Right, since my 59er is going back tomorrow I thought I'd run a little A/B test with firmwares 1016 and 1019. Watching a lot of black bars and dark scenes over the weekend I've come to this conclusion as far as my set goes (and this is only by eye since I don't have a light meter). Black levels at 24Hz and 50Hz have definitely raised slightly but my 60Hz levels seem largely the same. Also the brightness on 24Hz and 50Hz has definitely dropped a notch but I haven't seen much of a difference with 60Hz TBH. With my HTPC I can select my output refresh whilst viewing a film so it's easy to compare. I didn't witness any real fluctuations in the black levels on black bars other than the perceived one: i.e. if you have a bright scene the black bars look very black, but on dark scenes they appear to get lighter - they don't really it's just your senses being fooled! There's some good youtube videos kicking about demonstrating this. A guy has a piece of grey card and when he puts it on a white sheet of paper it looks jet black, but when he puts it on a black piece of paper it looks mid grey. Something like that anyway. For whatever reason though 60Hz doesn't seem to have dimmed as much as 50Hz. The splash screen as my 360 boots up is the same as it was and one of my front ends for XBMC is still white enough to sear my eyeballs when set a 60Hz. Maybe it's all us UK owners complaining about brightness pops whilst watching broadcast TV @ 50Hz has prompted Samsung to stiff us whilst leaving the 60Hz NTSC crowd alone
I haven't noticed that LCDesque bluish casts to my blacks at all though. They're still greyish
I tried NewPlasma's settings for 1019 as well. Tried them at first during the day and thought it made everyone look like they'd been living underground for too long!!! Night time viewing was a different matter altogether. Watched a couple of episodes of Breaking Bad and Toy Story 3 and have to admit to being pretty darn impressed. Toy Story in particular was sublime. Even though it was the 2D version some scenes had such great depth of detail they "felt" almost 3D. Well done that man.
As for the haziness it must be source related. Like I said Breaking Bad and Toy story were jaw dropping but
The Walking Dead was awful. The whole episode was like someone had put a sheet of tracing paper over the telly. I "acquired" a rip of the American showing and watched it back on my HTPC and it was exactly the same. Pretty shoddy.
Upshot is though, regardless of how impressed I am with NewPlasma's settings, I'll leave the firmware on the new TV arriving Wednesday as is.
Simon