvd player plus the usual Ps2 etc.
At the moment,all I`e got connected is SKY + through a cheap scart cable using RGB output and the picture looks hideous!

[KableMan]

Hi chuffster - I've found the following settings work very well on all sources - and especially well on digital channels:

Mode: Cinema (this is a key setting)
Colour Tone: Warm1
Contrast: 80 - 85 (you can go as low as 75 though)
Brightness: 57
Sharpness: 57
Colour: 50
Digital NR: Off
DNIe: On
Film Mode: Off

I have also customised my colours and reduced Green to zero (yes zero! I found the greens super rich and they still look vibrant even at zero).

I pretty much have these exact same settings on every source including HDMI.

I've also invested in a decent Profigold High Definition RGB SCART cable (cost about £35-40) and it was well worth it as I really notice the difference when viewing digital via my S-VHS VCR as it has a normal £12 RGB SCART. I also bought a decent Profigold HDMI cable too for my HD850 DVD player.

Hope the settings helps.

Cheers
KableMan

[chuffster2005]

Cheers mate!Will have a play and report back!

[DLPMaybe]

These settings work really well for me too. I copied them from Kableman!

Only thing I change is when HDMI I turn DNie off, especially for movies. Definetly leave it on for sky.

[chuffster2005]

Wow!What a difference!Extra special thanks to both of you!!

[leeboy2k3]

Are these settings you guys are using for hdmi or component? cause if I use those settings via component 480p and 720p, the hues on silver look brownish for example xbox media centre logo at 720p.

Also whilst watching sin city dvd screener upscaled to 720p low bitrate was more noticeable.. blacks looked grey oh and on green sprites on emulator 480p looked too white.

My settings are... mode..standard colour tone..normal colour..50 contrast..70 brightness..47 sharpness...30
With sharpness for example I like what it does to make lettering bolder but when the screen is panning right say on super mario advance, you can see a grittyness to the pixel rendering all over the frame, so I found 30 to be optimal, also I noticed some colour crosstalk on red lettering on the sin city logo why is this? I tried dnr on and off made no diff is this the fault of the low bitrate on a single layer dvd? I mean Ive you only ever seen that colour abberation with composite or rf.
thoughts?...

[DLPMaybe]

Via hdmi I have not conected anything via component yet.

[KableMan]

Hey leeboy - I have these settings setup on every connection RGB, Component and HDMI but whenever I connect up my xbox via component (at 480p/720p/1080i) I switch to Standard Mode and reset everything else to the defaults. This seems to suit the artificial colours of XBOX games whereas. However when I previously used the component connection with my HD850 I had the settings as posted here and didn't have any trouble at all and it looked great.

You must remember however that any settings are very subjective though so you may need to tweak them to suit your own eyes. I'd start by resetting everything to factory settings and then use something like the THX video calibration (like the one on the Star Wars DVDs) to perform fine adjustments to suit you.

Cheers
KableMan

[chuffster2005]

Would you recommend changing the pink and the blue settings,Kableman?

[KableMan]

Hey chuffster - i've not had any call to change pink and blue but if they're bothering you give it a try. A few people have had issues with the green - and the green tint sometimes seen via HDMI but I found that adjusting it didn't help until I set it to zero. Have you been into the My Colour Control - there are presets with more or less pink, blue and green to choose from plus custom - it's good having the ability to fine tune but a curse as well as there are loads of combinations.

I'd stick with the defaults until something bothers you in particular and then be brave and make huge changes like setting them to zero and work backwards to something more acceptable.

Alternatively check your DVD player output as the HD850 had several possible colour settings for HDMI and they had a big impact on the colours and reduced the green tint for me so they may help you with pink and blue. I settled on either RGB Normal or Component 4:2:2 - nothing between them but both greatly reduce the green in noisey pictures. Also I found that upscaling poor quality DVDs made noise and overall colour rendition worse so don't feel you must upscale everything to 720p - it doesn't suit everything.

Good Luck
Cheers
KableMan

[chuffster2005]

I`ll continue to play!Cheers again!

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by KableMan

Hi chuffster - I've found the following settings work very well on all sources - and especially well on digital channels:

Mode: Cinema (this is a key setting)
Colour Tone: Warm1
Contrast: 80 - 85 (you can go as low as 75 though)
Brightness: 57
Sharpness: 57
Colour: 50
Digital NR: Off
DNIe: On
Film Mode: Off

Does anyone know what film mode is? Is that one of the de-interlacing modes?

Nick

[Tarbat]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

Does anyone know what film mode is? Is that one of the de-interlacing modes?

Nick

From the Samsung brochure

Cinema Smooth™ Film Mode
Powered by Samsung’s Cinema Smooth technology, 3:2 Pull Down eliminates the artificial frames that are created when films are converted to DVDs. The result is a clearer image without the subtle motion artifacts caused by 24-to-30 frames per second video conversion.

So, probably only works with 30fps NTSC material.

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by cjgpers

From the Samsung brochure

So, probably only works with 30fps NTSC material.

An interesting result that everyone will want to know about. 3:2 pulldown actually creates artificial frames when the interlaced video on the DVD is de-interlaced to progressive video for display. Yes, 3:2 works with NTSC only, but no, not with 30fps. It is used to generate 60 progressive frames/sec from the original 24 fps film, which is recorded on a DVD as 48 interlaced fields/sec. It does this by showing alternate frames 3 and 2 times repectively to increase the frame rate by two and a half, but at the expense of slightly stuttery motion. (This is not serious, but can be overcome if the de-interlacer and display can repeat each frame three times, giving 72 fps from film or 75 fps from PAL, but that is not usually the case.)

Of course that is irrelevant if it only applies to NTSC, but if it displays PAL films at 60fps, then it will still need 3:2 pulldown. If on the other hand it displays everything at 50Hz, then it will need 2:2 pull-down from film-source DVDs (which most are). If it has 3:2, then it will probably have 2:2 pulldown.

But never mind all that, what it does suggest is that the display has film mode de-interlacing, which is a very good thing if it is applied correctly. DVDs store interlaced video which takes both odd and even frames from the same film frame, so it is relatively easy to add them together and recreate the original progressive frame, but only at 24fps. Do that right and you get sharp, smooth, flicker-free video without fuzzy edges or de-interlacing artifacts; very important for a big, high-resolution sceen.

It would be interesting to clarify what the film mode does, because it can be implemented automatically or manually. The former is preferred, but it can make mistakes, and the second obviously only works with films. Maybe there is a way to find that answer, or else it may be worth experimenting with switching it on and off with either broadcast or DVD films and looking at the effect on motion.

Best regards, Nick

[Tarbat]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

Of course that is irrelevant if it only applies to NTSC, but if it displays PAL films at 60fps, then it will still need 3:2 pulldown. If on the other hand it displays everything at 50Hz, then it will need 2:2 pull-down from film-source DVDs (which most are). If it has 3:2, then it will probably have 2:2 pulldown.Nick

A couple of other quotes from some Google searches.

1. Samsung's Cinema Smooth Film Mode 3:2 Pull Down correction circuitry addresses digital distortion in 480i (interlaced) video signals generated from 24 frames-per-second film.

2. Film Mode Processing with 3:2 pull down for NTSC and 2:2 pull down for PAL film based material