Samsung SP46L6HX - Image Softness with Sky+

[voxel]

Hi folks,

I got the Axium HD45 from Comet 2 weeks ago and after a screen fault decided to exchange for the SP46L6HX. It arrived yesterday and the image quality seems very good so far. However, I cannot for the life of me get the menu's in Sky + to look as crisp as they did on the Axium. There is a certain softness of quality about them, especially around the white letters in the menus. It looks like the effect you get when you apply anti-aliasing to text in Photoshop.

Has anyone noticed this or am I seeing it because I have the benefit of comparison with another DLP? This softness is present constantly but is more obvious with text - that is why I am using the Sky menus as a yard stick for comparison. I'd really like to resolve this since in many other respects it is a better machine that the Axium. For example:

- The Samsung has much cleaner whites. The Anti reflective coating on the Axium spoilt the whites for me.
- Faces look better on the Samsung. When horizontal panning on the Axium there was a lot of mach-banding present in the skin tones.
- The rainbow effect isn't as harsh with the Samsung yet I was VERY VERY succeptable to it on the Axium.

I do have another slight concern with the Samsung though - The predefined colour settings have contrast set to a maximum of 100 and according to any THX config I run that is exactly where it should be but it seems ridiculous to me that contrast should be so numerically high!

I'm also peeved that you can't use HDMI in PIP mode - you could on the Axium. It was useful for comparing component DVD with HDMI dvd from the same player.

Oh, the Samsung is uglier though. There's no doubting French flair for style!

V.

 

[Snap]

Have you tried to adjust "sharpness" on Samsung?
or may be this is an issue with HD4 chip vs HD2+...

 

[Tarbat]

Try turning DNIe ON.

 

[voxel]

Yeh, tried that. The Samsung was much like the Axium for me in this respect... adjusting sharpness had very little discernable effect really.

 

[voxel]

It's the same with DNIe ON or OFF.

I'm using 60 quid SCART leads BTW.

Maybe it's just the case that the Sammy's picture is just softer by design?

 

[Snap]

It's HD4

 

[voxel]

What is the diff between HD4 chip and HD2+?

 

[Jamesy_UK]

HD4 is a cheaper mass produced chip than the HD2+, it has half the resolution of the HD2+ but uses something called 'wobulation' to simulate the full resolution. To the trained eye apparently HD4 makes images less sharp and crisp but to be honest I could never see a real difference between the sp46 and sp50 in picture quality, but then I don't have a trained eye.

 

[neilmcl]

I think it gives the wrong impression to say that the HD4 is "mass produced", there's just as many other types of chip produced as the HD4. It makes it sound like the HD4 is somehow cheap and inferior. It's true that the new style of "wobbulation" chips are cheaper to manufacture but this doesn't make them inferior in anyway, they just have different characteristics to the previous 1:1 pixel chips, a softer more cinematic image being one of them.

 

[Jamesy_UK]

Fair point Neil, you can take it either way really, I prefer the more cynical money grubbing corporation theory

 

[Kazman]

The THX config screens aren't really that good. You should use something like AVIA or DVE to configure your picture.

Whereabouts are you Voxel?

 

[Tarbat]

I was playing around with settings, and have come to realise that the DNIe and Sharpness settings interact. To get a sharper picture (if that's what you like), set Sharpness to 100%, AND turn DNIe on.