Samsung F4500 plasma bargain for 480p sources

[Xan]

I'm usually 8' away from my 43" and there is no visible screendoor effect at all. That's about the perfect viewing distance for this set as the dithering gets more and more visible at smaller distances, especially on solid/bright colors.

[andykara2003]

I was about 9 feet away from it in a store and the effect was still quite visible with a video signal going into it. Plus, when objects would smoothly scroll towards and away from the screen (or just get smaller or larger) on other screens (higher resolution), it was much more jerky on this one because of the much smaller amount of pixels.

Thanks Jack - from that we could possibly infer that you might need to be at least 10-11 feet away from the 51" for the screendoor and other artefacts to dissapear.

I'm usually 8' away from my 43" and there is no visible screendoor effect at all. That's about the perfect viewing distance for this set as the dithering gets more and more visible at smaller distances, especially on solid/bright colors.

Which again points to roughly a 10-11+ ft ideal distance for the 51" version.

I tend to prefer sitting much closer to screens when I'm gaming though. I game at about 5 feet from my 46" plasma. For gen 6 games at 31Khz I can sit about 3 feet from my 29" NEC XV29 and the shadowmask will not be an issue, but the image will fill my field of view much more than the Samsung at 10-11ft. Not saying that the Samsung isn't awesome, just weighing up the pros & cons.....

[Xan]

What kind of plasma do you have? Never had any before this, it's certainly a good time to get one before they stop selling them completely.

[Ed Oscuro]

Its hard to explain, but the panel looks completely different, and more natural to me, with game sources, than the 1080p one. This photo below helps demonstrate it a bit-- note "scanlines" in the image.

http://i.imgur.com/bQVxzj8.jpg

I'm resisting trying to say anything too definite here because the demo video loops are quite bad, and pure white screens are rare.

I'm usually 8' away from my 43" and there is no visible screendoor effect at all.

That does sound about right.

But really the decisive killer for me is that sites list the F4500 and F5300 at about 40-47ms (rtings has much higher input lag for the f5300, at 40ms, but they likely haven't gotten the processing minimized for that result).

[andykara2003]

What kind of plasma do you have? Never had any before this, it's certainly a good time to get one before they stop selling them completely.

It's a Panasonic TX-P46G10B - quite an old model now (4 years old) but I love the image.

But really the decisive killer for me is that sites list the F4500 and F5300 at about 40-47ms

Same here - Low lag is a high priority for me when buying flat panels..

[Xan]

But the Panasonic probably still has no less than 2 frames of lag, does it? I probably wouldn't want to play any fast classic platformer like DKC on those displays anyway, whether we are talking about 2, 2.5 or 3 frames. 2 frames is actually what you already get with a Sony W6+XRGB-mini, it seems like the bare minimum for a "modern" setup.

[andykara2003]

I think the panasonic was 2 frames which wasn't bad 4-5 years ago - Next time I buy one I'll go & look at Fudoh's current top gaming panel & buy that probably. Like you say, I play those classic 2D games that need precision timing on my CRTs anyway.

[Xan]

Just out of curiosity, are you happy with how the Wii looks like on your 1080p plasma?

[andykara2003]

Just out of curiosity, are you happy with how the Wii looks like on your 1080p plasma?

Definitly not - the Wii & all of my gen 6 stuff looks much better on the NEC.

[Xan]

Maybe you should pull the trigger on the Samsung then, could use that for 16:9 and the NEC for all the 4:3 games... just saying

[andykara2003]

It's damn tempting I admit! I'm pondering it...

[Ed Oscuro]

That 2 frames for the old Panasonic...what's that in relation to?

A lot of the camera-tested "16ms" panels are getting these higher figures from the Leo Bodnar, after all, so it might not be directly comparable.

But I would have no problem with a plasma that does 16ms - that should be the fastest possible. 2 frames should really be more like 1 frame of lag.

[andykara2003]

I tested it against an old 50hz crt - the old method using a camera and PC. By 2 frames I mean around 32ms - slow by today's standards I know.

[Xan]

Wanted to see if I could do any decent shots of the plasma, but my camera doesn't seem to work well with it at all. It picks up the dithering much better than what's seen of it in real, although using very low ISO values helps a bit; the HDR mode also seems completely useless so I switched it off. This is the best I could do, it looks 50 times better in real...

http://i.imgur.com/QQMe5EY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yGmEjhT.jpg

[Konsolkongen]

Now that looks much more pleasing to the eyes

[wildchild22]

The lag measures 38.3 ms with the Leo Bodnar 1080p@60hz lag tester with gamer mode enabled or disabled. Gamer mode does not help at all.

[Xan]

Now that looks much more pleasing to the eyes

I have sharpness at 15 for component, not sure how Josh can take those >50 settings. That's really something where nobody here seems to agree with him.

The lag measures 38.3 ms with the Leo Bodnar 1080p@60hz lag tester with gamer mode enabled or disabled. Gamer mode does not help at all.

I still wonder what game mode exactly does, it's the kind of setting where they give a retarded vague description in the manual that could mean anything. Maybe it's just placebo. When I had a PC hooked up I did switch between movie and standard and I think the mouse cursor lagged less on standard, though.

[Josh128]

Its hard to explain, but the panel looks completely different, and more natural to me, with game sources, than the 1080p one. This photo below helps demonstrate it a bit-- note "scanlines" in the image.

http://i.imgur.com/bQVxzj8.jpg

The only thing I can see from your pictures, is that the sharpness is turned up much too high for my taste. Since others have said that this TV can look pretty decent, I assume that the camera just does a poor job of taking pictures of a screen. If I had to judge from your pictures alone, I'd say that I've seen many FullHD sets that handles the Wii much better than this, not to mention external scalers

The scanlined look is interesting, although I'm not sure I would like it for most content.

Im sorry but I completely disagree. I own the set, Ive owned it for over a year and it still amazes me. Full HD sets dont look like 480p CRTs do with the Wii/GC/Xbox, not a single one of them. This set does, it gets very close to the same look. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find any LCD for any price that can consistently beat this $400 panel for contrast , color reproduction, off angle viewing and motion clarity.

Perhaps its a matter of taste, but Ive seen the Wii and GC on 3 or 4 late model 1080p LCDs and a 2014 1080p plasma, and none of them look as good as this set to me, only the 1080p plasma came close-- with virtually identical contrast and color reproduction, but I didnt care for the scaling to 1080.

Please post some photos of any 1080p that handles Wii much better than this, as I'd love to see them.

[Josh128]

Now that looks much more pleasing to the eyes

I have sharpness at 15 for component, not sure how Josh can take those >50 settings. That's really something where nobody here seems to agree with him.

The lag measures 38.3 ms with the Leo Bodnar 1080p@60hz lag tester with gamer mode enabled or disabled. Gamer mode does not help at all.

I still wonder what game mode exactly does, it's the kind of setting where they give a retarded vague description in the manual that could mean anything. Maybe it's just placebo. When I had a PC hooked up I did switch between movie and standard and I think the mouse cursor lagged less on standard, though.

Im not sure how you guys can take a setting of 15-- those pics look far too blurry for my tastes. For Full HD video I can handle low sharpness, but anything under 720 and especially game sources, I pump it up. Different strokes, I guess. I do agree with Xan though that photos dont do the set justice. I think most of the pictures I posted look quite good, and show the color and contrast quite well.

Game mode disables certain options like Digital Clean View and MPEG noise filter, among others.

You guys did see my recent photos tests, right? I tested Standard, Game Mode, PC mode, and native 1024x768 and the lag was always from 42-47 ms with the PC timer, regardless of mode or resolution, and with FZero on SNES it was from 30 to 40ms on the game timer. Changing from Game Mode, to Standard, to PC seemed to make zero difference-- and this is in line with other tests done at AVS forums. On the Flagship F8500 models, Game and PC mode do make a significant difference.

[Josh128]

I was about 9 feet away from it in a store and the effect was still quite visible with a video signal going into it. Plus, when objects would smoothly scroll towards and away from the screen (or just get smaller or larger) on other screens (higher resolution), it was much more jerky on this one because of the much smaller amount of pixels.

Thanks Jack - from that we could possibly infer that you might need to be at least 10-11 feet away from the 51" for the screendoor and other artefacts to dissapear.

I'm usually 8' away from my 43" and there is no visible screendoor effect at all. That's about the perfect viewing distance for this set as the dithering gets more and more visible at smaller distances, especially on solid/bright colors.

Which again points to roughly a 10-11+ ft ideal distance for the 51" version.

I tend to prefer sitting much closer to screens when I'm gaming though. I game at about 5 feet from my 46" plasma. For gen 6 games at 31Khz I can sit about 3 feet from my 29" NEC XV29 and the shadowmask will not be an issue, but the image will fill my field of view much more than the Samsung at 10-11ft. Not saying that the Samsung isn't awesome, just weighing up the pros & cons.....

I game about 5' to 6' from my 51", and I love the way it looks-- what everyone refers to as SDE is one of the qualities I like about the set. From 8' away side by side with my 1080p plasma, when I first compared the two-- you had to really look hard to see a difference in video. With white text on a black screen, it was a little more apparent.

Color dithering, on the other hand, is completely different from SDE and a non issue at 5' from the 51". How Xan can see that at 6' on a 43" is completely beyond me.

[Xan]

I can see it at times yeah, think of a scene with a bright blue/white solid color background and fast camera transitions. With a game running at ~25-30 FPS in some settings there also can be a slight "rainbow" dithering effect going on during frame transitions, it's hard to explain. Plasmas don't have those slow panel response times causing blur like LCDs do, but the subfield drive tech isn't exactly perfect at handling motion either from what I can tell.

[Josh128]

That's it, cheers Konsolkongen I couldn't quite put my finger on that earlier but the sharpness is too high I think.

What I'm wondering in general is this:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I get the picture that the 'screendoor' effect from this screen is a big part of why this looks like a CRT. i.e. the patern of the comparatively large plasma cells in the coarse grid looks similar(ish) to the mask of a 31Khz display like the NEC XM29, as Fudoh mentioned earlier.

I'm wondering how close you can sit to the TV before this 'CRT' look breaks down, the screendoor effect becomes distracting & it starts looking generally rough? For a 51" TV at such a low resolution, would you need to sit, say, at least 8 feet away to get a smooth image?

I dont find theres any distance where the set loses its CRT look-- remember, its not just the SDE-- thats part of it, but its also the contrast, the off angle viewing (this is significant), the lack of color or white bleed or "flashlighting" in high contrast imagery, and the color reproduction in general that contribute.

I get its a matter of personal tastes, but the set looks no worse to me at 5' than it does at 7 or 8-- I guess if you understand and accept the lower res (compared to 1080) look as I do, its not an issue.

If you do have a hangup over so called "SDE" though, I highly recommend you try first-- as you may simply not like the look.

Many people who have cut their teeth gaming on LCDs may not like it-- but I personally have gamed exclusively on CRT till last year, and I love it!

[Josh128]

I can see it at times yeah, think of a scene with a bright blue/white solid color background and fast camera transitions. With a game running at ~25-30 FPS in some settings there also can be a slight "rainbow" dithering effect going on during frame transitions, it's hard to explain. Plasmas don't have those slow panel response times causing blur like LCDs do, but the subfield drive tech isn't exactly perfect at handling motion either from what I can tell.

True--but I think you are speaking of motion dithering, not the shading dithering Im thinking of, right? Shading dithering is generally on darker shades of colors rather than brights-- and its hard to see unless you are a couple of feet from the screen. Its also present on dead still images--just most prevalent on darker shades of all colors as you approach black.

Motion dithering, which would include fast changes in color, is different though, and I can definitely see that-- thats what you are speaking of no? That, you just get used to over time. Its one of the first things I noticed about plasmas, and was a bit disconcerting at first, but in a month or so you wont even notice it, at least thats my experience.

You still havent seen the best the set has to offer either-- in about a month or so it will look even better.

[andykara2003]

I guess if you understand and accept the lower res (compared to 1080) look as I do, its not an issue.

Great cheers Josh, sounds like it's a matter of opinion - I have a feeling I would agree with you on this.

[wildchild22]

The North American model fully supports 23.976 24 25 50 and 60z as well. Very rare in Plasma for it to support pal formats in North America from my experience.

[Xan]

Yeah I meant motion.

About the wear, I wanted to post this earlier, a site did a study on that which contradicts what was said in this thread: http://www.cnet.com/news/long-term-plas ... ssues-yet/ the 2011 Samsung got brighter blacks over time, not darker.

[Josh128]

Yeah I meant motion.

About the wear, I wanted to post this earlier, a site did a study on that which contradicts what was said in this thread: http://www.cnet.com/news/long-term-plas ... ssues-yet/ the 2011 Samsung got brighter blacks over time, not darker.

Actually, neither of the sets I own, the F4500 and F5300, are included in that test-- 22point8 has actually measured better blacks on his F4500.

I have not measured mine, but I can tell you my own eyes have seen the improvement in the picture from the time I purchased the sets (all three of them), to about a month and a half to two months of regular use. Whether its the better black level or color, Im not sure-- what I am sure of though is that the phosphors of a new plasma change significantly from bright light shining through them in the first few hundred hours of use-- and it definitely looks better once they settle in. If its not the blacks(which I cant say for sure, as I havent measured), its something, and its real. Ive never really noticed anything like that on any of my CRTs.

Its not a placebo effect, as you might be thinking. There are measured differences. Lots of plasma owners experience the same thing. The Samsung models mentioned in the CNET review may be exceptions to the rule, who knows?

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/167-plasm ... -time.html

[Fudoh]

I was just asked about a few more impression on the 43" 4500 via PM, but I thought I might share these here as well.

I still didn't have much time to revisit the set, but anyway....

If I remember right you enjoy the razor-sharp 1080p output from a Framemeister and you would probably get off on the 480p upscaling processor like a Crystalio II can provide. The Samsung is the complete opposite of that. It's a rather soft 480p rendition, which doesn't even come close to what my Sony does with a PS2 480p signal. It just works pretty well with the fuzzy output a Cube and especially a Wii produces.

The CRT comparions done on the thread need to be put in perspective. Do you have (or ever had) a hi-res PC CRT ? Maybe a FW900 or a multisync BVM ? 480p on those would look razorsharp. Again the Samsung won't give you that. What I would compare the image to is the Sony 29" PGM (31khz version of the 2950) I had a few years back. The tube's resolution wasn't very high and visually the CRT raster would interfere with the actual image when sitting to close. From a certain distance (4 to 5 feet) the picture of those two (Samsung F/H4500 43" and the 29" PGM) are probably very similar.

[Xan]

Fully agree with that. A high-res PC CRT would also have rather visible scanlines on 480p which the Samsung of course doesn't; I've noticed Josh's wording here being quite imprecise. The SDE on the Samsung is comparable to how my lower end 14" consumer Trinitron displays 240p signals. I also liked the PS2 the least of all the component sources I've tried, though the PSP looked pretty good (I just wish there was a way to zoom the picture in there, if anyone knows an affordable solution to that I'd love to hear it).

As a quick reference point if any reader needs it: http://i.imgur.com/6UsRkX0.jpg (PVM) http://i.imgur.com/HKAOs1C.jpg (consumer Trinitron)

[Josh128]

Fully agree with that. A high-res PC CRT would also have rather visible scanlines on 480p which the Samsung of course doesn't; I've noticed Josh's wording here being quite imprecise. The SDE on the Samsung is comparable to how my lower end 14" consumer Trinitron displays 240p signals. I also liked the PS2 the least of all the component sources I've tried, though the PSP looked pretty good (I just wish there was a way to zoom the picture in there, if anyone knows an affordable solution to that I'd love to hear it).

As a quick reference point if any reader needs it: http://i.imgur.com/6UsRkX0.jpg (PVM) http://i.imgur.com/HKAOs1C.jpg (consumer Trinitron)

I was not comparing to a high res PC CRT-- my point of reference was a 36" Hitachi Ultravision Digital 1080i/480p CRT and a Phillips 32" 1080i/480p CRT-- neither of which have the dot pitch or sharpness of a PC monitor. Neither of those sets had really pronounced scanlines in 480p, as you would see in a PC monitor. I found the output of this set looks very similar to those.



Have you tried the PS2 in progressive mode? As with the GC, I saw quite a difference from 480i to 480p on God of War.