[PaxtonSage]

Were you actually watching HD material? I have also noticed that VM boxes can be pretty awful at rendering HD properly and sometimes cannot see significant differences on a friend's large screen major make set.

Well on my old Panasonic the HD channels were very clear form the Virgin box and same on our LG LCD upstairs so can't be the box. I also find that the picture is very cloudy, as though the backlight is too strong which results in the picture looking washed out. Will try that other stuff out though see if it improves it. It did confuse me as the 3D content looks great and is def a clear HD quality yet when I watched the basic HD versions it wasn't as good. Thanks for the hint, hope it works.

[PaxtonSage]

Did what you suggested regarding the picture settings and behold!!! The picture was great!! Thanks for the advice, makes the tv an even better bargain now, well chuffed with it.

[Azmel]

Originally Posted by Jason Shouler

Just to confirm, are you saying the subtitles are truly displayed correctly ?

Many systems can display subtitles but the big problem is a lot of players add the subtitles BEFORE the SBS 3D process which means the subs are cut in half and are effectively unreadable.

Yes, the SRT subtitles are processed after the SBS is merged thus they are displayed correctly on screen and not cut in half.

However there are no settings to position the "depth" of the subtitle. I prefer for them to appear "in front" of the screen toward the audience because if the subtitle is overlapping a 3D video, it can ruin the scene.

You can adjust the size of the fonts to make them smaller but cannot move them back or forward.

I hope Celcus addresses this on their next firmware update

[Jason Shouler]

Originally Posted by Azmel

I hope Celcus addresses this on their next firmware update

I'd say you should be jumping for joy for what you already can do.

I've got an LG TV and three blu-rays players and yet I can't play 3D SRTs at all

Recently found a little program that converts 2D SRT to 3D SRT subs but much to my annoyance discovered neither my LG, Panasonic or Samsung could understand the command set

[grant666uk]

Picked up one of these tvs on tues. loving it so far and well worth the £320

[Azmel]

Originally Posted by Azmel

Answering my own earlier question, I just noticed a digital coax out socket and also a headphone socket at the rear of the TV. I think by using either of these two options, I can hook up the TV to a separate sound system. I haven't tried the idea out yet but will report back if it is successful or otherwise.

To report back, I have purchased a 2.1 Microlabs M700 sound system at amazon for £25 (refurbished) incluing free delivery. It comes with two satellite speakers and a powerful subwoofer. I hook it up via the headphone port from the TV (cable provided). Now the sound is in a different league. All-in-all I spent £329 for the TV and £25 for the speakers. Not bad for a low-cost setup!

[jpieter]

Originally Posted by Azmel

To report back, I have purchased a 2.1 Microlabs M700 sound system at amazon for £25 (refurbished) incluing free delivery. It comes with two satellite speakers and a powerful subwoofer. I hook it up via the headphone port from the TV (cable provided). Now the sound is in a different league. All-in-all I spent £329 for the TV and £25 for the speakers. Not bad for a low-cost setup!

That sounds brilliant (excuse the pun) that is one cheap sysyem you have there.
Also Marks and Spencer have a Cello 3D blu ray player for only £49 at the moment , no idea what its like though.
http://www.marksandspencer.com/Cello..._rd_s=center-3

[thekingbeyond]

Had one of these delivered yesterday to replace an ageing Pioneer PDP-433MXE in the bedroom, I was pleasantly surprised with the picture quality both in 2d and 3d. To me the picture is better than the outgoing pioneer, crisper and more detailed.
The front bezel touch controls and built in media player are nice additions and the 4 hdmi and 2 usb sockets are very useful, currently have htpc, wii, sky hd and blu-ray player connected.
Have it wall mounted and its looks don't give its price tag of £319 away, very nice set for the money especially as 4 pairs of 3d glasses are included.

[grant666uk]

Originally Posted by thekingbeyond

Had one of these delivered yesterday to replace an ageing Pioneer PDP-433MXE in the bedroom, I was pleasantly surprised with the picture quality both in 2d and 3d. To me the picture is better than the outgoing pioneer, crisper and more detailed.
The front bezel touch controls and built in media player are nice additions and the 4 hdmi and 2 usb sockets are very useful, currently have htpc, wii, sky hd and blu-ray player connected.
Have it wall mounted and its looks don't give its price tag of £319 away, very nice set for the money especially as 4 pairs of 3d glasses are included.

Three days using mine and dont have a bad thing to say about it. Been watching a ton of 3d content and it works perfect. Just with I had a 3d media player as when I go into 3d mode it messes up media players menu.

[djnz00]

Picked this up at the local Sainsbury's. Connecting the TV to a PC w/ NVIDIA GTX 460M, running some diagnostics and testing with a variety of downloaded 2D and 3D content, discovered the following:

It's Vestel OEM (Turkish manufacturer). Other posters have said it's an LG screen. Overall picture, sound and functions are all good, but the firmware needs updating for a couple of minor issues (see below). Build quality is fine. Nice looking TV, good remote.

2D and regular DB-TV is fine, but see below about 1080p support.

Native HDMI input format is not true 1080p, it's pseudo-1080p. The native display format is 1080i at 30Hz (or 25Hz or 29Hz, switchable). So 1080p at 60Hz is actually displayed every other line. The 1080p labeling is a bit misleading - it's 1080p compatible. Having said that, at this price, it's still great.

3D is HDMI 1.4 / 1.4a (Blue Ray) or SBS (Side by Side). SBS only works well if the 1080i modes are used. So if you are seeing ghosting, blurring etc. in 3D, probably your media player is outputting 1080p at 60Hz. Switch to 1080i and all is good.

Overall this is a great TV at a great price. The inbuilt digital tuner is great. Episode Guide also good.

The built-in media player (USB port) is finnicky about which codecs, resolutions and frame rates it supports. It's a roll of the dice whether a particular media file will play. A firmware update is needed to fix this. When it plays something, it's great.

So an external player is often needed. I use a PC, and recommend using Media Player Classic - HC (MPC-HC), using the EVR-Sync renderer and driving the TV at 1080i at 30Hz. This overcomes all jitter and ghosting issues. (Once the HDMI cable is connected use Windows-P to select "Extend" on a PC, then adjust the resolution and refresh rate of the TV display separately.)

The other problem relates to getting the HDMI connection to the PC working in the first place. Power-cycling the TV may be needed to get the HDMI connection up and running. I had this issue with a Sony Vaio but not with an Asus.

[grant666uk]

Not had any probs with hdmi etc but will try 1080i has I have seen a little ghosting. Cheers mate.

[thekingbeyond]

Originally Posted by djnz00

Native HDMI input format is not true 1080p, it's pseudo-1080p. The native display format is 1080i at 30Hz (or 25Hz or 29Hz, switchable). So 1080p at 60Hz is actually displayed every other line. The 1080p labeling is a bit misleading - it's 1080p compatible. Having said that, at this price, it's still great.

3D is HDMI 1.4 / 1.4a (Blue Ray) or SBS (Side by Side). SBS only works well if the 1080i modes are used. So if you are seeing ghosting, blurring etc. in 3D, probably your media player is outputting 1080p at 60Hz. Switch to 1080i and all is good.

Tried sbs at 1080p/24 plays really well on mine and standard bluray at 1080p/24, how do you know the 1080p is only showing as interlaced. My pc is showing naitive display as 1080p 24/50/60 and have not had any problems with the hdmi connection

[djnz00]

The test images here are useful: 1080P Tests Photo Gallery by J. Vincent at pbase.com - particularly the Sync image http://ic2.pbase.com/o4/78/287278/1/...HM98t.Sync.jpg - download, then view full screen on the TV in "1080p" - it's all black. In 1080i it's correctly grey since the white pixels haven't been eliminated.

[thekingbeyond]

Originally Posted by djnz00

The test images here are useful: 1080P Tests Photo Gallery by J. Vincent at pbase.com - particularly the Sync image http://ic2.pbase.com/o4/78/287278/1/...HM98t.Sync.jpg - download, then view full screen on the TV in "1080p" - it's all black. In 1080i it's correctly grey since the white pixels haven't been eliminated.

Downloaded the sync image, made sure pc was at 1080p and tried it at 24/50/60. It looks much the same as the image did on my computer monitor.

[Jason Shouler]

Originally Posted by djnz00

. In 1080i it's correctly grey since the white pixels haven't been eliminated.

Is it possible for you to explain why 1080p should look any different to 1080i ?

I can't see why they should look anything but grey(ish) which indeed they do on all the modes I've tried (admittedly not on a Celcus though).

Seems more like a test for correct scan mode to me

[grant666uk]

I have tried all of the above on my Celcus and I get the grey screen too. Ghosting etc is the same using 1080i or 1080p. Mmm strange.

[Suzanne]

Hi Everyone

I have just brought this TV and set it up to my sky with no probs, i can do the sky 3d channel using the side by side view and watch the olympics ok, However, we tried to use a Blu-ray 3D (Hugo) and i made sure that i chose the 3D option on the Blu-ray but it just seems to be playing in 2D, I have tried using the 3D button and changing to the side by side and top on top option but still am not getting 3D????

Any ideas on what i'm doing wrong, I'm not too techie and it probably something silly!

Thanks

[djnz00]

There's a few variables here, for example the Nvidia GPU and the HDMI cable. It's possible my cable isn't good enough for 1080p at 60Hz, but I don't think so.

The Sync test image has alternating white/black pixels on every other line. So every other horizontal and vertical line is pure black. So if the lines containing white pixels are filtered due to downsampling, the picture will appear all-black. But it has to be displayed fullscreen actual pixels for that to work.

In my setup, the NVidia control panel shows 1080p at 60Hz and 1080i at 30/29/25Hz. The Sync image does not display correctly with 1080p, but does display ok with 1080i. YMMV.

[Jason Shouler]

Originally Posted by djnz00

The Sync test image has alternating white/black pixels on every other line. So every other horizontal and vertical line is pure black. So if the lines containing white pixels are filtered due to downsampling, the picture will appear all-black. But it has to be displayed fullscreen actual pixels for that to work.

In my setup, the NVidia control panel shows 1080p at 60Hz and 1080i at 30/29/25Hz. The Sync image does not display correctly with 1080p, but does display ok with 1080i. YMMV.

I follow your logic but I still don't see why total displayed pixels on a 1080p display should be any different to a 1080i display.

I strikes me this is a test of one to one mapping (thus choosing different scan modes will have a huge affect on the display) and that your video card is struggling a bit at 1080p i.e. it's not truly mapping one to one.

[GuyFingers]

Originally Posted by Azmel

Xanthora, thanks for the heads up. It's a shame that the Celcus won't read 3D SBS MKV via USB but only thru HDMI.

Which media player that you use to play the 3D SBS MKV from?

UPDATE: 18/06/2012

I have purchased the Celcus 3DTV last weekend and after fiddling with it I can confirm that it will play 3D SBS material directly from the USB ports, i.e. without the need for a dedicated media player set top box.

However the Celcus is quite picky when it comes to which audio/video codec that it supports so it won't play everything thrown at it.

Regarding MKV, it is just a container so depending on the video's codec, it may or may not play the material at all.

The user manual that comes with the TV lists down the supported codecs: for video, it accepts MPEG2 or XviD up to version 1.03, and for audio it accepts MP2, MP3 or PCM.

The best bet is to save your material onto a USB flash drive and stick it in the TV. If it says invalid file or format not supported, you have to reencode the video to something it likes. For this purpose I used Freemake Video Converter which is a freeware.

I can confirm that the Celcus plays MPEG2 1920x1080p at 23.976 fps with audio encoded with MP3 CBR 128kbps perfectly.

The Celcus won't automatically detect your SBS material, so you will need to manually press the 3D button on the remote and select "Side by Side" and you're good to go.

Hi Azmel
Can you give more details of how you got a 3d file to play off USB pls?
Was it an 3D-AVI? What codecs did you use?
I've spent too much time on this already!!
Thanks
Guy

[Azmel]

Originally Posted by GuyFingers

Hi Azmel
Can you give more details of how you got a 3d file to play off USB pls?
Was it an 3D-AVI? What codecs did you use?
I've spent too much time on this already!!
Thanks
Guy

The video format that I use is MPEG-2 with resolution 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720, same frame rate as the source material. Audio is encoded using MP2 at any bitrate (I use 384 kbps). If you want subtitiles, make sure it's in SRT format and has the same name as the video file.

The video that I use is a 3D SBS (side-by-side).

The software that I use for re-encoding is Xilisoft Video Converter. It is available for download but it is a commercial software costing $40 (you can try it for free before committing a purchase). Select the "HD - MPEG2 PS Video" profile where the correct settings have already been prepared for you. The final file size is around 2 to 4GB per hour and has MPG extension on it.

There is also a free video convertor called Freemake. I tried it and it's good but it causes some jitterness on some of the video I encode thus why I revert to Xilisoft.

[GuyFingers]

Hi Azmel - thanks so much for replying.
I thought that 3D video files could only be mvk, avi, wmv or mp4? (those are the ones listed in my Wondershare Ultimate converter)
I had a Eureka moment when I got to bed last night in that what I THINK you're saying is that when you convert the mkv to MPEG2, although it's not a 3d video per se, when you play it back on a computer using a standard player, it has 2 pictures side by side and can be recognised as such by the TV if you press the 3D button?

I have Xilisoft 5, Wondershare Ultimate and now Freemake, so I'm going to try that today.

Thanks once again.

[GuyFingers]

YES!! IT WORKS!!! I used WonderShare Ultimate to convert my mkv to mpeg2 using the same options as the original and on the tv switched the 3d to SBS and POW!
I haven't tried Freemake, but if you say that that works too, I'm sure it does.
OMG, thanks so much Azmel.
Now off to do something like 100Gb of converting!!
Best,
Guy

[Azmel]

Originally Posted by GuyFingers

YES!! IT WORKS!!! I used WonderShare Ultimate to convert my mkv to mpeg2 using the same options as the original and on the tv switched the 3d to SBS and POW!
I haven't tried Freemake, but if you say that that works too, I'm sure it does.
OMG, thanks so much Azmel.
Now off to do something like 100Gb of converting!!
Best,
Guy

I'm glad it worked, Guy!

If you are planning to use Xilisoft, I recommend you upgrade to the latest version because there has been audio issues getting out of sync with earlier versions, especially when encoding AC3 or DTS to MP2.

[GuyFingers]

Originally Posted by Azmel

I'm glad it worked, Guy!

If you are planning to use Xilisoft, I recommend you upgrade to the latest version because there has been audio issues getting out of sync with earlier versions, especially when encoding AC3 or DTS to MP2.

HAHA! Look what I just received from Celsus after my enquiry to them a couple of days ago:-

Thank you for your query.
Unfortunatley you cannot watch 3D movies from your USB stick. You need an external appliance such as a 3D Blu Ray player connected with a HDMI cable version 1.4.
Kind regards

Anyway, the file that worked was a 1m37secs 133Mb mkv file converted to mpeg2 (all options marked 'keep as original') with Wondershare Ultimate.

I have since done a Half SBS 2hr 28mins 800MB mkv using the same method and it didn't work (the file played as a SBS image, but wouldn't let me switch to 3d) - MAYBE because the video size was 1280 x 532 instead of 1920 x 1080.

I don't know. I'll do some more testing and report back.

The only drawback is that convertion takes AGES. I'm half thinking of using my 2nd pc to playback the mkv files thru PowerDVD 12 via the HDMI port of the graphics card......

[GuyFingers]

Ok, just re-converted the original mkv file UPSCALING it from 1280 x 528 to 1920 x 1080 in the advanced options and I can confirm that it will now switch over to 3D, albeit slightly pixcelated.

So, that's the Holy Grail of playing 3D files via your USB stick on this TV. Make sure the original is an SBS file, and that it's converted to an mpeg2 with a video size of 1920 x 1080.

I might just test AVIs too!

[Azmel]

Originally Posted by GuyFingers

I have since done a Half SBS 2hr 28mins 800MB mkv using the same method and it didn't work (the file played as a SBS image, but wouldn't let me switch to 3d) - MAYBE because the video size was 1280 x 532 instead of 1920 x 1080.

Originally Posted by GuyFingers

Ok, just re-converted the original mkv file UPSCALING it from 1280 x 528 to 1920 x 1080 in the advanced options and I can confirm that it will now switch over to 3D, albeit slightly pixcelated.

The Celcus will also be able to play movies encoded to 1280x720 in 3D mode, which I think is closest to your source material - that should avoid the pixelation issue I hope.

[thekingbeyond]

Well mine is going back, after a weeks use it developed a really loud buzzing noise. The buzzing got louder with the backlight, the brighter the louder. Any way spoke to customer services and the tv has now been discontinued and all they can offer is a refund.

[Jason Shouler]

Originally Posted by GuyFingers

The only drawback is that convertion takes AGES. I'm half thinking of using my 2nd pc to playback the mkv files thru PowerDVD 12 via the HDMI port of the graphics card......

You may find this suggestion from Paulus (last post) a better idea

http://www.avforums.com/forums/3d-tv...tv-deal-6.html

Using a PC/laptop to drive the TV directly can be fraught with many problems itself.

[GuyFingers]

Originally Posted by thekingbeyond

Well mine is going back, after a weeks use it developed a really loud buzzing noise. The buzzing got louder with the backlight, the brighter the louder. Any way spoke to customer services and the tv has now been discontinued and all they can offer is a refund.

It would appear that a handful of people have had this buzzing problem - that's a shame, it's a great TV. I hope it doesn't happen with mine as I'm so chuffed with it.

Azmel, I have another puzzle. I have a Dolby 5.1 system which only has mini jacks in. Do you think the Co-ax spdif out sends dolby 5.1 from it? (before I go buy a co-ax spdif to 5.1 converter?)

Guy