LCD and Plasma Bargains and Discussions thread

[Roman4604]

Re-reading above ...

the picture is stretched and then shrunk again.

... sound like the reason why you are seeing a difference is because your GPU driver is not configured/behaving optimally.

Seems the driver is detecting a TV type EDID on the HDMI and is under-scanning the output by 5% (predicting the TV is running in 16:9 overscan mode). The TV is then re-scaling the input to fill the screen by virtue of the Screen Fit mode.

When you set the TV to PC mode it sends a monitor type EDID to the driver causing it then to not under-scan the output.

I think the reason why I haven't seen a difference is I always make sure I override the GPU driver's setting to perform TV detection & under-scanning.

 

[Yamana_work]

Great deal at Makro,UA46ES5600 for R6,999.

http://www.makro.co.za/p/27977/samsung-46-117cm-smart-full-hd-slim-led-tv/

Hi

I'm looking at this v UA46EH6030 also for R6,999

My understanding is:
UA46EH6030 = "old" series 6, CMR 200 Hz?, no Smart TV, 3D yes
UA46ES5600 = "new" series 5, 100 Hz?, yes Smart TV, 3D no

I'm not worried by Smart TV, but 3D would be nice to have, not used often though.
Viewing distance approx. 2.5m (my couch) to approx. 4m (wife's couch).

Viewing material: mainly Sport (HD/SD), series (SD) & movies (HD only). Occasional PS3 games.
Room can be made dark and use will mainly be at night.

Any advice on which one?
Mainly concerned about difference between old series 6 & new series 5 if that is the case.
Back lit v Edge lit?
And CMR 200 Hz v 100Hz?

Thanks

 

[PostmanPot]

Hi

I'm looking at this v UA46EH6030 also for R6,999

My understanding is:
UA46EH6030 = "old" series 6, CMR 200 Hz?, no Smart TV, 3D yes
UA46ES5600 = "new" series 5, 100 Hz?, yes Smart TV, 3D no

I'm not worried by Smart TV, but 3D would be nice to have, not used often though.
Viewing distance approx. 2.5m (my couch) to approx. 4m (wife's couch).

Viewing material: mainly Sport (HD/SD), series (SD) & movies (HD only). Occasional PS3 games.
Room can be made dark and use will mainly be at night.

Any advice on which one?
Mainly concerned about difference between old series 6 & new series 5 if that is the case.
Back lit v Edge lit?
And CMR 200 Hz v 100Hz?

Thanks

"E" = year, both are new/current.

6 Series = 100Hz, 5 Series = 50Hz. 6 Series is better. EH6030 is diluted 6 Series with lesser PQ than ES6200 and up, as well as thicker/deeper bezel.

 

[stevenv]

Hi

I'm looking at this v UA46EH6030 also for R6,999

My understanding is:
UA46EH6030 = "old" series 6, CMR 200 Hz?, no Smart TV, 3D yes
UA46ES5600 = "new" series 5, 100 Hz?, yes Smart TV, 3D no

I'm not worried by Smart TV, but 3D would be nice to have, not used often though.
Viewing distance approx. 2.5m (my couch) to approx. 4m (wife's couch).

Viewing material: mainly Sport (HD/SD), series (SD) & movies (HD only). Occasional PS3 games.
Room can be made dark and use will mainly be at night.

Any advice on which one?
Mainly concerned about difference between old series 6 & new series 5 if that is the case.
Back lit v Edge lit?
And CMR 200 Hz v 100Hz?

Thanks

Worry less about the CMR and more about the native rate that PP mentioned.

 

[Roman4604]

I guarantee you will notice the difference.

Did some stuffing around with my TVs & monitors, and as in the past, no major difference.

Picture/text clarity already as good as it can be when all settings manually configured properly (TVs & GPU driver). Actually can get it looking better in Movie Mode as you still have access to every last setting unlike PC Mode where half the setting are locked to some preset that you cant alter.

For me PC Mode is just a short-cut preset for those without the knowledge/inclination to manually configure everything optimally.

 

[SaiyanZ]

Did some stuffing around with my TVs & monitors, and as in the past, no major difference.

Picture/text clarity already as good as it can be when all settings manually configured properly (TVs & GPU driver). Actually can get it looking better in Movie Mode as you still have access to every last setting unlike PC Mode where half the setting are locked to some preset that you cant alter.

For me PC Mode is just a short-cut preset for those without the knowledge/inclination to manually configure everything optimally.

On which TV did it work? I tried to get 1:1 without enabling PC mode and failed. This was on a 7 series 46" smart, 3D etc.
Maybe it's because of my laptop GPU/driver. Nvidia 320M GT with latest Nvidia drivers.

 

[Roman4604]

On which TV did it work? I tried to get 1:1 without enabling PC mode and failed. This was on a 7 series 46" smart, 3D etc.

All 3 with my Macbook Air.

Maybe it's because of my laptop GPU/driver. Nvidia 320M GT with latest Nvidia drivers.

Thats what I would think, its detecting a TV and rescaling its output. In PC mode its spoofed into thinking its connected to a monitor so its not re-scaling.

In both ML & Win7 I make sure the Intel HD3000 GPU's overscan setting is locked to 0%. I plug it into any of the TVs (Screen Fit set for the used HDMI port) and get 1:1 without any other adjustment (verified by the test patterns I posted above).

 

[Awesum]

I picked up my Samsung 60E550 Plasma on Friday. What an awesome display!
Good price too.
It blows my ES6200 LED in picture quality.

Anyone got calibration settings?

 

[PostmanPot]

I picked up my Samsung 60E550 Plasma on Friday. What an awesome display!
Good price too.
It blows my ES6200 LED in picture quality.

Anyone got calibration settings?

Grats! Finally the truth, been a lot of misinformed LCD punting around here.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1402087/the-official-samsung-pnxxe550-owners-thread
http://www.avforums.com/forums/plasma-tvs/1626953-samsung-ps51e550-owners-thread-11.html

BTW. Great screens for PC. No fuzziness and other nonsense. Enjoy.

 

[Wasp_21]

Hi

I'm looking at this v UA46EH6030 also for R6,999

My understanding is:
UA46EH6030 = "old" series 6, CMR 200 Hz?, no Smart TV, 3D yes
UA46ES5600 = "new" series 5, 100 Hz?, yes Smart TV, 3D no

I'm not worried by Smart TV, but 3D would be nice to have, not used often though.
Viewing distance approx. 2.5m (my couch) to approx. 4m (wife's couch).

Viewing material: mainly Sport (HD/SD), series (SD) & movies (HD only). Occasional PS3 games.
Room can be made dark and use will mainly be at night.

Any advice on which one?
Mainly concerned about difference between old series 6 & new series 5 if that is the case.
Back lit v Edge lit?
And CMR 200 Hz v 100Hz?

Thanks

You make your wife sit behind you? How did you get this right?

 

[johndoe1983]

Haha am sure it's 2 couches one vertical on horizontal ;-)

 

[johndoe1983]

If not, teach me yoda

 

[Roman4604]

No fuzziness and other nonsense.

If you don't mind some IR. Pixel shifting & 1:1 pixel mapping are mutually exclusive. My E550 starts showing IR on bright white objects if they've been static for ~ 15 min in 1:1 mode.

 

[PostmanPot]

If you don't mind some IR. Pixel shifting & 1:1 pixel mapping are mutually exclusive. My E550 starts showing IR on bright white objects if they've been static for ~ 15 min in 1:1 mode.

IR is completely normal and does not concern me. While I would not recommend plasma for use as a main computer monitor to do work on, there is no problem using plasma for media/gaming where areas are constantly refreshing/being refreshed by cutscenes etc. In fact it's superior on plasma, as is most content. Settle for lesser LCD to avoid IR? Na, not me. In fact I have plenty of friends with plasma TVs who use their PC to game/work on it. The most laymen people you could get who don't know anything about IR, LCD vs plasma, etc. No burn on their screens.

And I mainly wanted to comment on fuzziness as you suggested earlier which I cannot make out since there is far less fuzziness on a FHD plasma than a HDR plasma. And of course, one has to be unrealistically close at +-1m to notice anything. Just more scare tactics against plasma - power usage, fuzziness, IR, bla bla.

It has better PQ. Entry-mid plasma blows mid-high LED backlit LCD out the water.

 

[Roman4604]

IR is completely normal

So seeing the pause icon imprinted on the screen for a while because you needed to pause your Bluray movie for 15min is normal. Downright irritating if you ask me, as is the alternative of not watching 1080p at its true 1:1 mapping.

 

[PostmanPot]

So seeing the pause icon imprinted on the screen for a while because you needed to pause your Bluray movie for 15min is normal. Downright irritating if you ask me, as is the alternative of not watching 1080p at its true 1:1 mapping.

Plasma owners following, please comment if this has ever been an issue for you. I will update the list here.

PostmanPot - No
Awesum - No
Beachless - No
Wasp_21 - No
Goofball - No
iceman23 - No
Cirdan - No

 

[Roman4604]

PostmanPot - No

Because there's no such thing as 1:1 pixel mapping without pixel shifting on a HDR plasma.

 

[Awesum]

My 5 year old plasma has no IR at all.
I agree with PostmanPot. Plasma trumps LCD/LED in PQ.

 

[Beachless]

I run a microserver with Linux on my plasma and have never seen any IR, but I am aware of it so avoid long term static images.

 

[Roman4604]

My 5 year old plasma has no IR at all.

As mentioned this should only occur in 1:1 pixel mode which turns off the pixel shifter (on an E550).

If your running the TV in 16:9 mode (zoomed) the pixel shifter will be active, but then don't expect the crispest picture/text clarity for PC use (what this discussion is about). The point is its not a compromise you have to make on an LCD/LED, therefore they are better suited to PC use.

Plasma trumps LCD/LED in PQ.

Thats a personal preference, but I will say you cant really make that judgement unless you've calibrated both types of TVs to their best potential. In my experience its easier to get a plasma looking at is best, their range of configuration setting are far simpler than a mid to high end LEDs, but with a bit of effort you can get them to look very similar.