Samsung LE40A786 Review

As one of the world leaders in LCD technology, it’s not surprising that Samsung’s range of LCD TVs contains an intimidating number of models. The company has so many flat screen televisions, sometimes with only small variations, that it can be difficult to keep track of, let alone choose between them.

The Samsung LE40A786 is special, however, as it features LED backlighting technology instead of the conventional CCFL fluorescent lamps. This means that this HDTV can produce a considerably superior contrast ratio. Whilst conventional LCD televisions have an array of backlight lamps which are constantly turned on behind the screen, the A786 series TVs feature clusters of smaller LEDs instead, which can be independently controlled. For a real world example, imagine a scene of a pitch black sky, with a full moon in the middle. A conventional LCD TV would have to light up the entire screen consistently, but an LED-backlit LCD display can dim the areas featuring the black sky, whilst keeping the approximate area surrounding the moon lit up.

It’s an exciting proposition, which really means that the Samsung LE40A786 should be able to give us whiter whites and blacker blacks. Let’s find out how it performs!

Design

Aesthetically, the Samsung LE40A786 HDTV at first appears to be nothing special. It features Samsung’s “Crystal Design”, but for over a week, we thought that it lacked the killer “Touch of Colour” design feature around the edges of the bezel. Only when we accidentally shone a light around the display did we notice that there actually is a barely visible blue tinge! It’s a shame this just isn’t a little more prominent, because it looks great when you can actually see it.

The thickness of the bezel might make the viewing area seem a little smaller if you’re used to the “Picture Frame” style LCDs being increasingly pushed by Toshiba and Sony, but on the whole, we don’t have any major complaints regarding the appearance of Samsung LE40A786.

Also, the touch panel is worth noting. To the bottom right of the screen is a series of vertically stacked blue lights, which illuminate the various pressure-sensitive buttons. These appear when you turn the Samsung LE40A786 on, and disappear shortly afterwards.

Connections

Connectivity is getting harder and harder to write about when it comes to HDTVs, purely because there are really no surprises anymore. Along with the usual SCART, VGA, Composite, S-Video, Component and RF connections, it’s notable that this display features no less than four HDMI inputs (one of which is on a recessed side panel).

Operation

On-Screen User Menu

No surprises here… the Samsung LE40A786 might feature the latest backlighting technology, but its menus are the same old - they’re not especially attractive, but they’re easy to navigate and better yet, they’re fast.

One unusual thing we noticed with these menus is that there is, in fact, a teeny-tiny amount of colour bleed visible when an option is highlighted in orange. This is very unusual, because flat panel TVs typically draw the on-screen menus at the very end of the display chain, before such quirks can occur. We noted this and decided to check later to see if any colour bleed was present in situations where it might actually matter (on actual content).

As usual, Samsung’s top-level picture adjustment is the [Mode] setting. This can be set to either [Dynamic], [Standard] or [Movie]. We selected [Movie], which immediately presented a considerably more watchable picture. As well as the typical basic calibration settings, there’s an adjustment for the overall [Backlight] intensity.

Moving on to [Detailed Settings], there’s a host of tweaks, the important ones being a very basic [Gamma] adjustment, a [Colour Space] setting which allows for some colour management, and last but certainly not least, a [White Balance] adjustment. Many manufacturers hide this setting deep within the engineer’s menu, so we’re absolutely delighted, as usual, to see Samsung present it in a user-accessible menu.

The tweaks don’t end there. There’s also [Picture Options], which allows selection of a [Colour Tone] (to switch between greyscale presets), [Size] and [Screen Mode] to control the aspect ratio, and [Digital NR] to apply a temporal blur to slightly reduce moving image noise. There’s also control over [100Hz Motion Plus], a [Blue Only Mode] to aid colour fine-tuning, and last but certainly not least, the [Smart LED] option, which allows you to turn the regional dimming feature on or off (useful for demonstrating the advantages of the LED backlighting technology). Oddly, turning this on or off would take us out of the “Movie” picture mode and send us back to the wacky-looking “Dynamic”, but this was easily corrected.

EPG (Electronic Programme Guide)

Again, the Samsung LE40A786 uses the same old Samsung EPG. It responds quickly to key presses, and shows all the information you could want to see. Pressing the middle navigation button sets a reminder for a programme, and pressing the Channel Up and Down keys jumps up and down a page of channels.

Remote Control

Once again, we have a sense of deja vu… if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Samsung’s remote, although being styled in the fingerprint-catching gloss black, features clearly labelled buttons which are logically placed and depress nicely. Better still, there’s a backlighting feature too, so you can use the remote in a darkened room.

Calibration

Greyscale

We used the [Movie] and [Warm2] options as a starting point for calibration. These produced the following results:

[Colour Balance] “Warm2” CCT

[Colour Balance] “Warm2” RGB tracking

There’s a visible emphasis of both red and blue at different points, producing a colour temperature which manages to be both too high and too low at times. Why settle for this when Samsung provides such easily accessible Greyscale adjustments? Using these, we were able to bring things much closer to spec:

CCT after greyscale calibration in “Movie” [Picture Mode]

RGB tracking and delta errors (dEs) after greyscale calibration

We were extremely pleased with the results of this calibration. The irregularities at the lower end of the chart (left) result from the extreme levels of darkness provided by the LED-assisted display causing problems for our sensor, so feel free to ignore these.

As you can see from the pink line at the bottom of the RGB tracking chart, delta errors never rose above around 1.7, meaning slight inaccuracies in our calibrated example should be all but unnoticeable. It’s fantastic that Samsung provide this adjustment option in their user menus, and we wish all manufacturers took this initiative.

Colour

Pre-calibration CIE [Auto]	Pre-calibration CIE [Native]

Out of the box, Samsung provides a colour space called [Auto], which, as evidenced by the CIE chart, undersaturates colours somewhat. The [Native] mode appears to ramps colours up as high as the panel will allow, making things oversaturated instead. Finally, Samsung provide a [Custom] mode which allows the mix of Red, Green and Blue making up all six primary and secondary colours to be controlled. Using this feature, we were able to, once again, bring things very close to the desired Rec.709 HDTV standard:

CIE chart with reference to HD Rec. 709 after calibration with HD source

Red and blue were a little hard to configure exactly, but both were still relatively close to the desired targets. The slight error in blue will probably be undetectable in real world situations.

Gamma

[Movie] mode with Gamma +1

Although none of the Gamma adjustments in the TV’s menu gave a completely flat line, setting Gamma to +1 gave the closest average match to a gamma of 2.2 (indicated by the blue line). Raising or lowering the Gamma option essentially only raised or lowered the yellow line.

Benchmark Test Results

Dead pixels	2, one dead pixel, one stuck green pixel
Screen uniformity	Some clouding visible off-angle, [Smart LED] mode and calibration help make this negligible
Overscanning on HDMI	0% with [Display Area] set to “Full Pixel“
Blacker than black	Passed
Black level	True black (0 cd/m2) possible with [Smart LED] on
Black level retention	Fluctuates if [Smart LED] on
Primary chromaticity	Excellent with [Colour Space] “Custom” tweaked
Scaling	Average
Video mode deinterlacing	Average; some jaggies reduction
Film mode deinterlacing	Good; passed the most common cadences (2-2 PAL and 3-2 NTSC)
Viewing angle	Horizontal good for an LCD TV (90°), black washout evident at Vertical angles
Motion resolution	600 with [100hz Motion Plus] on Low, 250-300 off
Digital noise reduction	Acceptable at baseline
Sharpness	Defeatable edge enhancement
1080p/24 capability (PS3)	Accepts 1080p/24 video signal; no telecine judder; but see notes on combing
Input lag	30-70ms, depending on configuration; see dedicated section

Power Consumption

Default	192 watts
Calibrated	132 watts
Standby	3 watts

Black Level

And now, we get down to business. With the [Smart LED] option enabled, the Samsung LE40A786 struts its stuff and, unsurprisingly, shuts off LEDs as necessary. As a result, a completely black screen measures an unbeatable (literally!) 0 cd/m2 (yes, 0: nil, none, nada).

On its own, though, this is a little easy. We already knew that LED TVs can turn areas of the screen completely off. More appropriately, we fed an ANSI test pattern to the Samsung LE40A786 HDTV. This pattern features alternating black and white boxes in a chessboard-like structure. Due to the approximate nature of the LED backlighting, there was a very small amount of visible glowing around the white areas, which is to be expected, as the dimming is not controlled with per-pixel accuracy. The severity of the glow depended on the viewing angle, but was minimal in the most common positions. From higher angles, the glowing was a little distracting. That’s not really a problem, because a television will typically be placed at eye level, and we doubt this will raise its head in real world situations.

Detail & Resolution

Over HDMI, and with the [Full Pixel] mode turned on, the Samsung LE40A786 successfully resolved each nuance of the horizontal and vertical 1920×1080 line patterns.

However, colour resolution took a very slight hit due to the aforementioned Y/C delay problem (”Y/C delay” being where the colour component(s) of a picture appear slightly out of horizontal alignment with the brightness component). In almost all cases, photo-realistic content and viewing distances should make the effects of the error unnoticeable, but colourful computer generated content or animation, and a pair of sharp eyes, can reveal it.

Motion Resolution

Using the FPD Benchmark Software Blu-ray Disc, we were able to determine that the Samsung LE40A786 can muster around 600 lines of motion resolution with the [100hz Motion Plus] mode on its [Low] setting. We recommend using on the [Low] setting; as the [Medium] or [High] settings will not increase the motion resolution, but will increase the amount of motion interpolation applied. [Low] gives us the benefits of 100hz but with a minimum of the distracting interpolation effect. This setup is completely suitable for most video programming, and should please sports fans.

Film users, however, might want to leave the system turned off, for a more cinematic look. As the 24fps (or 25fps for a 50hz source) rate of a film is not particularly high, LCD panel blur should not be a huge issue. In this case, losing the 100hz system (and its associated look) should be an overall improvement.

Input Lag

The input lag on this display is typically around 50-70ms. This is unusually high, and with a PC connected, you can feel the drop in speed as you drag a window around on the TV screen.

However, this can be improved a little, with some conditions. In the TV’s [Input] menu, labelling the HDMI input as “PC” (using the [Edit Name] function) will disable certain picture processing circuits and drop the level of lag to a more tolerable 30-40ms. As a result of bypassing certain circuits, some options in the Picture menu will be greyed out. Sadly, one of these is the [Smart LED] option, which is, presumably, a major selling point of this display since it holds the keys to the regional dimming option. And, the level of lag is still higher than several other displays on the market.

Additionally, there’s an [Entertainment Mode] setting called “Game” which also drop the level of lag to around 30ms, but as this forces unrealistically high brightness and sharpness settings (amongst others) on the viewer with no chance to alter them, it is effectively useless.

Video Processing

The LE40A786’s video processing is average. The diagonal interpolation (video jaggies reduction) is somewhat effective, although we’ve seen better. And, it correctly detects both 2-2 (PAL) and 3-2 (NTSC) film cadences. Scaling was rather blurry and undefined. We expect most people will have their own Upscaling DVD player to make all of these points moot, however.

Video Processing is probably the section where we should note an unusual problem with the Samsung LE40A786. Irritatingly, with any source except a 60hz input, combing would appear every so often, even with a fully Progressive source. We can only assume that this display routes these signals through a 1080i video processing circuit, which is unusual. Keep in mind that as the combing is at 1080i resolution, the misplaced lines are only one pixel high and may be unnoticeable at certain viewing distances. Nevertheless, the issue is here and is especially significant in the UK, where there is an abundance of affected 50hz video content.

Picture Quality

High Definition (Blu-ray)

Using the stunningly filmic Blu-ray Disc of The Godfather: Part III on the Samsung LE40A786, we were delighted by the richness of the picture. The Samsung LE40A786’s high contrast ratio and the glossy LCD panel meant that the black suits - and of course, the darker scenes - were all displayed with a pleasing depth. The film’s orangey-brown, sepia-like look was conveyed faithfully thanks to the greyscale calibration, made possible by the display’s user accessible menu. And, the film’s grain structure (thankfully untampered with on this disc) appeared pleasing and natural, rather than being sharpened excessively and brought into the foreground.

Sadly, the combing issue mentioned in the Video Processing section extends to 1080p/24 input. However, it would appear that, when fed 1080p/60, the TV can still recreate a proper, judder-free 24p signal. This is a very unusual situation.

Standard Definition Digital TV (Freeview)

In keeping with current HDTV trends, the Samsung LE40A786 would appear to include some sort of hard-coded MPEG Noise Reduction feature, which seems to do as best it can in cleaning up the mushy broadcasts that we receive over the air. We can’t say for sure, because we can’t turn it off, but the effect is probably one of a small improvement. The display does not appear to be making such broadcasts any worse, which is really just about all we can hope for given the rather dire circumstances.

Xbox 360 Video Gaming (HDMI)

Due to the aforementioned input lag, playing Halo 3 on Xbox Live was a little more difficult than usual. Often we’d find ourselves walking into walls and generally not being able to react on time. So klutzy was our playing that several of the less civilised Xbox Live players began commenting on our poor performance via the voice communication, in their own special way. At its worst, the input lag made the game feel considerably slower and almost impossible to play against those with faster displays. At best, it was marginally irritating and not particularly inspiring.

Conclusion

Pros

• Quality LCD panel, Backlight control, and LED backlighting system allow for a contrast-rich, deep image
• Exquisite high-definition detail from “Full Pixel” 1:1 pixel mapping
• Decent video deinterlacing and film cadence detection
• Handles 1080p/60 (!) film signals correctly, without telecine judder
• Solid connectivity
• Settings can be saved independently per input
• User-accessible greyscale and colour management controls
• TV menus are fast, and remote is easy to use
• 100hz Motion Plus system effective at increasing motion resolution, and can be disabled if not desired

Cons

• Glossy LCD panel reflects ambient light and causes glare, and can be hard to clean without leaving smudges
• Combing/interlacing issue on virtually all types of input signal, even 1080p
• Unusually high level of input lag may be an issue for gamers
• Off-axis vertical viewing reveals noticeable black washout

Summary

The Samsung LE40A786 is an interesting display, not only because it features the still-elusive LED backlighting system, but also because it features some strange issues which we very rarely encounter on HDTV displays.

Certainly, the high contrast ratio afforded by this type of display is a killer feature. Going back to conventional LCD was incredibly difficult after watching the Samsung LE40A786. The fact that Samsung have added their usual comprehensive array of picture configuration and calibration options only sweetens the deal. Sadly, the aforementioned combing issue will irk hardcore videophiles, and the alarmingly high level of input lag may be a deal-breaker for video gamers. We can only assume that both of these issues – which do not appear on Samsung’s conventional LCD displays – are necessary evils included to support the LED backlighting. Users who desperately want an LCD with such a high contrast ratio would do well to give the LE40A786 a good look over; but the rest of us might want to wait until Samsung has worked out some of the quirks with its LED-based displays.

IFA 2008: Sony Q&A Session

Following the Sony Press Conference at IFA 2008, the company invited select journalists, bloggers, and members of the online media back to a hotel conference room for a Q&A session. Present were Tim Page, involved with the BRAVIA LCD TV line; Eric Kingdon, involved with technical, marketing and development tasks for Sony Home Audio and Video products; and Taka Miyama, involved with Marketing and Product Strategy relating to Blu-ray Disc in Europe.

To ensure the questions and answers were unaffected by outside influences, no cameras were present at the event. What follows is a summary of the session, with questions being asked by a variety of journalists. Illustrations are taken from other IFA events and exhibitions.

[The first question involves Sony's wireless video solution]. What is the range like, and can it work through walls?

Tim: With this sort of thing, there’s always a compromise between data rate, distance, range, etc. It can’t always be guaranteed that high data rate content will be streamable. The range is about 25-30 metres, and yes, it goes through walls. It should also work through floors, but it’s not been tested.

Can you have one base station and multiple screens?
Tim: Each screen has its own media receiver, and each receiver can work on one of four channels. [In theory then, you should be able to set two receivers to access the same channel. --DM].

The 200hz Motionflow feature on the new BRAVIA range - can you explain the frame interpolation system that’s going to be used?
Tim: Yes, Motionflow 200hz is the next step from Motionflow 100hz. It doesn’t just copy frames to up the refresh rate, it generates new in-betweens [Tim explains motion interpolation here]. The system is aggressive in terms of motion compensation. Unlike competitors, Sony is detecting motion in all directions (JVC only use the horizontal plane), so Sony’s system is less susceptible to artefacts.

What have you got in place to keep the image as natural as possible to avoid sharpness/artefacts?
Tim: Bravia Engine 2 does a lot of enhancement (noise reduction, black enhance, comb filter); motion compensation is then a separate part. Sony wants the most natural picture as possible.

We haven’t heard any information on calibrating these screens. Other manufacturers (for example, Pioneer) are looking at THX or ISF certification. What’s Sony doing?
Tim: We don’t have any built-in test patterns or anything like that, but we do offer the consumer a level of control (for example, how aggressive Motionflow is, how defined the Bravia Engine processing is, a gamma control, and so on). A few years ago we had a lot of detailed fine-tuning options, but it was almost a service menu. We thinned this down.

Are you going to add ISF C3 control?
Tim: We’ll look into it.

You just mentioned high end picture customisation features which you no longer incorporate - will this functionality remain on high end models like the X-Series?
Tim: Yes, we have things like Bravia Engine 2, detail enhancement features, etc, and that stuff is controllable.

What about customers who just want accuracy, can you turn off such features to get a 1:1, as-is picture?
Tim: There’s always an Off setting. But at the same time, we want to improve the picture, hence the BRAVIA Engine 2 process.

[The new ultra-slim Sony ZX-1 TV is mentioned. In order to retain the slim profile, it features LEDs around the edge, facing inwards. It was a technical challenge to implement.]

How does the EDGE LED technoloy affect black levels?
Tim: With EDGE LED, you can’t selectively un-light areas of the screen to acheive pure black. There’s still a Dynamic Contrast feature, but no regional “on and off” with EDGE LED.

On the X-Series LED backlights on 46 and 55 inches, we use RGB LEDs instead of white [Samsung are using white-coated LEDs]. This provides better white balance.

Is Sony’s upcoming display technology pronounced “oh-led” or “O L E D”?
[All laugh]. Eric: That’s a very good question. We normally say “O L E D”.

Obviously, OLED technology is still only in small screen sizes. How do you see this situation progressing?
Tim: Hopefully you saw the 27 inch model at IFA. We had it at CES too, there’s only two of those in the world, so feel lucky!

Sony is opening a new factory for the production of OLED. We’d expect 32 and 40 inch models to appear in 2010. WIthin a few years after that, we’ll likely have more in “living room sizes”.

What’s the lifespan of OLED like?
Tim: Right now, 30,000 hours is being quoted. By that, we mean that the display drops to 50% brightness after this time. There have been other numbers, but 30,000 is the official line.

OLED doesn’t appear to be connected to the BRAVIA brand. Is it an offshoot of BRAVIA? Or it the successor to it?

Tim: At the moment, it tends to be separate. It’s separate in America and in Japan. In the future it might come under the BRAVIA brand (like projectors eventually did). It’s not been decided yet.

Do you have any information on the pricing of the X-Series TVs?
Tim: Well, prices are always falling. It will be at least the same or less than the X3500 was when it launched [last year]. The X4500 has the LED backlight and DNLA client built in (DNLA lets you stream stuff over the network to the TV screen).

A question about general pricing, and how far things have fallen. How far can prices drop before it’s not worth Sony’s while?
Tim: Well, right now, everyone’s playing the “I have more HDMI sockets than you” game. But, we can’t comment on loss and profit.

Does that impact on R&D budget?
Tim: We just opened a new factory in Nitra, which produces 4 million TVs per year (not 3m like Howard said in the presentation!)

We have new products, new lineups, features, technologies… but we obviously still need to be investing in R&D so we can come out with cool products.

With Toshiba pulling out of HD DVD, Blu-ray’s now up against DVD. Where do you see BD penetration going in the next 12 months?
Taka: The market itself is growing very rapidly worldwide. Penetration’s not being disclosed. But we can say that hardware and software sell-through are expanding hugely.

Eric: There’s been reports regarding High Def software and content in the USA. They estimated that 45m units of Blu-ray Discs have been sold, and by 2012, they estimate that BD will have overtaken DVD. [He stresses that this is not Sony data]. I was surprised that the format war, “or should I say, the alternative propositon” gave in at the time it did; I thought that HD DVD would go on for a bit longer. There needs to be a cooling period before Sony/BDA can judge marketing growth properly. If you look at the market for TV, there are over 30m HD Ready TVs in Europe, but only 1m of those receiving HD content! That means there’s a massive gap for BD to fill. So as long as we actively work with you and everyone else to promote what we can deliver, we can really do the customer a great service.

I always say, “Listen to the vision”! Never forget the sound capacity of BD as well. In the theatre, you don’t watch a movie in mono, you listen to a multichannel DTS or Dolby system, and watch a screen this big [he gestures]. The whole proposition is what excites people. Provided we do that, you can genuinely have a better than cinematic experience at home. I’m a massive movie-goer, I love going. So, I think there are good times ahead.

Globally talk of the markets are constantly doom and gloom, but once you talk to peole who have had the experience of home entertainment in HD, they’re all smiles.

The new Walkman… the main feature only seems to be that it’s gotten thinner. There doesn’t seem to be any real technological advantages. Does Sony simply not care in an Apple dominated market?
Eric: [Explains that it would be better to ask the Walkman people back at IFA, but will provide some insight]. The Walkman brand is really strong (for example, it’s in Sony Ericsson phones). We’re realistic in the sense that you can’t ignore iPod. Ask how many people in this room own one! [I don't -DM]. But we’ve taken the iPod generation and given them an easy way to enjoy home theatre content with the DM PORT. Hopefully they’ll then go “that sounds great”, and move on to better quality. They are our new customers and we need to look after them, and bring them into the HD World.

[A comment about there being no new projector announcements].
Eric: That’s true - but go to the demo room at IFA, there’s a great setup. There’s the 10 [Sony VPL-HW10], a great little video projector… 1080p resolution, [lightweight in terms of video processing].

Anamorphic projection [the process of getting a non-letterboxed 2.35:1 image on a 2.35:1 screen in home theatre] is going to be huge. I saw an anamorphic lens added onto the front of one of your projectors. Is Sony going to offer that themselves in the future?
Eric: That lens [isn't our own]. Yes, we’ve found that a lot of people buying modest projectors like the 60 [Sony VPL-VW60] are using them with anamorphic lenses.

Will Sony provide a way of getting an anamorphic display without expensive additional lenses?
Eric: Yes, we’re studying it.

Is there a price for the ZX-1 [the 9.9mm ultra slim TV]?
Eric: It’s not been announced. But it won’t be cheap!

Cheaper than the OLED?
Eric: We can’t say! But, the 9-inch OLED in the USA is $2500.

There’s all this talk of convergence. So, when will I be able to transfer my Blu-ray movies onto my Video Walkman?… without using some sort of hack?
[All laugh]. Eric: Yes, there is hope. At CES in January, we showed a prototype of such a feature. BD has so much space, so there’s nothing stopping them. In Japan there’s a button on the front of one of Sony’s BD Recorders which allows you to transfer content to the Video Walkman.
Taka: Yes - but that function is for recorded broadcast content, not movies.
Eric: Because BD is Java enabled, there’s a lot that can be done. We have development conferences with Java engineers and work on this kind of thing. There’s lots in the pipeline, things will get more interactive and more flexible. Disney is hugely behind BD Live, they do incredible demos. Some of the content they did with Panasonic recently was stunning. Good luck to them. I can’t wait to get Fantasia and Sleeping Beauty on BD!

Most BD Live stuff has been pretty cheesy, to be honest… there must be something there that can develop from it.
Eric: Yes, it’s a bit limited. We’re all waiting for a killer app that excites everyone. We’ll have to wait. The Java side is open ended, so it can be developed. To be honest, we’re learning, it’s basic at the moment… look at how people complained bitterly abut the quality of DVD menus at first - “it’s static!” - but now we’ve run out of space on DVD, since we have so many features. I’ve seen things that will definitely satisfy you. But not yet.

Playstation3 has finally taken off and become a big success, after a slow start. It’s being seen as THE media hub. Where do you see that going?
Eric: I can’t think of another device which has been so representative of the hub as a concept. On September 19th, the PlayTV USB module will make the PS3 a fully functonal PVR, for only £69. That said, I’m convinced there’s also a market for standalones - not everyone wants an entertainment hub.

Toshiba have a prototype TV, which uses the CELL processor to enhance standard-def content. Does Sony plan to?
Tim: Sony is not currently using CELL inside a TV. A TV doesn’t really need PS3 style processing power. So no, we don’t.

Out of all the products shown at IFA, which ones are special to you personally?
Tim: For me–

Eric: Bet it’s a TV!

Tim: Well, of course! Mine would be OLED. It has much better contrast and black level.

Eric: Of course my special product is BDP-S5000ES. It has excellent sound and picture quality. And, it has unique Sony tech like Super Bit-Mapping to improve the picture quality.

Speaking of Super Bit-Mapping and other technologies which alter 1080p video. Shouldn’t good 1080p be left alone rather than processed?
Eric: Emm… the answer is two fold. [Eric's mobile phone rings and Eric tells us about his unusual ringtone, which is the jingle from a Japanese department store].

All things being equal, if everything was perfect, yes… the question is, can you make it any better? With effective DSP [Digital Signal Processing] there is room for further improvement. For example, we don’t currently have Deep Colour Blu-ray Discs. The HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit-mapping takes the 8-bit video signal and makes it 14. That signal can be output in 12 bit. Most televisions have 8 or 10 bit panels. What the circuit does is noise-shapes the signal, to improve the quality.

So, we’re trying to take BD to the level of what it would be if it were Deep Colour. You can control the processing system and turn parts on or off. I agree, though - don’t process for the sake of it.

Dave and I were talking last night about optical formats. Do you think BD is going to be the last one?
Eric: Oh, difficult question. Theoretically, from the physical point of view, it’s the final optical format. Using blue laser is the final format for the optical disc. If, in the future, we have some media, they will change physically, it might not look like an optical disc necessarily. I don’t know what kind of tech we’ll have in the future, but yes, it is the final format to use a laser and an optical disc. That sort of laser wavelength is basically at the limit. So… enjoy it! [Laughs]

Deep Colour and XV Colour… Hollywood keeps saying, don’t expect either of those on software. So, what’s the point of having the features on product?
Eric: It’s more a question of providing the ability, of course you need the software. You’ll have to persuade them!

Can Blu-ray Disc even accomodate Deep Colour?
Eric: Theoretically, it could. We have XV Colour on certain BRAVIA TVs, and on the AVCHD camcorders. I believe something may also be happening with the gaming market.

Thanks very much.
And thank you for talking to us and sharing your thoughts. You [bloggers] are very important - you speak to an awful lot of people.

Panasonic TH50PZ800B Review

Panasonic TH50PZ800B is a 50″ plasma television positioned at the high end of the company’s lineup. Key features of this model include the Full HD 1920×1080p resolution, a quoted contrast ratio of 30,000:1, and the company’s V-REAL PRO 3 processing engine. Let’s find out how it performs!

Note: The specific plasma model we reviewed was the Panasonic TH50PZ800B (i.e. the 3-pin-plug British version), but if you see the term TH50PZ800 being used in this article, it refers to the same HDTV.

Design

The TH50PZ800B’s bezel design is more or less consistent with Panasonic’s other Plasma displays. Its stand-out feature is the rather attractive silver curve at the bottom of the display, which features a unique “curved” Power button, as well as a rugged-feeling flap which lifts smoothly upwards to reveal front-mounted HDMI, legacy video, and SD card inputs, and some buttons. Panasonic dubs this arrangement the “Horizontal Arch design”, and we have to say, we like it quite a lot.

The back of the unit features recessed hand grips, a most welcome feature given the weight of a large Plasma display, and given also that it doesn’t come pre-attached to its stand. These grips allow two people to carefully lower the display onto the stand (anyone who’s handled a 50″ plasma display will know not to attempt this themselves!)

Connections

The Panasonic TH50PZ800B plasma TV includes connectivity options to suit most purposes. The back panel features two SCART terminals (one of which can also accept S-Video feeds), analogue Component video and stereo audio inputs, three HDMIs, and a VGA PC input.

Front: Legacy video, HDMI and SD Card front inputs

The fourth HDMI port is located under the flap on the front of the Panasonic TH50PZ800B (alongside the SD Card input and legacy S-Video and Composite video inputs). Clearly, this will be an aesthetic annoyance if you plan on having the maximum number of HDMI devices permanently connected, but in my case, I greatly appreciated its ease of use when temporarily connecting an HDV camcorder to the display.

Operation

On-Screen User Menu

Panasonic TH50PZ800B’s menu floats in the bottom left corner of the display, and offers access to [VIERA Link], [Picture], [Sound] and [Setup] menus. Controls appear to have been kept to a minimum.

Picture menu

The top-level adjustment in the Picture menu is for the [Viewing Mode], which allows selection of [Dynamic], [Normal], [Cinema] or [Eco]. The Panasonic TH50PZ800B plasma television does not feature per-input settings; but these four modes can be applied to inputs to partially address the problem (however, there are subtle differences in the video output between the modes, even if both are configured identically in the menu).

[Colour Balance] controls the Greyscale, with options for blue-tinted video [Cool], less-blue tinted video (oddly labeled as [Normal]), and [Warm], which we selected. [Colour Management] makes an almost unnoticeable change to the saturation of certain colours, and is not a Colour Management System like the name suggests. Finally, [P-NR] uses spatial noise reduction in an attempt to soften areas of the picture where noise often lies. This is a relatively ineffective noise reduction technique, as most objectionable noise is fast moving and would be better tackled with a temporal filter.

The [Setup] menu houses additional video tweaks, with options to toggle the [Intelligent Frame Creation] interpolation feature, [Picture Overscan] (which can be used to achieve 1:1 mapping on 1080i/1080p sources), and the [Side Panel] option to change the intensity of the side-bars for 4:3 content (the default option is [High] which uses grey-coloured bars, to help avoid image retention).

EPG (Electronic Programme Guide)

Panasonic, as usual, include the Gemstar GuidePlus+ system for navigation through Digital TV services. The layout is fairly clean, but too much of the screen is filled with explanations and advertising (for BBC branded products, no less). Navigation is relatively quick, and it’s easy to set up timer programming events.

Remote Control

The bundled remote control holds no surprises, as it’s Panasonic’s usual design: it fits fairly nicely in the hand, and buttons are well positioned and placed (if a little “clicky” feeling). Irritatingly, it needs to be pointed in the direction of the TV’s Infrared sensor for it to work properly. Picture in Picture (PIP) and Picture And Picture (PAP) features are activated by pressing the “MULTI WINDOW” button under the flap.

Calibration/ Measurements

Greyscale

As the Panasonic TH50PZ800B HDTV does not feature user-accessible Greyscale adjustment controls, we had to make do with measuring the least inaccurate [Colour Balance] setting - “Warm”.

[Colour Balance] “Warm” CCT

[Colour Balance] “Warm” RGB tracking

As the charts show, the “Warm” setting has an excess of Red, with the temperature overall being closer to 5500K, rather than our desired 6500K. The service menu will allow for further refinement here, but we assume that the majority of users will have to make do with an inaccurate picture. That said, an image that is too warm is at least preferable to one that is too cold.

Colour

CIE chart with [Digital Cinema Colour] OFF, (with ref. to HD Rec. 709)

CIE chart with [Digital Cinema Colour] ON, (with ref. to HD Rec. 709)

Colour accuracy is very good indeed on the TH50PZ800B, provided the [Digital Cinema Colour] option is disabled. The secondary colours fared a little worse, but Green, Blue, and last but not least, Red, were very close to the desired targets. Enabling the [Digital Cinema Colour] option pushed the gamut past our targets with exaggerated colours, so we turned it off.

Benchmark Test Results

Dead pixels	None
Screen uniformity	Perfect
Overscanning on HDMI	0% with [Picture Overscan] set to “Off“
Blacker than black	Passed
Black level	Excellent
Black level retention	Stable in [Cinema] mode
Primary chromaticity	Excellent (updated from “Very good”)
Scaling	Average
Video mode deinterlacing	Good; effective jaggies reduction
Film mode deinterlacing	Poor; Failed 3:2/ 2:2 cadence in all resolution
Viewing angle	Excellent (> 150°)
Motion resolution	1080
Digital noise reduction	Appears to be spatial only, ineffective
Sharpness	Defeatable edge enhancement
Image retention	None noted
Posterization	Mild, though worse with poor source
Phosphor trails	Yes; severity depends on individual susceptibility
1080p/24 capability (PS3)	Accepts 1080p/24 video signal; no telecine judder
Input lag (rel. to fast PC monitor)	10-20ms with [IFC] off; 30ms [IFC] on

Power Consumption

Default [Standard] mode	Average 449 watts
Calibrated [Cinema] mode	Average 314 watts
Standby	1 watt

Motion Resolution

Chapter 31 of the FPD Benchmark BD allowed us to measure the Panasonic TH50PZ800B’s motion resolution. Although purple and green fringing (phosphor lag) was visible during the scroll, the pixel-thin bars were distinct all the way down to 1080 lines, an achievement which even the best LCD TVs can only dream of.

Picture Quality

High Definition (Blu-Ray)

For testing, I sat down in a dark room with Fox’s Region A Blu-ray Disc release of I, Robot. This disc features a beautifully detailed, untampered-with video transfer made from a digital intermediate, and makes for great test material. Even with the TV’s inaccurate greyscale, the film’s more sterile white scenes looked pleasing, and detail was sublime thanks to the 1920×1080 panel and 1:1 mapping. The TH50PZ800B does not apply any artificial edge enhancement to the input video, so the sublime detail was reproduced naturally without any harsh ringing or other forms of degradation (assuming the “Intelligent Frame Creation” feature is turned off). The display’s ability to render black was also incredibly pleasing, with both the letterbox bars, and more crucially, the film’s nighttime scenes, being reproduced well, rather than being lost in a grey haze.

All the same, the film’s natural grain pattern did become very slightly posterised and dithered, but this was only noticeable when sitting close to the display.

Standard Definition (Freeview Digital TV)

How you find the performance from the TV’s digital tuner will be down to whether you favour more detailed images, or images which are largely free of compression artefacts. Consistent with other current Panasonic displays, the TH50PZ800B appears to apply MPEG Noise Reduction at all times (there is no “Off switch”). On this Plasma HDTV, the effect is hardly objectionable (it appears much more damaging on the company’s LCDs). As a result, the already soft digital TV pictures appeared that little bit softer, but without as many compression artefacts. We’d like to have added some edge enhancement (”Sharpness”) here, but this would affect all other inputs sharing the “Cinema” picture mode, and add objectionable artefacts to pristine sources (such as Blu-ray players).

On the whole, Film broadcasts on TV are so incredibly blurred to begin with, that the Panasonic TH50PZ800B’s lack of Film Cadence Detection was typically unnoticeable (these broadcasts are so soft that the TV has almost no chance to create jaggies!)

HD Console Gaming (PS3)

The Panasonic TH50PZ800B HDTV will certainly please gamers with its low level of input lag (which we measured at around 10-20ms). However, as most next-generation console games do not contain consistent frame rates, we assumed that users might like to turn on the [Intelligent Frame Creation] mode to improve fluidity. This created two adverse effects: firstly, the level of input lag was upped to 30ms, and secondly, scanline-esque jaggedness and jitter were introduced, suggesting that IFC function converts internally to 1080i for its operation.

As is common with Plasma displays, green and purple phosphor trails were noticeable, although it is claimed that some people are fortunate enough not to notice this effect. This writer can, although the debate is open to whether or not this selective effect is necessarily worse than the overall blur of an LCD TV.

Conclusion

Pros

• Excellent black level (measured 0.04 cd/m²)
• Suitably accurate colour reproduction
• Renders motion fluidly with minimal motion blurring
• Displays 1080p/24 video signal without telecine judder
• [Picture Overscan] control allows for 1:1 pixel mapping for 1080 sources
• Video jaggies reduction is fairly effective
• Excellent viewing angle
• Relatively low input lag

Cons

• Lack of per-input settings
• Not enough video controls, especially given the display’s price
• No user accessible greyscale control
• Standard-def video processing lacking, no 3:2/2:2 film mode detection
• The usual issues of PWM noise, glass reflection, phosphor trails and panel buzzing, which are present on all plasma televisions to a certain extent

Summary

Although we were a little disappointed by the lack of image calibration options on show given this display’s price (roughly £500 more than the 50-inch PZ80), we were still very pleased with the image quality produced by the Panasonic TH50PZ800B. More control over aspects of the picture, especially the Greyscale, would be welcome, but as it stands, the Panasonic TH50PZ800B really is a sight to behold thanks to its great colour reproduction and black level. And, while it might go without saying for a Plasma display television, the fantastic motion rendition pleased us greatly.

Sony KDL40Z4500, KDL40ZX1 Unveiled

Update 24 November 2008: We have now completed a full review of the Sony KDL40Z4500.

Click the “Play” button to start watching the above video.

At their Press Conference on Thursday, August 28th 2008, Sony unveiled four “world firsts” for their BRAVIA range of LCD televisions. Out of these four, it was the ultra-slim Sony KDL40ZX1 LCD TV which was announced in the grandest fashion. Rising from the smoke on a rotating platform, Sony were quick to point out that this “EDGE LED” powered display measures “less than thickness of a Blu-ray Disc case”. The Sony KDL40ZX1 has no A/V inputs, either, as all connections are made on the wireless media receiver, which can be hidden out of sight, but still beam 1080p video to the display.

The Sony KDL40ZX1 is expected to hit UK stores in December. Exact pricing details remain unknown, though some online retailers are starting to take pre-orders at £4,999.00.

Sony’s remaining announcements for the BRAVIA range were the KDL40Z4500, the world’s first 200hz LCD TV, a less slimmed-down “Picture Frame” LCD TV also with wireless technology (the Sony KDL46EX1), and of course the OLED based Sony XEL-1 display, which is finally arriving in Europe.