Samsung 10000:1 contrast DLP - when?

[PaulB]

Hi,
Anyone know when the 10000:1 contrast ratio sets are due in the UK? They have been released in the US and I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one (the HL-R5078W looks lovely http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/n...LR5078WX%2fXAA ).

Just wondered if anyone had any updated info on the release dates?
Thanks,
Paul

[Razor]

I think you might have to wait a while.

[PaulB]

Blast!

I was hoping later this year but obviously I was a bit too optimistic. With SkyHD fast approaching it would make sense to release the sets sooner rather than later (even the guys in my local Comet were talking about SkyHD and how good it would be for Hi-Def TV set sales) but clearly Samsung think otherwise.

Thanks for the update,
Paul

[Razor]

Originally Posted by PaulB

Blast!

I was hoping later this year but obviously I was a bit too optimistic. With SkyHD fast approaching it would make sense to release the sets sooner rather than later (even the guys in my local Comet were talking about SkyHD and how good it would be for Hi-Def TV set sales) but clearly Samsung think otherwise.

Thanks for the update,
Paul

There are so many different DLP sets in the US, unfortunately as usual we dont see 70% of them and when they do arrive in the UK it is after they have been out in the US for while. When a new set arrives there will be loads of threads about it beore it is released.

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by PaulB

Blast!

I was hoping later this year but obviously I was a bit too optimistic. With SkyHD fast approaching it would make sense to release the sets sooner rather than later (even the guys in my local Comet were talking about SkyHD and how good it would be for Hi-Def TV set sales) but clearly Samsung think otherwise.

Thanks for the update,
Paul

Sky HD is going to be delivered at the 720p/1080i standard so why the need for a 1080p screen. Surely you'd be better off with a native 720 resolution.

[Razor]

From what I have read 1080i is better for still shots (maybe docu's) and 720p is better for action shots like sports.

1080p is a way off as it will need far greater bandwidth to work. 720p and 1080i have approx the same amount of info transmitted at the same time as 1080 is interlaced and 720p is not. 1080p will need allot higher mbits for the same movie, program etc, than either of these formats.

Give HD some time to settle down and progress and 1080p will be out it just needs hardware to support it as well as software.

I woul love to see true 1080p players and software. At the moment these 1080 dlp sets use wobblulation to get the 1080 lines and arent true 1080 displays. You would have to look at LCD or Plasma for this.

More on this in this thread

1080i v 720p

[PaulB]

Originally Posted by neilmcl

Sky HD is going to be delivered at the 720p/1080i standard so why the need for a 1080p screen. Surely you'd be better off with a native 720 resolution.

Good question, I should have made clearer in my first post. Its the 10000:1 contrast that interests me. The 1080p is of secondary importance (in fact its quite far down the list although nice to have for the future!). The 10k quoted contrast, although its bound to be less in reality, could really make a DLP set shine! Better image depth etc.

Paul

[Razor]

New technology called SED (surface conduction electron emitter) will be with us next year. No rainbows and 10,000:1 contrast.

It will look similar to a plasma in the fact it is only 50mm deep and weighs in at around 10kg. 1920x1080 display

http://www.cnet.com/4520-10602_1-5618734-1.html

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by Razor

New technology called SED (surface conduction electron emitter) will be with us next year. No rainbows and 10,000:1 contrast.

It will look similar to a plasma in the fact it is only 50mm deep and weighs in at around 10kg. 1920x1080 display

http://www.cnet.com/4520-10602_1-5618734-1.html

We can but dream

[Razor]

Originally Posted by neilmcl

We can but dream

Thats the word on the street

[Paulherb]

A review of the 1080p Sammy in the Us. Taken form a US forum -



"First impressions review of the Samsung 1080p
I've been one of many, waiting for nearly a year for the Samsung 1080p sets to be released. And unlike many here, I felt obligated to delay my order placement until I actually saw one in-person.

Today, after looking all around the San Francisco Bay Area for any Samsung 1080p, I finally succeeded! Victory!

The Magnolia in Palo Alto, CA on University Avenue has an HL-R5078W on display. They have a nice display room including DirectTV with HD channels and normal SD channels. I'm actually going to buy a much larger set (67" or 71") but it was at least a 1080p. Here is my review:

(1) Brightness:
Phenomenal brightness. So intense and beautiful that it makes all the sets sitting around it look dim and dreary by comparison. The "dynamic" mode was serious intense and probably only for use in brightly lit rooms. The "standard" setting looked plenty bright for typical rooms and the "movie" setting was about right for watching in a very dim or dark room. I think they have achieved maximum capability on brightness - any more wouldn't be used in any but the most extreme lighting.

(2) Colors
Very nice and intense without the almost strained intensity of some of the previous HLN/HLP series. I remember looking at Samsung DLPs about a year ago and thinking that the green was a little over the edge when using the default settings. It was like they had tuned it to be way too vivid to grab the eye in the store. I suspect those old sets were okay after manually tweaking the colors, but I don't think these 1080p's need that. The colors looked great using defaults. Although I did not run any calibration material.

(3) Weird DLP effects (rainbows, etc)
I was unable to detect ANY weird DLP effects such as rainbows. But I will admit I had to work really hard to see any of those issues on the older Samsungs so I'm not the best judge of this attribute.

(4) Contrast (and Black/White purity)
Again, Phenomenal. The blacks were beautifully solid and in the case of bright white text over a solid black background, it looked like near perfection. I turned the color all the way off on this set and an adjacent Samsung 720p model so they were both showing the same black and white HDTV images. What an amazing difference! The 1080p was completely amazing in terms of pure blacks and whites. I'm not sure they could get much better. I think I'd need to run calibration material to even see that it isn't perfect.

(5) Sharpness
Razor sharp edges. Really a huge improvement. Again making the comparison with the adjacent 720p, watching DirectTV HDNet, the difference was remarkable. So sharp that the images had much more depth. Interesting that it looked so much better even with a 720p signal. I guess that says their 1080p upconversion algorithm, pixel interpolation, etc. are well executed.
Another note on sharpness - I didn't have any real 1080p content to look at (or 1080i for that matter) so everything was really upconverted. The only thing I got to see in true 1080p were the menus generated by the TV itself. And they were awesome sharp! Really pretty. And they were just menus! But 1080p is really nice. I'm sure these things would make way-cool computer monitors.

(6) Pixelation
Pixelation was an issue for me on the previous generations of DLP sets when looking at a standard definition image. HD images look great on 720p or 1080p. The problem is that the majority of the material I will watch is not HD nor will it be for most (or all) of the life of this set. Sad, but true. My huge SD DVD collection and the very small HD channel count guarantee this will be so. Even my XBOX in HD mode is mostly 480p, not even 720p, because the games don't support it. So, I'm stuck with SD. And the 720p Samsung DLP sets do a pretty bad job with SD. The pixelation on the large sets was really bad. I guess there weren't enough pixels in 720p to run a good edge blurring algorithm without killing the image sharpness so they stuck with sharpness at the price of pixelation. Anyway, they have made huge improvements in this area. A great test is to look at overlaid text on the old 720p sets vs. the new 1080p. On the old sets, you could count the pixels in each text character and trace each little zip-zag between them. On the new 1080p's, you can't see the pixelation in the text at all if looking from a distance. If you look really close at the 1080p, you can actually see their blurring algorithm in action. You can see the color of the text smeared out away from the text into adjacent pixels - this is a side-effect of the way these algorithms work and isn't really noticeable from a distance. So, they have basically fixed the old problem on these new 1080p sets and SD looks good on them. I guess one caveat is that I was only able to look at a 50" set and perhaps the old problems re-emerge on a big set like a 67" or 71". We shall see.
Another note on pixelation: looking really closely at the set, there is very little gap between pixels. Almost no grid effect, unlike all the LCD projection TVs that inherently suffer from this problem. I guess part of why there is so little grid effect is the wobbulation technique Samsung uses. It works. Looks good.

(7) Glare
Liked the anti-glare screen on the 1080p better than any of the others in the showroom. Looked good. Not perfect but good enough.

(8) Nits
What's with the huge, tacky, TV Guide logo ppermanentlypainted on the remote!?! Terrible! If that remote turned out to be any good for ongoing use (unlikely), I still wouldn't be able to use it due to the huge tacky TV Guide logo. Its much bigger than the Samsung logo and instead of being subtle its big red&white on the dark colored remote. Give me a break. They should just peacefully admit defeat, that the TV Guide magazine is doomed, and go out of business without torturing us all as they go! A few weeks ago the same logo appeared on my DISH Network online program guide. <sigh>.

(9) Concerns
I am an XBOX user and I require that this new TV work perfectly with video games, hence noticeable lag is not acceptable. I did not have an opportunity to test the lag issue, although Magnolia did offer to let me bring in my XBOX and play on their demo unit. Nice of them and I may do it if we don't soon get 10 reviews on here listing the results of the same test. This is now my biggest and only remaining worry about buying this set. So please, run this test and post the results including use of all the various input options!

I guess there is one more thing - I saw one of the Sony 70" Quilla (sp?) sets today as well. That thing was the most beautiful and amazing TV I have ever seen. I suspect if I could have seen it sitting side-by-side with the Samsung 1080p 71" that the Sony would look better. But I didn't get to run that test. And regardless, the difference would not be enough for me to justify the Sony costing double the Samsung. Sony is going to have to cut that price substantially now that it has real competition in the large 1080p market.

That's all for now. Still debating my size before placing the order. I'll probably do so on here in the next few days."

Bring it on - I can't wait to part with my cash!

Paulh.

[loadsofleads]

1080p is a way off as it will need far greater bandwidth to work.

Playstation 3 and Blu-Ray will both use 1080P as standard, so if your buying a tv today, it should be a consideration. Personally I won't buy my next tv until it is a true 1080P screen (the new DLP's which claim to be 1080P are not true 1080P but a bodge to get the technology to accomodate the resolution before it's time).

I just hope my Hitachi 5200 will be ok with Sky HD

[Razor]

Originally Posted by taffyboyo

Playstation 3 and Blu-Ray will both use 1080P as standard, so if your buying a tv today, it should be a consideration. Personally I won't buy my next tv until it is a true 1080P screen (the new DLP's which claim to be 1080P are not true 1080P but a bodge to get the technology to accomodate the resolution before it's time).
:

Spot on

[Paulherb]

Hi,
A bodge maybe, however the wobblation thing that it does with it's diamond pixel structure does show 1920 x 1080 and at the end of the day its the final result that counts.

Initial reviews are very promising.

taffyboyo - What is your Hitachi 5200 - It's a LCOS machine is'nt it?

If it's like my JVC M15 which is 1364 x 1040 then it look great with Skys Hi-def using a Component feed direct to the PJ or via a scaler.

Even this isn't true 1080P though.

Thanks

Paulh.

[loadsofleads]

Hi paul, the Hitachi is just an 1024/1204 pixel Alis panel plasma. It is only compatible with 720p @ 60hz and Sky will probably be on 720p @ 50Hz, so it's clench the old bottom time until I get a definate answer from Rupert.

I have no doubt that the 1080P DLP bodge looks the dog's, but being a perfectionist it would niggle at me that it ain't the real thing, I'm just like that, I even irritate myself