Anyone ever use the LED Samsung DLPs?

[Schadenfroh]

Samsung HLT6187S 61" Slim LED Engine 1080p DLP HDTV

• Anyone ever see one of these (any size) in real life and can comment on how they compare to midrange LCDs and Plasmas in terms of picture quality and viewing angles? I checked at several of my local retailers and they only have the Samsung DLPs that do not feature LEDs and look horrible (as far as field of view and brightness goes) compared to Plasmas and LCDs.
• I notice that it only supports HDMI 1.1 spec, will I have any problems by using say a HD-DVD player or Playstation 3 that uses HDMI 1.3a spec?

 

[jpeyton]

A guy in ATOT made a thread about his experience with Best Buy purchasing this set. Apparently he got a couple bad examples of this set in a row; they had ghosting from internal reflections that showed up as "blue blobs" in dark scenes (and he showed pictures of it). But people who get good examples of this set are very satisfied with the picture.

 

[cubby1223]

Get an extended warranty. I've got the previous year LED HLS5679W, and these have been failing at a high rate I guess, mine still works, but now it sometimes takes up to 2-3 minutes to turn on. I was told the standard service procedure has been to replace the control board & power supply, the control board was replaced on my set but Samsung no longer makes replacement power supplies, so the Chicago repair center put in a request to Samsung for a new set, hoping it's an HLT series. I have heard the HLT series has much better black levels than the HLS.

The viewing angles left to right are very good. Up & down it looses brightness quickly. A little bit of bow in the geometry, but not noticeable at all unless there is a straight line up & down on the screen. If you get the set, put the set into movie mode and leave it there forever. The other modes, standard, dynamic, and custom, produce a lot of noise and a lot of color banding. It's not very versatile for use with an htpc because of the overscan, but with some configuring it's adequate. Actually, maybe they fixed the vga input in in the HLT series, not sure (the HLS series supports 1920x1200 input instead of 1920x1080, then rescales it to 16:9 aspect ratio, everything is fat).

As for hdmi, 1.3 adds support for advanced audio codecs and high color. The LED sets do not support high color I'm fairly certain, and I don't think HD DVD or Blu-ray support high color yet either, and you're not going to play the advanced audio codecs through the tv speakers, you will have a receiver inbetween for that. In other words, hdmi 1.1 is fine.

But other than all that negativity I speak about, the LED sets are great. Bright picture, good color, almost no heat produced, no bulb / moving color wheel. I don't like the PQ of LCDs myself, and I'm not rich enough for plasma. There's no pixelized look on a good 1080i/p source, and no screen door effect. DLP minus any possible rainbow effects is great to me. And these sets are very light, very easy to move around when you need to.

 

[Tiamat]

based on the reports of on atot member, i would at least try to see the exact model you are about to purchase in person and operating without any visual defects. I don't know if stores are willing to help in this respect, but the TV is so large that it is an extreme inconvenience to have to repack, take back to store, and rinse/repeat.

 

[Schadenfroh]

My local CC just received one and I went and looked. The viewing angles were horrible compared to the plasmas / LCDs around it, so unless that one was somehow incorrectly setup or was receiving a poor signal, I am defiantly staying away from these.

 

[jpeyton]

Their bulb-based 1080p sets are still worth a look.

 

[Adul]

I have one and love it. Got it when it came out back in May. 5687s model is the one we bought. my brother just bought it as well from vanns.com for a bit less than me.

Not as slim as a LCD or Plasma
Horrible of angle view (45 degrees or more)


Great picture quality, contrast, black levels, and color.
More inches to the dollar

Personally I put it above an LCD and below a plasma. LEd light engine should last as long as any LCD or Plasma as well.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I love mine. I made it so that I look directly at the TV, which eliminates viewing issues.

I got the newest Samsung out.

I have to say, the picture is stunning, and the colors are great. The Blacks are VERY deep. The Upscaling is great too.

Highly recommend to anyone

 

[montypythizzle]

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=827799

 

[cubby1223]

Old thread. I finally got my HL-T5687S to replace my HL-S5679W today. Only took 2.5 months to resolve the problem with Samsung. Quick initial impressions:

Pros:
excellent black levels & contrasts (comparing to the HL-S, not high end plasmas, I'm sure they are better)
excellent geometry (my set has no tilt, and if there's a bow on the edges, it can't be more than 1/8".
good viewing angles (except extreme angles, but you wouldn't watch from there anyways)
looks like it could support the proposed 3D Blu-ray, or other 3D sources. I'll certainly have to look into this
no rainbow effect or screen door effect
while standard & dynamic picture modes still kinda suck, movie mode is much much improved

Cons:
halos around some high contrast edges
heavier silk screen effect
some overscan, lose about 30 pixels around each edge. Not bad though for rear projection.


Now I just have to figure out how to calibrate it, many new color options in the HL-T set.