[fwefw]

Firstly, sorry for my English.

1) Speaking of Panasonic I had ordered PZ80 before I ordered 457, but I had to cancel it. The reason was very poor picture on SD. You can go through this forum and read a lot of threads where people complain on how bad and mediocre the picture is. I was in several stores to see it myself but couldn't find PZ80 anywhere. I have just seen PX8 and PX80 and both sets had terrible SD picture compared to Samsung 5,6 series and LGs. Picture seemed to be very blurry with lot of posterization and artefacts, where Samsungs and LGs had almost clear picture. I couldn't put up with it.

2) You say that picture on internal freeview is far superior to anything connected by scart or HDMI, I beg to differ. My plasma is connected via scart with setbox and the picture is simply better. Besides I plan to order HD box so I can connect it via HDMI.

3) My short conclusion

Good - SD picture. It's very smooth and almost clear depends of course on qaulity of signal and have very natural and bold colors. I didn't expect it and I'm really impressed with the performance so far.

Bad - in some dark scenes it seems to be a bit blurry, but I think it's due to low signal of freeview. I have seen it on 46W4000 as well as on other sets.
- IR - when I put menu on screen for more than 10 seconds I still can notice small retention for some time. But it was in first two days of use, when I was changing my settings. I didn't try it since then. I want to buy Xbox but now I'm in two minds.
- powdery effect - I must confess I don't know what it is. I have never seen anything like that just read about it in this thread. I don't know if this affects all sreens or just some of them or how bad it is, nothing. What I know is that instead of enjoying my new set I'm still looking for. It drives me crazy. I think picture on plasma should be better and better in time not go worse

I'm pretty happy so far and think it is a good set. Hope the picture will be the same quality or beter in future.

Cheers

[Dave E]

Originally Posted by fwefw

Firstly, sorry for my English.

1) Speaking of Panasonic I had ordered PZ80 before I ordered 457, but I had to cancel it. The reason was very poor picture on SD. You can go through this forum and read a lot of threads where people complain on how bad and mediocre the picture is. I was in several stores to see it myself but couldn't find PZ80 anywhere. I have just seen PX8 and PX80 and both sets had terrible SD picture compared to Samsung 5,6 series and LGs. Picture seemed to be very blurry with lot of posterization and artefacts, where Samsungs and LGs had almost clear picture. I couldn't put up with it.

2) You say that picture on internal freeview is far superior to anything connected by scart or HDMI, I beg to differ. My plasma is connected via scart with setbox and the picture is simply better. Besides I plan to order HD box so I can connect it via HDMI.

3) My short conclusion

Good - SD picture. It's very smooth and almost clear depends of course on qaulity of signal and have very natural and bold colors. I didn't expect it and I'm really impressed with the performance so far.

Bad - in some dark scenes it seems to be a bit blurry, but I think it's due to low signal of freeview. I have seen it on 46W4000 as well as on other sets.
- IR - when I put menu on screen for more than 10 seconds I still can notice small retention for some time. But it was in first two days of use, when I was changing my settings. I didn't try it since then. I want to buy Xbox but now I'm in two minds.
- powdery effect - I must confess I don't know what it is. I have never seen anything like that just read about it in this thread. I don't know if this affects all sreens or just some of them or how bad it is, nothing. What I know is that instead of enjoying my new set I'm still looking for. It drives me crazy. I think picture on plasma should be better and better in time not go worse

I'm pretty happy so far and think it is a good set. Hope the picture will be the same quality or beter in future.

Cheers

Hi Mate

Fair play - don't worry about your English - its fine mostly - I've heard worse! I work in Liverpool!

Anyway, not sure if you've got a 457, as you mention that the picture is better on the 5,6 series Samsungs... I can't speak for them - never owned them. I definately find the internal freeview better on the 457 than a sky+ box or Freeview box via scart though.

Also, not sure if you are saying that you can or can't notice the grainy effect; but i have a Panasonic PE50 set up in my lounge, and set my 457 50" (now sent back to JL) next to it. I fed both the same feed from my source(s) - sky+, freeview etc.

The HD stuff from xbox looked superb on the samsung. THe SD stuff from the sky was crap. No other way to describe it. I am not stressing this enough - side by side, a random channel such as sky sports news looked absolutely terrible on the samsung. Such blurred edges, noisy picture, etc.

I would challenge anyone to sit there and watch both and not see the difference in 5 seconds. My mrs did, and she has terrible eyes!

I debated keeping my 457 for xbox - but decided the few hundred more for a pana was worth it. If I was JUST gaming on it, i'd have kept it - but I need to watch tele too.

I suffered image retention badly from the menu. I think samsung are absolute idiots for making the menu so bright against a black background. To put you mind at ease about the xbox though, I games for hours and did not notice any IR. And I even left it on the same screen for ages with no ill effects.

It seems like it is just the samsung menu that does it.

Sorry if my original posts seemed arsey. Wasn't the intention. I am happy to discuss the ins and outs - not easy to agree with everyone though - everyones eyes are different. I am not sure how many people though have a side-by-side setup, which is the only way to tell, IMO.

[fwefw]

Guys,

do you hear any noise from the back of tv ? I have just noticed it and it's pretty annoying I think I didn't hear it before. I'm sitting 3 metres away from the screen.

[kjt2004]

Hi

The only time a noise is apparent is when the screen is white, you can hear a slight buzz but its never that loud = all plasmas do this its due to the pixels being ramped up to show all white


regards

With regards to the standalone set top boxes i do find that sometimes the PQ is marginally better

regards

[cockney]

Maybe not relevant on here but a friend mentioned something about a firmware update for this TV, what does an update do & if it has any benefits how do you do it ?

Never heard of it before

[jasmart]

Hi All,

I've arrived here after a fiasco ordering the full HD version, Samsung PS50A557 from Pixmania. The price was just £693 - a bargain! They took my order on the third of Jan stating the item was in stock. Within a couple of days they couldnt fulfill orders due to high demand. They then updated delivery to 28th Jan, then two weeks after that. I finally got an email to say the TV was coming on the 2nd March. On the morning their delivery company called to say it had been dropped in transit and they had no others to give me, call Pixmania to find an updated delivery date.
Cue calling their oh so helpful Mumbai call centre on a weekly basis to be told yesterday Samsung have discontinued and they will be cancelling my order. Bar Stewards!!!

That'll be the last time I go to Pixmania. So yesterday I went to Amazon and have ordered the PS50A457P for £680 delivered and should be here tomorrow! I figured do I really need the 1080P? Over 90% of my viewing is Sky HD so watching the 1080i source would make no difference. BluRay is the only thing to really utilise full 1080P and I've probably only watched two of those in six months.

Regarding calibrated settings I'll be posting mine over the next few days. I've upgraded from the Samsung PS42Q97HDX and used a setup dvd on HDMI on that as I'm quite anal on getting the picture as its 'meant to be'.

[jasmart]

Originally Posted by Kristian_TT

Still nobody who wants to share their settings?

Credit to Tsanga on AVS forum for the settings below. These relate to the PN50A450 which is the US model number of the PS50A457.

The consensus is that no two tvs will produce the same results so use these as your base and then tinker using a calibration dvd/images.

“...calibrated with a colorimeter so that a white 100% window is putting out ~30 ft-L, about the general consensus for the right light output for a plasma. Black level (brightness) was set using GetGray and DVE DVDs…given the full controls in the Samsung user menu, I was able to calibrate the colors to be as close to the HDTV Rec. 709 standard as one could expect to get, with very even color decoding (i.e. no red or green push). The Samsung also has much better gamma that the Panasonic….

Here are the settings on my Samsung so far:

Mode: Movie
Cell: 10
Contrast: 83
Brightness: 51
Sharpness: 0
Color: 47
Tint: G49/R51
Detailed:
Black Adjust: Off
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Gamma: -1
Color Space: Auto
color temp: Warm2
White Balance:
R-Offset: 25
G-Offset: 25
B-Offset: 25
R-Gain: 29
G-Gain: 25
B-Gain: 23”

[cockney]

Hi,

I had my Sky HD box swapped out on Sunday & since i have had my new box i cannot change the HDMI black level on the detailed options, any ideas as this in my opinion makes a great difference to the overall picture quality. I am trying to change it in standard mode from normal level to low.

Thanks in advance for any ideas

Steve

[d3m0n]

Is there any new firmware for this set yet?

[cockney]

Originally Posted by cockney

Hi,

I had my Sky HD box swapped out on Sunday & since i have had my new box i cannot change the HDMI black level on the detailed options, any ideas as this in my opinion makes a great difference to the overall picture quality. I am trying to change it in standard mode from normal level to low.

Thanks in advance for any ideas

Steve

Apparently it's all to do with some chip inside the HD box, found this out after doing a Google....

[pjb_]

Originally Posted by JulieBell

Look, the PS50A457 has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. It will accept feeds such as 1080i or 1080p but the TV has to downscale the signal to fit the TV's actual resolution of 1366 x 768. It is physically impossible to display more pixels than what the panel has available. Furthermore no plasma or LCD TV displays an interlaced picture, the TV's video processor always deinterlaces an interlaced signal.

Hope this helps clear up your misunderstanding.

I think it's you who has the misunderstanding. If 1080i required 1080 lines to display then it would be exactly the same as 1080p wouldn't it? Why have 2 screenmodes with exactly 1920 x 1080 resolution? Interlaced resolutions are a fudge enabling panels to display higher resolutions than would be possible otherwise. My PS3 corectly identifies this TV as being 1080i capable but NOT 1080p capable.

[-)CrAzYjOe(-]

Originally Posted by pjb_

I think it's you who has the misunderstanding. If 1080i required 1080 lines to display then it would be exactly the same as 1080p wouldn't it? Why have 2 screenmodes with exactly 1920 x 1080 resolution? Interlaced resolutions are a fudge enabling panels to display higher resolutions than would be possible otherwise. My PS3 corectly identifies this TV as being 1080i capable but NOT 1080p capable.

The misunderstanding lies on your side.

The posting you quoted described it perfectly well. Digital Flatpanels can only display progressive frames. Interlaced input therefore has to be deinterlaced (which involves a noticeable loss in quality). HDTV Interlaced Modes simply exist because of bandwith reasons. A 1080i signal needs half the bandwith of a 1080p signal (and bandwith is important for TV broadcasting).

A display with a native resolution of 1366x768 has do downscale 1080i input, since it has to be deinterlaced to 1080p in the first place. You pointed out that the TV is stated to be capable of 1080i input, which is absolutley right, but because of the simple reason that EVERY digital flat TV that uses a "HD ready" or "Full HD" logo has to be HDTV conform, which means it has to accept at least 720p and 1080i signals (the two standards for HDTV). In the first case the picture is upscaled, in the latter it is downscaled.

Hope that everything is clear now.

[Westlander]

I have owned this TV for nearly a year now and have finally got fed up with the internal speakers.

I'm looking to output the sound to an external sound system, preferably with minimal wiring. I guess any external speakers would be better than the in built ones but want to know what you guys use with your TV ?

[JohnC]

Yep... Great TV let down very badly by the internal speakers which are totally rubbish in my opinion...!!
Depends on how much you want to spend on external speakers...

I presume you know you will need an external amp to feed your external speakers....!!!???

A very affective economical route would be to look at what Richer Sounds have to offer with an amp/speaker system.

I have a cheap amp/system on my wife's Sam PS50A457 TV, in her sick room and the result is truly excellent...... not far from equaling our top performing Pioneer LX5090 and Mission 77 tall ground standing (external) speakers.

Kind regards
John

[d3m0n]

the internal speakers have never been used on my tv as they are shockingly poor (found that with all my lcd/plasma's ive had to date)

Mine runs all the sound through a yamaha amp with a set of 5.1 speakers, what source are you using? Sky,xbox etc?

Very happy with the set, my only bad point is the amount of dust it shows

[cockney]

I use the TV, Sky HD & PS3 all through my Philips HTS3568 & the sound is excellent, have to agree that the internal speakers are rubbish

[baldji]

May I ask for some help about greatly discussed problem with Samsung plasma TVs, PS50A457 in that case. The infamous "no picture, but sound" problem (if there is more appropriate forum to move my enquiry please feel free to do it). The voltages stated on the back of the panel are consistant and correct (Vs 205V, Va 56V, Vg 15V) on the PSU no matter if I disconnect XSUS and/or YSUS. The screen seems lit a bit and there is that odd flicker when trying to change source but there is no OSD, touch buttons and remote change channels and control volume. Could not see a single blown capacitor or burn mark on the boards (there is no smell too). There is no sound coming from the panel, altough there is a whinning from the PSU while working and for a while after TV turned off and capacitors dicharge. All the readiators on XSUS and YSUS get warm with one on XSUS a bit colder than the rest and on on YSUS a bit hotter than the rest. Any help will be much appreciated.