3DTV, 3D Player & 3 Pairs Of Glasses For £999.99 At Comet

High price tag remains one of the major factors deterring consumers – even those who pride themselves as early adopters – from jumping on the 3D TV bandwagon. To fully enjoy 3D content, investing in a 3D-capable HDTV (which is not cheap in itself) is only the first step; the costs of associated hardware devices such as a 3D Blu-ray player, not to mention extra pairs of 3D glasses for family members would also need to be taken into account. But a well-known UK electrical retailer has put together a 3D TV bundle including 3D BD player and eyewear at an attractive price of just under one grand, which may go some way towards persuading more people to splash out on a 3D television.

Comet is offering a 40-inch Samsung LE40C750 3D TV (which has received favourable reviews), a Samsung BD-C5900 3D Blu-ray player, and three pairs of compatible Samsung SSG-2100AB active shutter 3D glasses at a bundled price of £999.99, which represents a saving of over £500 compared to the total price of the individual components purchased separately.

Currently the deal is scheduled to run until the end of September, but Comet may pull the offer earlier if stock runs out or sales target is met. With Sky 3D due to deliver more 3D content to subscribers come first of October, this offer may prove very popular among those who are interested in watching 3D movies or play 3D games from the comfort of their homes.

Bob Darke, who is the commercial director at Comet, said that the company has come up with this 3D TV package to give users (and their families) the chance of experiencing 3D at home without needing to spend a fortune. Rival chains like Dixons and even smaller independent dealers are expected to follow Comet’s lead, and start offering similarly discounted 3DTV packages very soon.

Source: Comet

Samsung LE32C530 Review

A 1080p LCD TV for around £320? Fantasy not long ago, but the Samsung LE32C530 proves that this is very much reality today. As part of Samsung’s “Series 5″ range, the LE32C530 is designed with low prices in mind, but the display still features a Full HD panel, 3 HDMI inputs, and some multimedia playback capabilities. You do miss out on 100hz/200hz motion clarity improvements, Samsung’s colour management controls, and the Freeview HD capable DVB-T2 tuner, but these omissions won’t necessarily prove lethal for everyone. Some true bargains have come out of Series 5 in the past, and Samsung’s 2010 mid-range LCD televisions have actually been superior in some ways to the high-end offerings, so we have high hopes for this budget LCD TV. Let’s see what the Samsung LE32C530 can achieve…

Note: The specific model we reviewed was the Samsung LE32C530F1WXXU, though it may be sold by retailers/ e-tailers as the Samsung LE32C530, Samsung LE32C530F1 or Samsung LE32C530F1W. While we did not review the 40-inch Samsung LE40C530, there shouldn’t be any significant differences in picture quality given their similar specifications.

Design

Unlike the mid-range Samsung displays, the LE32C530 doesn’t feature a fully “glass-like” finish, but instead has the cosmetically similar gloss black. However, there’s still a small area of transparent plastic at the bottom of the bezel which might fool a few people. The back panel, as usual for Samsung’s 2010 CCFL-backlit (non-LED) LCD TVs, is made out of light metal rather than plastic, something we normally only see on Plasma TVs. This seems to give a perception of higher build quality.

The supplied table-top stand is also finished in gloss black, and allows the Samsung LE32C530 panel to swivel left and right by a generous amount – a nice feature to see retained on a low-price model. The final assembled TV and stand both feel built to a high standard: the various connectors on the back panel feel locked tightly in place, and don’t recess inwards when you’re plugging cables in (something we noticed on older Samsung displays).

Connections

The back panel features 2 HDMI inputs, with the third and final input mounted on the nearby side panel. There’s also a PC “VGA” input, analogue Component inputs, a single SCART input (RGB capable), and one Composite video input with accompanying stereo audio jacks on the side. A USB input and Common Interface card slot complete this highly typical, but also highly serviceable selection of inputs.

Rear: 2 x HDMI, VGA, component, 1 x Scart, aerial, audio & headphone outs Side: HDMI, Composite video, USB, Common Interface slot

Operation

When compared to higher-end Samsung displays, the LE32C530 still has a good amount of picture calibration controls. Naturally, control is given over basic image parameters such as Backlight, Brightness (Black Level), Contrast (White Level), Sharpness, Colour, and Tint. There are no 10-point Greyscale calibration controls (just the standard Low/High system with six controls for the entire Greyscale range) and no advanced Colour controls on the Samsung LE32C530, but there is still a [Colour Space] option which allows the user to select between two modes, one of which produces an exaggerated colour gamut and another which comes closer to HDTV (Rec.709) standard.

[Picture] menu	[White Balance] menu

There is also a [Digital Noise] filter, which is effective in removing analogue video noise. Unfortunately, there is little use for it now that we (at least in the UK) are firmly in the era of Digital broadcasting: any older programmes originating on analogue video formats are typically heavily denoised by broadcasters, anyway. The effects of this control’s digital counterpart, the [MPEG Noise Filter], are much more difficult to discern.

Calibration

Note: Our Samsung LE32C530 review sample was calibrated using Calman Professional, the industry-leading video calibration software.

Greyscale

After unboxing our Samsung LE32C530 review unit (which had a good number of hours’ usage on it already) and letting it warm up, we selected the most accurate out-of-the-box preset mode (“Movie”) and made basic adjustments to the Backlight and Brightness settings, and observed the results. The on screen image already looked absolutely excellent, so we were eager to get out our Klein Instruments K-10 meter to get some hard data on just how well the LE32C530 was reproducing greyscale shades.

Pre-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode

Pre-calibration RGB tracking and delta errors (dEs)

The measurements above may be deceptive at first, but look at the scale to the left and you’ll see that there is typically only about 5% too little red and about 4% too much green making up the colour of Grey in the image. We imagine that a lot of smaller displays such as this one will end up in secondary viewing environments (bedrooms, perhaps even kitchens…) and are less likely to receive the full calibration treatment than a larger TV in a home cinema environment might, so we’re delighted to see this randomly picked unit performing so well without any additional calibration work. As a result of this, on-screen images don’t have any obvious incorrect colour bias to them, giving them a good sense of accuracy and depth.

The only real weakness of this performance is the common LCD issue of inaccuracies creeping into shadowed areas, in this case, the slightly blue-tinted blacks (visible on the chart at 10% stimulus). It’s not too jarring an issue, but it was slightly visible when watching the Samsung LE32C530 in a darker viewing environment. As a result, this is one thing we sought to remedy during calibration.

Post-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode

Post-calibration RGB tracking and dEs in [Movie] mode

The Samsung LE32C530 features easily accessible control over Greyscale tracking in its [White Balance] menu, so users who have measuring devices and software (or want to pay for the expertise of an ISF technician who does) can make the picture quality that little bit better. Our first calibration attempts didn’t completely remove the slight blue tint in dark areas of the image, so we went back and, while jumping back and forth between 10% and 20% grey test patterns, levelled out the slight inaccuracy to produce the final result seen above. This left a tiny excess of red (visible at 20-40% stimulus) as the Samsung LE32C530’s sole petty crime against perfectly accurate video. Calibrated or not, this aspect of the picture quality was excellent.

Gamma curve in [Movie] mode	Corresponding gamma tracking

The default [Gamma] setting of “0″ left us with good tonal distribution between dark and light. As is often the case with LCD TVs, the Gamma tracking chart on the Samsung LE32C530 revealed a bump upwards at 10% stimulus. In real-world viewing, this translates into a slight loss of shadow detail, but as is often the case with Gamma inaccuracies, we personally found this minor and not something that viewers would notice without a comparison display.

We tried adjusting a control called [Shadow Detail] on the Samsung LE32C530, to see if it would get us any closer to perfection. This adjustment actually controls the low-level Backlight intensity. Using this control, it’s possible to make shadow details less visible in order to gain marginally blacker blacks, but we left it in its default state since we found that the black level was already more than acceptable for a budget LCD TV. Raising the control did result in slightly brighter blacks, but didn’t remove the bump in the chart.

Colour

[Colour], [Tint], and [Colour Space] are the only controls on the Samsung LE32C530 which let us adjust colour reproduction, as there are no advanced Colour Management controls on this budget TV. We tried both of the [Colour Space] modes and found “Auto” to be the best of the two. For comparison, “Native” made little difference, but did slightly raise the Luminance levels of some of the colours, making them appear a little too bright, and offset the hue of Magenta by some amount.

Armed with the knowledge of the “Auto” mode’s superiority, we then used the two remaining controls to achieve the most accurate colour reproduction on the Samsung LE32C530.

Post-calibration CIE chart with reference to HD Rec.709

Post-calibration colour luminance (coloured bars = targets; black bars = measured values)

We had to drop [Colour] to 43 from its default setting of 50 to avoid Luminance levels (above chart) being too high and making the colours appear slightly overbearing. Additionally, we were able to set [Tint] to “G53/R47″ to bring Magenta and Cyan closer to their ideal hues. The end result is very good indeed and while more control would always be welcome, we don’t imagine any viewers objecting to the quality of the colours on the Samsung LE32C530.

Benchmark Test Results

Dead pixels	None
Screen uniformity	Very Good
Overscanning on HDMI	0% with Aspect Ratio set to “Screen Fit”
Blacker than black	Passed
Calibrated black level	0.04 cd/m2
Black level retention	Fully black video signal causes immediate auto-dimming
Primary chromaticity	Very Good in [Movie] mode
Scaling	Excellent
Video mode deinterlacing	Very effective jaggies reduction
Film mode deinterlacing	Failed 2:2 PAL (but passed 3:2 NTSC)
Viewing angle	Acceptable for an LCD TV
Motion resolution	300 lines
Digital noise reduction	Optional
Sharpness	Defeatable edge enhancement
Luma/Chroma bandwidth	Full Luma, slightly blurred Chroma
1080p/24 capability	Accepts 1080p/24 video signal; no telecine judder
Input lag	Only 14ms compared to lag-free CRT!
Full 4:4:4 reproduction	No, 4:4:4 input subsampled

Power Consumption

Default [Standard] mode	106 watts
Calibrated [Movie] mode	84 watts
Standby	1 watt

Picture Performance

Black Level and Uniformity

For those keeping tabs on what panels Samsung is supplying in its TVs, the LE32C530 we reviewed was sourced from our partners at Multizone AV and is a retail model, not a “Golden Sample” cherry-picked by a PR department. The panel fitted to our review sample appeared to be one of Samsung’s own, as it carried the code LTF320HM01. The panel was manufactured in Slovakia.

Its performance was consistent with what we’ve come to expect from SPVA LCD panels, with blacks measuring a satisfyingly inky 0.04 cd/m² – provided there’s at least a small amount of something other than pure black in the video signal, that is. The Samsung LE32C530 partakes in the common practice of auto-dimming, and as soon as you send an all-black video signal to the TV, its Backlighting will fade and then switch off, giving absolutely no light output from the TV at all (this might prove distracting to videophiles during movie watching). During the last couple of reviews, we’ve been investigating exactly how the Samsung displays control their Backlighting, and it appears that the situation is not as clear-cut as we had once thought. When we left our meter reading full-screen grey tones from the Samsung LE32C530, we found that the readings gradually rose over time (this was even after we’d left the TV on for several hours, making this a separate phenomenon to CCFL warmup). This change was so gradual (typically in increments of 0.001 cd/m²) that it was not visible to the eye, but it would appear that the range of black levels the Samsung LE32C530 reproduces is around 0.04 – 0.09cd/m². Both of these are enough to give a reasonably deep, enveloping black, but the behaviour intrigues us to the extent that we’ll be trying to figure out exactly what the TV’s Backlighting controller is doing (and asking Samsung for input) in the future.

Panel uniformity was also very good. In the past, SPVA LCD panels often revealed huge amounts of patchy white “clouding” in dark areas, but this seems to be a thing of the past – on CCFL backlit LCD TVs, at least (Samsung’s ultra-slim LED LCD screens still show the issue more than we’d like). This leaves only the slight non-uniformity in darker grey tones (10-40 IRE), which we imagine most users will find much more tolerable. For example, when viewing a full 20 IRE screen from the centre position, the left and right edges appeared very slightly brighter than the rest of the screen, with the middle appearing a tiny bit more reddish. By contrast, a full (100 IRE) screen appeared much more consistent.

The Samsung LE32C530’s viewing angle is not exceptional. From the sides, gamma shift is visible and the on-screen image quickly loses contrast and “punch”. We imagine that anyone considering an LCD TV is sadly used to this by now, though, so it probably won’t factor into the purchasing decision much.

Motion Resolution

Regular readers won’t be surprised in the slightest to hear that the Samsung LE32C530 managed to resolve approximately 300 lines of resolution during motion, making it essentially the same as every other LCD TV without a 100hz/200hz system that we’ve reviewed. This is generally enough to make 24fps film material look watchable, but fast-paced video material will look blurred to anyone who’s used to seeing it on a higher-end LCD equipped with motion-compensated frame interpolation (MCFI), or better yet, a Plasma or CRT display. The acid test, of course, is televised sports material, where avid viewers typically find that LCDs can’t keep up with the action.

With a mix of real-world content, the subjective viewing tests on the FPD Benchmark Blu-ray test disc, and the freeware LCD image analysis program PixPerAn, we confirmed that the motion characteristics of the panel in our Samsung LE32C530 review sample was basically consistent with other SPVA panels. The most obvious motion related anomaly is with “dragging blacks”, where the pixels on the LCD panel cannot change from one extreme to another (in this case, black to white or even black to mid-grey) fast enough to avoid visible motion trails. Fortunately, the issue is no worse than on most other similar LCD screens and is certainly much better than the very obvious black streaking exhibited by some previous Sony implementations.

Standard Definition

We were expecting a cheaper Samsung display to lack the company’s acclaimed video processing, and perhaps fall back onto a less impressive solution from another OEM. Regardless of whose silicon is hiding in the back of the Samsung LE32C530, the Standard Definition to HD conversion performance holds up quite favourably when compared to the company’s more expensive sets.

We first tested the Diagonal Filtering capabilities of the Samsung LE32C530, to understand how well the video processor suppresses flickering on diagonal edges during the interlaced SD to HD conversion process. The result was very good, with tiny jaggies only just being noticeable. One interesting thing to note here is that the clearer the motion of the panel, the more prone the TV is to revealing this issue – this is an area where LCD panel blur can actually help to mask video processor shortcomings. We don’t think that’s what’s going on here, though, since the LE32C530’s performance in this area is noticeably better than comparable (and more expensive) Sony LCD TVs featuring similar panels. This great performance means that video material that’s usually challenging for an HDTV to show (such as a football game or the old classic “rippling striped American flag” pattern) will appear free of coarse diagonal edges, and look more natural as a result.

The first hitch came with SD Film material, which requires a different deinterlacing process in order for the best results to come through. The Samsung LE32C530 did seem to detect the PAL 2-2 film cadence, but it frequently fell back into Video deinterlacing mode during the HQV disc test sequence, creating occasional “hiccups” of jagged edges. For the sake of completeness, we also ran the US-centric NTSC tests and noted that only the most common 3-2 test passed, which is very different behaviour to higher-end Samsung TVs, lending some weight to the “different chipset provider” theory. Fortunately, this has basically no consequence to us in Europe. Since the Samsung LE32C530 doesn’t detect the PAL 2-2 cadence correctly, film material from standard-def sources (non-upscaling DVD players, digital TV, standard-def satellite TV decoders, etc.) has small jaggies visible in areas of fine detail.

Lastly, the scaling performance is excellent: all of the details from the source were reproduced in a crisp, clean manner, with very little ringing around transitions in the chart. In fact, the Samsung LE32C530’s scaling performance may actually look superficially sharper than Samsung’s top-end edge adaptive scaler found in TVs such as the UE46C8000, but both are of a very high standard. One other thing we confirmed while looking at these charts was that the Samsung LE32C530 overscans (crops the edges) of SD video slightly more than the other TVs we’ve seen from the company, although the effect is rarely detrimental.

High Definition

One of the first things we noticed after pulling out our usual stack of Blu-ray Disc movies was that the Samsung LE32C530 was reproducing them smoothly, without any motion judder. Our usual test (the gentle pans through space from Pixar’s Wall-e) were shown just how they should be, without any uneven motion and also without any additional data being generated via interpolation (since the LE32C530 doesn’t feature any motion compensated interpolation processing).

Unlike Sony’s TVs, Samsung’s don’t automatically disable overscan with 1080p video by default. This means that the user has to press the [P.SIZE] remote control button to select the “Screen Fit” mode in order to get the clearest image without the outer edges being cropped. We hope more manufacturers follow Sony’s lead and do away with overscan by default for HD material.

When we reviewed some of the mid-range and high-end Samsungs, we complained that they were causing the natural film grain texture that’s inherent to faithful/high quality video transfers of films to become smeared, even with the TV’s Noise Reduction controls shut off. It seems that this is/was an intentional [mis]feature, and it has been addressed, for the most part, with firmware updates. There is no such issue with the Samsung LE32C530 – film grain is reproduced cleanly, without becoming smeared or “sticky”.

A minor issue was visible when we fed a Chroma test chart, which features very fine coloured details, to the Samsung LE32C530. We noted that the finest horizontal details (in this case, thin red and blue vertical lines) in the chart weren’t visible and were instead smudged into a dark purple tone. This means that some fine coloured details aren’t making it to the screen, quite a common issue with 2010 HDTVs. This is very minor, because the human visual system isn’t very sensitive to coloured details anyway. On a 32″ screen, it should never pose a visible problem.

Users can keep this information in mind and then also keep the deep black level, high quality Greyscale tracking, and very good colour reproduction in mind to get a good idea of what HD material looks like on the Samsung LE32C530. So long as the user complies with the “LCD rule” of avoiding sitting to the sides of the screen, the image the Samsung LE32C530 puts out is excellent for this price range.

Console Gaming

In our input lag and subjective gaming tests, the Samsung LE32C530 performed unbelievably well, lagging by only 14ms! Needless to say, this figure makes input lag completely irrelevant on this LCD TV, making it one of the best we’ve ever seen for fast, fluid gaming enjoyment.

In the past, we have attributed the large input lag typically seen on SPVA LCD TVs to response time compensation processing. The fact that this SPVA LCD TV has achieved responsiveness on par with (and marginally better than some) Plasma displays challenges this theory and suggests that other unwanted video processing may be to blame. Just for comparison, the best input lag figure we could squeeze out of the recently reviewed Samsung LE40C750 was 41ms, which made games requiring fast reflexes much less enjoyable. We’d love for manufacturers to begin commenting on the issue of input lag, because it is a serious problem on many HDTVs – but fortunately, not this one.

One other thing to note that is that the input lag here is this low even when “Game Mode” is not enabled. In fact, on the Samsung LE32C530, the “Game Mode” switch is in fact nothing more than a marketing feature. On most Samsung TVs, selecting “Game Mode” temporarily blacks the screen out as it adjusts to an alternate driving mode, but here it does nothing except for applying a separate custom picture mode with heightened colour temperature and colour brightness. We left if off and just used our calibrated “Movie” mode for playing games (the 14ms measurement was in fact taken in this mode).

This excellent state of affairs means that the Samsung LE32C530 is sure to be a hit with gamers looking for a smaller screen. We hope that its 40-inch equivalent performs as well.

Conclusion

Despite being cheap, the Samsung LE32C530 delivers a high quality experience across a wide range of sources. The LCD panel itself (the core component) is capable of high contrast pictures, and its motion clarity, while nowhere near Plasma levels, is acceptable by LCD TV standards. 24p material such as Blu-ray Disc movies are produced cleanly, clearly, and without judder. Video games are great fun to play on the Samsung LE32C530, because its video processor does not introduce any input lag worth mentioning. And high motion video content appears largely free of jaggedness thanks to the TV’s high quality Deinterlacing process.

The only minor issue is a lack of stable 2-2 film cadence detection, which can create small jaggies during Film material broadcast on SD TV – although given the blurred image typical of Digital TV broadcasts and the smaller size of this screen, this really doesn’t end up doing a lot of damage. Additionally, the colour accuracy is in the “very good” category rather than being excellent.

The Samsung LE32C530 is a bargain in just about anyone’s eyes. It can be had from many online stores – including Multizone AV who has kindly supplied our review sample – for approximately £320, and in-depth testing has revealed that there’s more to be had for the money than we initially hoped for. We can’t think of any comparable displays at this end of the market and highly recommend this display to users who are happy to tolerate the viewing angle and motion limitations of LCD TVs. While it is not the equal of every other HDTV that we’ve rated “Highly Recommended”, the Samsung LE32C530 offers outstanding value for money that earns it a spot in this category.

Samsung LE40C750 Review

In a surprising move, Samsung seems to be concentrating on cutting down the cost of entry into the 3D TV world right from the word “go”. Today, we’re looking at the Samsung LE40C750, which is the cheapest “3D Ready” 1080p LCD HDTV we’ve reviewed thus far. In fact, in many ways, it is similar to the 2D-only LE40C650 we tested in May, although the Samsung LE40C750 benefits from arriving with us a few months later: Samsung has apparently implemented changes based on our feedback from the C650 review, so it’s possible that some of our smaller complaints will no longer apply. If that’s the case, the Samsung LE40C750 should be a high-quality, affordable LCD TV for both 2D and 3D material, making it potentially very tempting indeed. Let’s see how it does!

Note: The specific model we tested was the Samsung LE40C750R2KXXU, though it may be sold by retailers as the Samsung LE40C750 or Samsung LE40C750R2. While we did not review the 46-inch Samsung LE46C750, there is no reason to suspect any major difference in picture quality given their similar specifications.

Design

In terms of styling, the Samsung LE40C750 is almost identical to the step-down C650 series. It shares the same gloss-black bezel, which is framed by a transparent perspex edge, and would probably pass for glass to anyone who hasn’t lifted the TV out of the box (its light weight gives it away). Like the C650, the back panel of the Samsung LE40C750 is made out of light metal, instead of the usual LCD TV plastic, which lends it a feeling of heightened build quality.

Unlike the C650, which used a more traditional tabletop stand, the Samsung LE40C750 3D TV features the unique “four-legged” chrome stand, also seen on the ultra-slim UE46C8000 display. Frankly, we don’t really have a preference for either of these – both do the job just fine. Once assembled, the Samsung LE40C750 can swivel from left to right on top of the stand.

None of Samsung’s 3D-capable TVs are shipped with any 3D glasses. This might seem a little harsh, since at launch, extra pairs cost no less than £120 each – although they can now be found online for about £50. The up-side of this situation is that consumers can at least buy the most appropriate eyewear to suit their needs: Samsung has several different types available to suit both adults and children, some of which use a flat “watch-type” battery for power, others being rechargeable when plugged into a USB socket.

Connections

On the rear and rear-side panels, you’ll find the now-standard 4 HDMI inputs, as well as connectivity options for older analogue interfaces: there are 2 SCART terminals, a single set of Component video inputs (not two, like the North American market gets!), a PC “VGA” input, Composite video inputs, 2 USB ports, and an Ethernet connector for hooking the Samsung LE40C750 up to a home network (and Samsung’s internet services).

Rear: 3 x HDMI, VGA, component, 2 x Scarts, aerial, ethernet, headphone & audio outs Side: Common Interface slot, HDMI, 2 x USB, Composite video

Operation

The LE40C750 sits roughly inbetween the C650 displays and the higher-end C8000 ultra-slim sets in Samsung’s product range, so the contents of its on-screen menus aren’t really surprising. It features all of the excellent Greyscale and Colour calibration options that Samsung has done so well to provide across their product range, features control over 3D video, but doesn’t include the LED Backlight Blinking options found on the C8000 display (because the Samsung LE40C750 uses the traditional CCFL backlighting system).

[Picture] menu	[White Balance] menu

Rather than re-type our feelings on Samsung’s 2010 picture options, we can summarise them as follows:

• All of the basic controls work as expected.
• The [Colour Space] menu lets calibrators fine-tune the colour performance to near-perfection.
• The [White Balance] and [10p White Balance] controls, in theory, allow a calibrator to produce perfect Greyscale reproduction, to avoid the image having any colour bias.
• Unlike most manufacturers 100/200hz systems, Samsung’s [Motion Plus] allows users to reap the benefits of clearer motion clarity, without introducing the dreaded “soap opera effect” with films.

Above: 3D Settings on Samsung LE40C750

The controls for the 3D mode on the Samsung LE40C750 are housed in the main [Picture] menu, and are easy enough to get to. [3D Mode] has various settings, including the “2D > 3D” conversion mode, Side-Side, Top-Bottom, Line-by-Line, Vertical Stripe, CheckerBoard, and Frequency, the correct choice depending on how the 3D content is stored. For higher quality frame-sequential 3D content (“Full HD 3D”), such as Blu-ray 3D discs, the TV will automatically switch to 3D mode.

[3D > 2D] does exactly what it says, and flattens 3D content into 2D, by displaying the Left eye image only — useful for when you run out of glasses for everyone. [3D View Point] adjusts the overall depth of the 3D images, moving objects backwards or forwards on the Z-axis. [Depth], on the other hand, adjusts the intensity of the 2D-to-3D conversion.

[Picture Correction] swaps the left and right eye images around, for use with content mastered out-of-phase (we’re unsure if any of this exists, but Samsung are not the only manufacturer to include the option, just in case). [3D Auto View], if engaged, will automatically enable the 3D mode when the Samsung LE40C750 detects 3D content (it requires metadata inside the HDMI signal in order to work). Lastly, there is a [3D Optimisation] control, the effects of which were difficult to spot.

2D Calibration

Note: Our Samsung LE40C750 review unit was calibrated using Calman Professional, the industry-leading video calibration software.

2D Mode Greyscale

After unpacking the Samsung LE40C750, we switched the LCD TV out of the overly bright “Standard” mode to “Movie”, which produces a more accurate and detailed picture. Samsung’s “Movie” mode does still require a few tweaks from its default settings: we turned [Sharpness] down to 0 to avoid ringing artefects, shut off the [Dynamic Contrast] systems, and also disabled both noise filters (the temporal NR “Noise Filter” and the [MPEG Noise Reduction] feature).

Since Samsung provide built-in test patterns (called [Expert Pattern]) and also Red/Green/Blue Only modes, it is possible to set basic controls without an external test pattern disc or specialised device. However,it’s always best to have the device you’ll actually be watching generate the patterns, so that you can “calibrate out” any quirks that exist in the playback device itself – so these patterns aren’t a complete replacement. We configured the Samsung LE40C750 as best we could without using a measuring device and software, and then measured its performance, to get an idea of how the LE40C750 will perform for the majority of users who won’t be performing a full calibration.

Pre-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode

Pre-calibration RGB tracking and delta errors (dEs)

The measurements revealed that Greyscale tracking on the Samsung LE40C750 was very good overall. It appears slightly crooked on the chart, but pay attention to the scale to the left, and you’ll notice that the peaks and dips are really quite small. In our test patterns, we could see some colour tints (most notably, the off-coloured 10%). Most real-world content would not reveal this too badly, and this level of performance will be very acceptable for almost all users.

Post-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode

Post-calibration RGB tracking and dEs in [Movie] mode

We then spent some time using both the [White Balance], and then the [10p White Balance] controls, along with a calibration device and software, to see what the Samsung LE40C750 could be pushed into doing. On the lower-down LE40C650 model, we were able to get flawless Greyscale tracking quite quickly using these menus, but on the LED-backlit UE46C8000, these controls needed more gentle adjustment. Fortunately, this display – the LE40C750 – was no trouble at all, and the end result of our calibration attempts was as close to flawless as we could possibly hope for. The in-depth 10-point controls were instrumental in cleaning up peaks and dips in the Greyscale tracking chart, and allowed us to completely remove the visibility of the colour tint at 10% stimulus.

Gamma curve in [Movie] mode	Corresponding gamma tracking

Gamma was also outstanding, meaning the amount of lightness distributed between absolute black and absolute white in the picture was very accurate. There was a tiny loss of shadow detail at 10%, perhaps as a result of the aforementioned correction we did to Greyscale (10-point Greyscale controls often distort gamma slightly as a trade-off). In any case, this was not really visible with real world content, and this small Gamma inaccuracy would be much less visible than the alternative colour bias in shadows. Overall, the Greyscale results are outstanding, and the Gamma accuracy is nearly as good.

2D Mode Colour

The Samsung LE40C750 features an “Auto” colour space option, which is vaguely described as being intended to produce true-to-standard, accurate colour. It does a decent job, but it’s not up to the same level of accuracy as, say, the THX picture mode seen on some of Panasonic and LG’s displays. Green, Cyan and Yellow all measured as being overly bright (Luminance values were too high), whereas Cyan and Magenta were slightly off-hue. Magenta, in particular, was skewed slightly towards blue.

Post-calibration CIE chart with reference to HD Rec.709

Not to worry, though – Samsung have, as usual, provided almost all the control we need in order to achieve perfection on the LE40C750. As usual, the CMS design appears to be limiting the saturation of Red, Yellow and Green – fully saturating these colours would require their Luminance to be set to too high a level, which would produce a more visible error on-screen. That’s a minor complaint, though, because everything is on-hue and either correctly saturated, or incredibly close. This is, again, notches away from perfection.

Post-calibration colour luminance (coloured bars = targets; black bars = measured values)

As we’ve come to expect from Samsung displays, colour decoding (a.k.a. colour luminance) is perfect after a full setup. The controls allow a calibrator to set the Samsung LE40C750 up in a way that does not leave any of the colours looking sickly, dull, or overly bright. One of the displays we reviewed recently featured large colour decoding errors which left Green, in particular, looking very dulled indeed, but there are no such errors here. Wonderful!

3D Calibration

To put it mildly, calibrating 3D TVs is, at this early stage, no fun at all. Sticky-taping 3D glasses to a non-contact calibration probe is just the start: the calibrator also has to contend with the glasses randomly shutting off when the 3D TV thinks they are no longer being used! Needless to say, we look forward to calibration methods for 3D content evolving as time passes.

For now though, we braced ourselves and started by measuring the Samsung LE40C750 in 3D mode “bare” – that is, by taking readings directly off the screen, without the glasses attached to the probe. In the interest of avoiding “death by bar-charts”, we haven’t published that data here, but taking these readings allowed us to gauge how displaying high refresh rate 3D content affects the screen’s Greyscale performance, without factoring the shutter glasses into the equation.

3D Mode Greyscale

Out-of-the-box, the Samsung LE40C750 defaults to the “Standard” picture mode for 3D content. Like the standard 2D mode, this has a very high colour temperature, meaning the picture looks somewhat blue-tinted. We changed this to “Movie” before calibrating, as this has the most accurate image out of the box, and then measured through the glasses:

3D Pre-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode

3D Pre-calibration RGB tracking and delta errors (dEs)

The above charts indicate difficulties in dark areas (again, the 10 IRE zone which was problematic in 2D mode appears to be much more so in 3D), but elsewhere, the Samsung LE40C750 is getting close to hitting an ideal white point.

3D Post-calibration CCT in [Movie] mode

3D Post-calibration RGB tracking and dEs in [Movie] mode

We managed to clean Greyscale tracking up considerably by using the [White Balance] menu. It should be noted that the more advanced [10p White Balance] cannot be selected in 3D mode, but the regular controls should be enough to get a good result on most displays. Again, 10% stimulus was problematic, but on the whole, 3D video, after calibration, had a pleasingly lifelike quality to it. In fact, the calibrated Greyscale performance from the Samsung LE40C750 is one of the best examples of its kind that we’ve measured from a 3D TV – although keep in mind, we’ve only measured three of them so far, including this one.

3D Gamma curve in [Movie] mode	3D Corresponding gamma tracking

We also did multiple measurements and confirmed that Samsung’s default Gamma setting of +2 was the most accurate for hitting a gamma of 2.2, so naturally, we left this setting as-is. This suggests that Samsung have been doing measurements of their own to ensure that Gamma is not severely affected when the user is wearing the 3D glasses.

3D Mode Colour

Unfortunately, although Samsung do a fantastic job of providing per-input settings for the complex [Colour Space] options, there is only one “Custom” Colour Space for each input, and this must be shared by both 2D and 3D. Because we don’t think anyone will want to calibrate only for 3D (sacrificing the colour quality in 2D) nor dedicate an entire HDMI input to 3D content, we simply selected the most accurate Preset mode (which is “Auto”) for 3D content on the Samsung LE40C750, and used this for our measurements. Hopefully, Samsung allocate some more memory for a separate 3D colour calibration on future models, but with the scarcity of 3D content, we think this will do a good enough job for now.

For those wondering, simply using the Colour Space from the 2D mode we calibrated earlier did not work very well for 3D: all of the colours became desaturated.

3D Post-calibration CIE chart with reference to HD Rec.709

The results of this compromise are really not too bad, although most of the colours contain minor hue shifts, and as in 2D, Red, Yellow and Green are all slightly desaturated.

3D Post-calibration colour luminance (coloured bars = targets; black bars = measured values)

Benchmark Test Results

Dead pixels	One stuck subpixel in bottom middle
Screen uniformity	Excellent, corners appear slightly brighter in dark room
Overscanning on HDMI	0% with [Aspect Ratio] set to “Screen Fit”. In 3D, [Motion Plus] must be “Off” or “Clear” to avoid overscanning
Blacker than black	Passed
Calibrated black level	0.03 cd/m2
Black level retention	Stable
Primary chromaticity	Excellent after calibration
Scaling	Very good in 2D, below average in 3D
Video mode deinterlacing	Very effective jaggies reduction
Film mode deinterlacing	Passed 2:2 PAL and almost all NTSC cadences!
Viewing angle	Good for an LCD TV
Motion resolution	[Motion Plus] “On”: 800; “Off”: 300
Digital noise reduction	Effective 3D NR (very subtle NR at all times, except “Game mode”)
Sharpness	Defeatable edge enhancement
Luma/Chroma bandwidth	Full Luma, slightly blurred Chroma except in “Game mode”
1080p/24 capability	Accepts 1080p/24 video signal; no telecine judder depending on “Motion Plus” setting
Input lag	41ms in [Game Mode] compared to lag-free CRT
Full 4:4:4 reproduction	No, 4:4:4 input subsampled

Power Consumption

Default [Standard] mode (2D)	137 watts
Default [Standard] mode (3D)	197 watts
Calibrated [Movie] mode (2D)	100 watts
Calibrated [Movie] mode (3D)	197 watts
Standby	1 watt

Picture Performance

Black Level

Once again, Samsung surprises us and reminds us that LCD televisions – despite requiring a constantly-on backlight behind the panel – can deliver excellent black level performance. The Samsung LE40C750’s black level (after calibration) measured at 0.03 cd/m², which is an excellent result. It’s interesting to note that although Samsung shares its Super PVA LCD panel technology with other vendors (most famously Sony), other implementations of SPVA do not produce as deep a black level. Is Samsung using a higher grade of panel, or is there an implementation difference? We can only guess, but regardless of how it’s achieved, a black level of 0.03 cd/m² is a great achievement when we consider that there is a bright light source being blocked out.

Motion Resolution

Samsung was the first company to allow users to independently adjust the De-blur and De-judder variables of its Motion Compensated Frame Interpolation (MCFI) system. This meant that film lovers could reap the benefits of higher motion resolution, without having to tolerate the dreaded “soap opera effect”, which interpolated motion and made filmed content look more like high-motion video. LG have followed Samsung’s lead here, and we hope that other manufacturers do too, because most competitor’s 100hz/200hz systems are not very useful when it comes to the accurate playback of films.

Unfortunately, for its many strengths, Samsung’s Motion Plus processing on the LE40C750 isn’t perfect. As with the C650 model, there were occasional motion irregularities when the system was enabled with the De-judder settings set to 0. Occasionally after a scene-cut, the on-screen video would appear slightly jerky for a few seconds, before recovering. These jerky incidents could sometimes go on for as long as 10 seconds, and were most visible with news channels feature high-speed headline tickers on the bottom of the screen. Disabling [Motion Plus] solved this issue. This is a shame, because Samsung’s motion processing system is one of few which we’d otherwise recommend to users unconditionally, due to the fact that it can be configured to avoid distorting the aesthetic of film material.

During 24p film playback from a Blu-ray Disc player, what appears to be the same issue manifested itself in the form of subtle frame skips every so often. Many users will probably never notice, but this does present a problem, because turning [Motion Plus] off on the Samsung LE40C750 results in slightly juddery playback of 24p film material. In other words, there is no mode with completely fault-free motion.

3D Material

After first popping on the familiar Samsung 3D shutter glasses, I was surprised at how similar the 3D image looked to 2D. That’s not a criticism – the 3D effect was obvious, but the colour cast caused by incorrect Greyscale tracking that one other TV has exhibited in its 3D mode was absent here. In its “Movie” mode, the Samsung LE40C750 actually appeared to be hitting close to the ideal D65 white point. After some lengthy calibration attempts, we managed to squeeze very good Greyscale tracking quality out of the Samsung LE40C750 LCD TV with 3D content. It’s definitely better than the Panasonic VT20 Plasma in this regard, and is roughly comparable to Samsung’s UE46C8000 LED-sidelit LCD TV.

The very good Greyscale quality in 3D mode (after calibration) meant that 3D material looked fairly natural, except, that is, for the nasty issue of crosstalk. For those who haven’t encountered this yet, this is a 3D artefact where bright objects are surrounded by ghostly double-images to their left and right. It’s caused by low motion resolution, which has always been an LCD problem, and one that manufacturers are scampering to remedy now that it’s having more severe ramifications on 3D picture quality.

The presence of the sometimes very noticeable crosstalk means that so far, Panasonic’s Plasma display, despite not being perfect with 3D, hangs onto the 3D TV crown for the time being. For experienced video flaw-finders and everyday users alike, crosstalk is a more noticeable and jarring artefact than uneven Greyscale tracking is. However, we imagine that a lot of users will buy the Samsung LE40C750 with its “3D Ready”-ness in mind, and treat it as a stepping stone into the world of 3D – after all, it costs half the price of the Panasonic VT20. For occasional 3D use, the Samsung LE40C750 should please a lot of people (at least, for a while) due to the picture depth it can offer. We just hope that crosstalk can be curtailed on the next generation of 3D LCD products – if the technology takes off in a big way, we imagine that companies who stood firmly in the Plasma camp whilst LCD TV took over the Flat Panel Display world will be having the last laugh.

It should also be noted that, as with the C8000, the 3D modes on the Samsung LE40C750 are 60hz-centric. This means that any 50hz content (that means all European TV broadcasts) will show with fairly obvious motion stutter when the LE40C750 is in 3D mode. We tried using the TV’s own motion compensation (“Motion Plus”) system to curtail the judder, but this wasn’t too successful. We imagine this is going to be a big problem, given that 3D sports (with their fast, fluid camera pans) are being pushed as one of the key drivers for 3D TV! Likewise, 24p film material also has a slightly juddery look. Panasonic’s VT20 3D Plasma has so far been the only display to overcome this, with it having an option to reproduce the 24hz input at a multiple of the input frame rate, resulting in smooth motion.

There is another issue with 3D content which we also noticed on the UE46C8000, and that is the quality of the scaling in 3D mode. If the 3D content you’re watching uses the “Side by Side” technique (where the Left and Right eye images are crammed into one 2D image and then scaled by the TV to create a stereoscopic 3D picture for output), fine details appear somewhat pixellated. The best 3D experience on any 3D display will be had with “Full HD 3D” content, such as from Blu-ray 3D, but on Samsung’s displays, “Side by Side” material looks worse than it ideally would. The two above issues (50hz judder and below-par scaling of Side by Side 3D material) will be of great concern to anyone interested in 3D broadcasting services from Sky, or similar providers across Europe, because these broadcasts will share both of these traits.

We’ve mentioned quite a few issues relating to the Samsung LE40C750’s reproduction of 3D material, but in reality, this is probably to be expected from such a bleeding-edge technology. One final point to mention: as an LCD-based display, the Samsung LE40C750 can pump out huge amounts of light, and therefore compensates better for the glasses-related light loss than a Plasma 3D TV (it also uses up less power in doing so, too).

Standard Definition

The LE40C750 doesn’t deviate from the rest of the Samsung range in doing an excellent job in processing standard definition video. The picture quality from SD sources is excellent. Most notable is the way the company configures the “Sharpness” setting for standard definition: it prevents the user from adding excessive ringing to the picture, which is a wise move from the point of view of keeping artefacts present in the source hidden.

Unsurprisingly, the Samsung LE40C750 performed very well in the Diagonal Interpolation test, reminding us of how good the company’s displays are at suppressing jaggies in interlaced video material. This means that on the Samsung LE40C750, you’ll almost never notice, for example, jagged lines during fast camera movements in televised football games. The LE40C750 also aced the PAL 2-2 film cadence detection test (and this was even the case for older transfers done “out-of-phase” on analogue equipment, which is very unusual), and almost all of the American-centric NTSC cadences, too, although this isn’t too necessary in Europe.

No details were lost or over-emphasised by the scaling process, either. Overall, the SD performance is absolutely excellent, with the Samsung LE40C750 making the best of the less-than-ideal SD situation.

High Definition

During the last reviews of Samsung displays, we’ve been largely very happy with their HD performance, but were annoyed at a “hidden” noise reduction feature, which caused the natural film grain texture present in high quality video transfers to look slightly “sticky” and smeared. This occurred even with all of the HDTV’s noise reduction controls shut off, but could be defeated in the “Game Mode” (at the expense of losing 10-point Greyscale Calibration and smooth reproduction of 24p material such as films).

Using the latest firmware (which was posted on Samsung’s web site in late July), the problem is still here, but appears to be much less noticeable than before. We’re curious as to why the Samsung LE40C750 is still smoothing grain at all, but at least now the issue is so subtle that almost nobody will ever notice it on a television-sized screen.

In any case, the outstanding image characteristics such as Greyscale, Gamma, Colour and contrast are the biggest thing we notice when watching HD movies on the Samsung LE40C750, meaning that this minor revisionism is just that: minor. The overall picture quality is very good indeed.

With the Samsung LE40C750, 24p film material played back smoothly, provided that the [Motion Plus] setting was correctly configured. Set to “Off”, the display produces slight stutter with 24p material. “Clear”, interestingly, does the same, with “Standard” and “Smooth” producing obvious motion interpolation. The best film performance came from using the “Custom” mode and setting [Blur Reduction] to 10, and [Judder Reduction] to 0. This resulted in naturally smooth film playback.

Console Gaming

The Samsung LE40C750 lags by about 41ms with [Game Mode] enabled, which is enough to cause problems with games requiring lightning-quick reflexes. Slower-paced games were still a lot of fun on this display, but “one hit and you’re dead” online games were more frustrating than they were enjoyable. We really hope that more manufacturers recognise how big an issue input lag is and reduce it for future models, because there are really only two brands who seem to be catering to gamers at the moment.

For those curious, with the [Game mode] turned off (and without any [Motion Plus] processing turned on), the Samsung LE40C750 lagged by about 103ms. Both of these figures reflect 1080p/60hz input to the TV.

We also tried out Wipeout HD in 3D running on the Playstation 3 (with the latest system update), where the 3D effect added a lot of depth to the game. Unfortunately, the game is actually better-looking in 2D, but this wasn’t the Samsung LE40C750’s fault. In 2D, the game runs at twice the resolution and twice the frame rate (1080p at 60fps), whereas in 3D, this drops to 720p at only 30fps, making the game feel much less fluid and enjoyable. Can the current games consoles even live up to the demands placed on them by 3D rendering requirements? Still, the 3D effect was great, meaning the Samsung LE40C750 was at least pulling its weight.

Conclusion

The Samsung LE40C750 is the second 3D-capable LCD TV we’ve reviewed, and has its own strengths and weaknesses compared to the others we’ve tested so far. There appears to be more 3D crosstalk on this display when compared to the Samsung UE46C8000 3D LED LCD we reviewed recently, but this is really the only weakness. All other aspects of picture quality were actually better on the Samsung LE40C750, despite it being similarly-sized and around half the price. So, why the huge savings? Because the Samsung LE40C750 uses tried and tested CCFL backlighting instead of LED sidelighting. If you can simply give up the ultra-slim chassis that the C8000 and C9000 models offer, you’ll net yourself these advantages:

• better “actual” black levels
• better viewing angle
• better screen uniformity
• no annoying auto-dimming
• half the price

Suddenly, a few extra centimetres sticking out the back of the 3D TV don’t seem so bad! Of course, putting comparisons aside and letting the Samsung LE40C750 stand on its own, this is a great display. 2D picture quality is excellent, especially in terms of Greyscale and Colour, which are pretty much flawless after the HDTV has been fully calibrated. On the other hand, occasional subtle motion irregularities mean that it isn’t perfect for the most eagle-eyed film lovers, and input lag of around 41ms will deter hardened First Person Shooter players.

Its 3D picture quality is flawed, with the experience degraded slightly by Crosstalk, but at this early stage in 3D TV roll-out, it wouldn’t be fair to say that other 3D TVs have been perfect, either. Ultimately, it’s fair to describe the Samsung LE40C750 as being a great all-rounder for viewers who simply want to watch TV and movies, based on the fact that it features excellent core 2D picture performance. And, unlike many other displays in its price range, the LE40C750 offers the choice of 3D playback, too.