Samsung F4500 plasma bargain for 480p sources

[Josh128]

Merry Christmas everyone!!

[ryu]

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Merry Christmas!

[Josh128]

My son got SSBB for Wii today, looks great on the set, heres a few pics...

[Josh128]

Lego Batman 360 pics--man 360 looks stunning on this set. This is the BFXZA model. For some reason I could not get a real good focus on these, the image on the set is much more crisp-- the colors and contrast are breathtaking ...

[Ed Oscuro]

I went around a variety of stores (ABC Warehouse, Sears, Best Buy) today in search of plasma panels - thankfully I found some, in LG (exclusively at ABC) and Samsung variants. No Pannys in any stores or even secondhand that I could see. I did see a secondhand Samsung E530 variant but it wasn't on for view. I'm afraid that the other sets are all the last floor models. However, the material showing (lots of solid colors, fullscreen of course) should mean that they are broken in somewhat well.

What I see were 4500 and 8500 sets, probably a 5300 also. I wish I had remembered to take paper and a pencil.

My immediate impression is that ABC Warehouse needs much better material for its screens, and lighting at all locations was quite unrealistic. All I could do was make some immediate comparisons between the plasmas and whatever set was nearby, using the minimally helpful material broadcasts on the screens. Lighting made the LEDs look better, and at least one of the plasmas appeared to have orange looking red - the horrible viewing environment of stores was on full display here, since searing light output is not necessary for most viewers and the color reproduction is often fixable (or not a problem when taken into different lighting).

I spent most of my time fighting with the video loops for ideas about how the scaling, motion resolution, and contrast looked. One of these sets seemed to have rather bad black - more of a gray - but others were great. The plasmas did look better at Best Buy than they did at Sears, even though I'm fairly certain they were the exact same models. I did look at a 720p set (perhaps the same one Josh has been promoting) and it looked alright, though the screen door was on display too. Without the actual material I'd be likely to put on these screens, I'm afraid I can't really make a good judgement about their suitability for my purposes. I don't even know which sets have motion interpolation on, for example, even though this alone will destroy any reference.

One thing I am fairly sure of is that the news broadcast ABC had up on their clearance (still over $2000) 60" near the door was not working with the set's processing. A male anchor's face looked like boiling custard! Unfortunately scaling-like problems (it could be the video feed breaking up, too) appeared on most displays at most locations. Heck, Best Buy's matrix switch for regular computer monitors led to some truly obnoxious rippling across one monitor in particular, which in fact was likely one of the best monitors in the whole two dozen units.

Now I'm half tempted to ask if ABC could part with their big Audio Authority switcher I spotted on a gutted shelf It was nice to see it and immediately recognize the look.

I'll go back and take another look.

I wanted to revisit another issue though - input lag.

It's belatedly dawning on me that the camera tests, which seem to show 16ms for almost ALL plasmas, strangely, certainly don't agree perfectly with the Leo Bodnar results.

This is looking like a stranger problem than I realized. At least some of the rankings are certainly correlated to how laggy they really are (i.e. the famously laggy st60 gets a 75ms rating from DisplayLag.com) but the 38ms lag figure for the Samsung PN64H5000, seen at both Display Lag and HDTV Test.co.uk, is accompanied at the UK site by a camera lag figure: 16ms.

The theory about a slow ramp up in brightness for the plasma compared to LCD or CRT doesn't make great sense to me since plasma is surely attaining full brightness sometime within the 16ms frame, and even if we assume 16ms lag for showing a timer (the latency for showing the timer portion of the middle of the screen should really be something like 8ms delayed from the signal, just in how the panel works) that still would suggest an 18ms remainder - so we would have to consider the worst case to be likely, supposing that the CRT display path itself possibly has some milliseconds of lag, and the Bodnar itself isn't reading the input until very late in the frame display. It doesn't make sense that the Bodnar is taking the result after the second 16ms! But having seen how quickly the plasma does change brightness in areas, this doesn't make great sense to me. If anything it's LCD that has these kinds of problems with severity.

So, we're back to plasma vs. LCD. This is more than asking how much lag I could accept in a plasma to be equivalent with slower pixel response and lower motion resolution in a less laggy LCD; the pleasing aspect of being able to see what's moving (and also having it be uniform) is not always but often important in console games. I can't better time a button press with a laggy screen, but I also don't want the background to dissolve when I pan the camera, or for solid color patterns to be clouded.

Rtings has an interesting gallery here. The Sony backlight strobing efforts are interesting for gaming - not a great lag increase but it should help clear up high motion. We already have a thread for that, but I didn't see them thrown into a comparison with plasma. It's too bad they appear quite expensive still.

[Xyga]

Rtings has an interesting gallery here. The Sony backlight strobing efforts are interesting for gaming - not a great lag increase but it should help clear up high motion.

Pictures don't tell anything. IRL impulse works well in reducing motion blur, but destroys your eyes and melts your brain. Also cuts brightness by maybe 70% even with backlight maxed out. Not useable over a few minutes, personally I can't stand it even for 10 seconds.

[marqs]

The theory about a slow ramp up in brightness for the plasma compared to LCD or CRT doesn't make great sense to me since plasma is surely attaining full brightness sometime within the 16ms frame, and even if we assume 16ms lag for showing a timer (the latency for showing the timer portion of the middle of the screen should really be something like 8ms delayed from the signal, just in how the panel works) that still would suggest an 18ms remainder - so we would have to consider the worst case to be likely, supposing that the CRT display path itself possibly has some milliseconds of lag, and the Bodnar itself isn't reading the input until very late in the frame display. It doesn't make sense that the Bodnar is taking the result after the second 16ms! But having seen how quickly the plasma does change brightness in areas, this doesn't make great sense to me. If anything it's LCD that has these kinds of problems with severity.

Plasmas are a bit tricky to measure - I remember having to tweak the luminosity threshold of my own lag tester before I could get a realistic result for my own plasma. Slow ramp up -theory does not make sense to me either - unless we are talking about the tester itself. On the contrary, I believe the challenge in measurement is the very fast ramp (and decay) of the brighthness of a plasma cell. As plasmas operate at several times higher internal refresh rate than input signals, they all must buffer at least one input frame. However, as their drawing speed is also much higher, the minimum possible input lag is only around half input frame (~8ms @ 60Hz) on average. Now if you add another 8ms on that result due to how Bodnar tester measurements are generally interpreted (a CRT would be rated at 8ms), a displaylag.com -score for an ideal plasma would be ~17ms. There is one plasma rated at 27ms and several between 30-40ms, so the actual image processing latency is only 10-20ms for best plasmas -not as good as on the fastest LCDs but not that slow either.

[Josh128]

Theres some debate on other threads about the quality of the original SNES RGB output vs. the Mini vs. S-Video. While my plasma does not accept Svideo, I have a nice late model CRT that does. I included some SVideo shots of the original SNES for reference. Unfortunately it doesnt have component inputs so I cant show how crappy the SNES orig RGB looks on it, but you can clearly see many of issues from the plasma comparisons.

Note the bleeding whites on all the lettering of the original SNES RGB pics, as well as a much less crisp overall picture. Note the absence of the letter bleeding on the SNES original in the Svideo shots, as well as the absence of the white letter bleeding on the SNES Mini RGB shots.

In all these sets, the SNES Original is first, followed by the SNES mini. Both RGB on my F4500 plasma.

In this first set, note the clarity difference:



In these second sets, note the massive white bleed on the lettering and overall blurriness of the original. Its not a camera or focus issue-- the bleeding you see on the right side of white letters is just as pronounced in person.










Note the general image clarity difference in this Prince of Persia shot.



Here are some Svideo pics, SNES original-- the image is razor sharp, with ZERO white bleed on letters. It is a curved screen CRT, so you have uniformity issues around the edges, but the blacks on this set are spectacular, similar to my plasma. Its one of the many reasons Im very high on CRTs and plasmas.





Very, very clear evidence of the RGB issues of the original model SNES-- these issues are not present in its SVideo output. Hopefully now some of the doubters of my previous statements concerning the original SNES RGB vs. SVideo will see where Im coming from.

[Josh128]

One thing I am fairly sure of is that the news broadcast ABC had up on their clearance (still over $2000) 60" near the door was not working with the set's processing. A male anchor's face looked like boiling custard! Unfortunately scaling-like problems (it could be the video feed breaking up, too) appeared on most displays at most locations. Heck, Best Buy's matrix switch for regular computer monitors led to some truly obnoxious rippling across one monitor in particular, which in fact was likely one of the best monitors in the whole two dozen units.

Now I'm half tempted to ask if ABC could part with their big Audio Authority switcher I spotted on a gutted shelf It was nice to see it and immediately recognize the look.


It's belatedly dawning on me that the camera tests, which seem to show 16ms for almost ALL plasmas, strangely, certainly don't agree perfectly with the Leo Bodnar results.

This is looking like a stranger problem than I realized. At least some of the rankings are certainly correlated to how laggy they really are (i.e. the famously laggy st60 gets a 75ms rating from DisplayLag.com) but the 38ms lag figure for the Samsung PN64H5000, seen at both Display Lag and HDTV Test.co.uk, is accompanied at the UK site by a camera lag figure: 16ms.

The theory about a slow ramp up in brightness for the plasma compared to LCD or CRT doesn't make great sense to me since plasma is surely attaining full brightness sometime within the 16ms frame, and even if we assume 16ms lag for showing a timer (the latency for showing the timer portion of the middle of the screen should really be something like 8ms delayed from the signal, just in how the panel works) that still would suggest an 18ms remainder - so we would have to consider the worst case to be likely, supposing that the CRT display path itself possibly has some milliseconds of lag, and the Bodnar itself isn't reading the input until very late in the frame display. It doesn't make sense that the Bodnar is taking the result after the second 16ms! But having seen how quickly the plasma does change brightness in areas, this doesn't make great sense to me. If anything it's LCD that has these kinds of problems with severity.

Ed, I now have 2 photo tests in this thread-- neither show 16ms-- they are both very consistent in showing a 32-48ms lag vs. CRT. My second test may be a bit skewed (for the worse though) due to the different outputs on the video card used, but the FZero tests are solid-- I split an analog input to capture them.

As for seeing the sets in the stores-- I understand despite the raves and rants I provided on the F4500 you need to see for yourself-- the only way to do this is to do what I did and bring a system into the store and connect to the TV itself. Its the only way. Pain in the ass, yeah, but Im SO glad I did it.

[bobrocks95]

That ghosting definitely isn't normal. Does your CRT not have component inputs? Can't you use your transcoder to show a CRT S-Video vs. RGB comparison? I don't know if it's the plasma or cords or something wrong with your system, but this isn't normal...

[Xan]

A model on that original SNES would be rather useful. I've made a thread about this not too long ago, but to reiterate, I think the launch model SHVC-CPU-01 looks fantastic on a RGB monitor. The retrorgb comparison shots (http://retrorgb.com/images/RGBMonitorsP ... 0Large.jpg, http://retrorgb.com/images/RGBMonitorsP ... 0Large.jpg) certainly don't support your point of S-Video being sharper than RGB (and notably, transcoded RGB looks like crap there).

[Josh128]

A model on that original SNES would be rather useful. I've made a thread about this not too long ago, but to reiterate, I think the launch model SHVC-CPU-01 looks fantastic on a RGB monitor. The retrorgb comparison shots (http://retrorgb.com/images/RGBMonitorsP ... 0Large.jpg, http://retrorgb.com/images/RGBMonitorsP ... 0Large.jpg) certainly don't support your point of S-Video being sharper than RGB (and notably, transcoded RGB looks like crap there).

Im well aware of the Retrorgb info, but theres no doubt the difference is more pronounced in my personal tests, as you can see from the pics. The white bleed was even worse on the 36" JVC CRT-- and its important to note that using the same RGB to component converter, my Genesis looked immaculate on the same CRT, as did the N64.

I got my SNES in the US as a gift from my mom in October of 1991. The Model number is SNS-001, SNS-USA

[Josh128]

That ghosting definitely isn't normal. Does your CRT not have component inputs? Can't you use your transcoder to show a CRT S-Video vs. RGB comparison? I don't know if it's the plasma or cords or something wrong with your system, but this isn't normal...

Its not the plasma, Bob-- using the same RGB>Component converter, same plasma, same cable, and my SNES mini-- the white bleed is not there and the picture is much sharper.

The CRT I showed the SVideo pics on unfortunately does not have component inputs-- I no longer have my 36" JVC SDTV CRT which did-- and the white bleed was even worse there-- the sword on final fantasy 2 actually had a bleeding white line protruding DOWN from the tip-- and the white lettering was even worse.

Its got to be the system-- all other parts work well with all my other systems. My Genesis looked FANTASTIC on the 36" JVC with the same converter.

[Xan]

I think it's your transcoder, regardless of how your other systems perform with it. Looking at the transcoded RGB shots from retrorgb again, I wouldn't trust these devices as much as you do, it's just cheap and generic hardware from what I understand. If your SNES is from 1991 it's most likely a SHVC-CPU-01 revision (check for printed eject writing and 4 rubber feet if you don't want to open it). I have a SFC with the same revision board and don't see the ghosting you are talking about at all using straight RGB.

[Ed Oscuro]

Rtings has an interesting gallery here. The Sony backlight strobing efforts are interesting for gaming - not a great lag increase but it should help clear up high motion.

Pictures don't tell anything. IRL impulse works well in reducing motion blur, but destroys your eyes and melts your brain. Also cuts brightness by maybe 70% even with backlight maxed out. Not useable over a few minutes, personally I can't stand it even for 10 seconds.

Well, the gallery does show ghosting elimination on single frames. Yes, those are the issues I was worried about with this.

Personally I'm not super excited about plasma but I don't want to miss an opportunity - I would like to see what's on show at this upcoming CES before I decide what to do. I think that whatever I do might just be a stopgap measure.

[Xyga]

I think not even 120Hz strobing with double brightness would be 'enough', there are drawbacks to that method from what I read here and there, but I'd gladly welcome it if Sony have the luminous idea of premiering it with their 2015 W series.
That would be a first for TV's and a leap forward for big screen gamers.
Well it's only a matter of weeks before they present their new models I think (don't believe in Sony Santa though :p)

[Ed Oscuro]

I think not even 120Hz strobing with double brightness would be 'enough',

I think probably 240Hz should be "good enough" for most users, but we'll see.

More ideal would be OLED with black frame insertion by simply briefly turning off every pixel during the update cycle. Still too expensive though, and from what I've seen LG sets aren't noted for low lag.

I'm not expecting any miracles either - I'm just keen not to waste money on something that I wouldn't feel happy in for the long haul. Will this mean I have to wait 5 years? I hope not, but we'll see.

[Josh128]

I think it's your transcoder, regardless of how your other systems perform with it. Looking at the transcoded RGB shots from retrorgb again, I wouldn't trust these devices as much as you do, it's just cheap and generic hardware from what I understand. If your SNES is from 1991 it's most likely a SHVC-CPU-01 revision (check for printed eject writing and 4 rubber feet if you don't want to open it). I have a SFC with the same revision board and don't see the ghosting you are talking about at all using straight RGB.

It is cheap and generic hardware indeed, but then again the technics of converting RGBs to Component are very straightforward and relatively simple. Its a purely analog process, no ADCs required.

Now, I cant rule out the converter with absolute certainty, because I have no other converter or display with native RGBs input-- BUT, it would be very strange indeed if the converter is at fault, seeing as of right now I have a SNES mini, Genesis 1, Dreamcast, and N64 working and looking brilliant on it.

It would have to be related to the signal levels the SNES 1 is outputting to the unit I would imagine, perhaps they might be too hot or too weak or something, but then again the brightness level of the SNES Original through the converter seems pretty much the same as the SNES mini-- if the signal was too hot you would expect a whitewashed picture or so.

What cant be ignored though, is that the SNES 1's output is generally considered not good-- its certainly not out of the realm of possibility that the underlying reasons for its known blurriness compared to its other hardware revisions are responsible for either:

1. Inhibiting the component converters ability to deliver a good conversion/output.
2. Simply outputting a bad RGB signal in and of itself.

[Josh128]

What I see were 4500 and 8500 sets, probably a 5300 also. I wish I had remembered to take paper and a pencil.

My immediate impression is that ABC Warehouse needs much better material for its screens, and lighting at all locations was quite unrealistic. All I could do was make some immediate comparisons between the plasmas and whatever set was nearby, using the minimally helpful material broadcasts on the screens. Lighting made the LEDs look better, and at least one of the plasmas appeared to have orange looking red - the horrible viewing environment of stores was on full display here, since searing light output is not necessary for most viewers and the color reproduction is often fixable (or not a problem when taken into different lighting).

I spent most of my time fighting with the video loops for ideas about how the scaling, motion resolution, and contrast looked. One of these sets seemed to have rather bad black - more of a gray - but others were great. The plasmas did look better at Best Buy than they did at Sears, even though I'm fairly certain they were the exact same models. I did look at a 720p set (perhaps the same one Josh has been promoting) and it looked alright, though the screen door was on display too. Without the actual material I'd be likely to put on these screens, I'm afraid I can't really make a good judgement about their suitability for my purposes. I don't even know which sets have motion interpolation on, for example, even though this alone will destroy any reference.

One thing I am fairly sure of is that the news broadcast ABC had up on their clearance (still over $2000) 60" near the door was not working with the set's processing. A male anchor's face looked like boiling custard! Unfortunately scaling-like problems (it could be the video feed breaking up, too) appeared on most displays at most locations. Heck, Best Buy's matrix switch for regular computer monitors led to some truly obnoxious rippling across one monitor in particular, which in fact was likely one of the best monitors in the whole two dozen units.

About the plasma with the poor black level you saw, not sure what model it was but I do know the measured contrast levels of the LG plasmas are very poor compared to the latest Samsungs and Panasonics, but they otherwise appear to be very nice panels.

In any case, the minimum luminance levels of the F4500 (720p), F5300 (1080p), and F8500 (1080p, flagship) are almost identical and all have very similar dark room performance-- the F8500 has higher contrast and better bright room performance due to its spectacular brightness capability-- it can suck some serious power at those brightness levels though.

I know it sounds strange (some folks at the AVSforums have questioned me as well ), but the SDE of the F4500s at close range are one of the qualities I actually like about it -- its not visible at all from a distance of 8' or more (and thats on the 51" versions I have), but its one of the many quirks about the unit that work together to give it the "super CRT" look that I enjoy so much about it.

I can tell you, without blinking an eye, that OTA HD channels look incredible on it, slightly better even in my opinion, than its 1080p F5300 brother. Maybe its due to the increased brightness of the individual plasma cells, which are much larger (and therefore, more luminant per pixel) than the cells in its 1080p counterpart. Its hard to put my finger on it, but the picture just has incredible pop in even semi-light controlled environments.

[Ed Oscuro]

I believe that was actually one of the Samsung panels, and only the one. It could just be that one was set under a light.

If I end up pulling the trigger on a plasma, I'll definitely insist on setting up a 480p source to view it in person.

Also, I'd venture a guess that the "much brighter" LCD panels are sucking a considerable amount of power down themselves, and what's more it's likely nobody should run them at that brightness in their home unless they are watching television in a bright room at daytime. Even in the store settings, the plasmas all were more than bright enough, and it's just unfortunate that they have to sit next to panels with inappropriate searing brightness levels.

I have no particular worries about HD material - both 720p and 1080p should be fine on these; I think the video switches or something else about the feed quality at these locations is bad, and worse at some than others.

[Josh128]

I believe that was actually one of the Samsung panels, and only the one. It could just be that one was set under a light.

If I end up pulling the trigger on a plasma, I'll definitely insist on setting up a 480p source to view it in person.

Also, I'd venture a guess that the "much brighter" LCD panels are sucking a considerable amount of power down themselves, and what's more it's likely nobody should run them at that brightness in their home unless they are watching television in a bright room at daytime. Even in the store settings, the plasmas all were more than bright enough, and it's just unfortunate that they have to sit next to panels with inappropriate searing brightness levels.

I have no particular worries about HD material - both 720p and 1080p should be fine on these; I think the video switches or something else about the feed quality at these locations is bad, and worse at some than others.

About the power draw-- the 51" 5300 tops out at around 299W, the 51" 4500 at around 216W, and the 51" 8500 at 467W! They all average around half of their max, or less, but yeah the 8500 will noticably warm a small room/area if you jack up the brightness.

[Ed Oscuro]

What do you get with a more typical brightness setting on the 50" models?

Also I'm confused about what exactly your SNES pics are comparing. S-Video to S-Video? That's definitely not a reference for RGB comparisons then. Also, could you share your serial # or motherboard revision with us?

[bobrocks95]

RGB from his original SNES compared to RGB from a SNES Mini. Then the second group are S-Video shots from the original SNES (on a different TV).

[ApolloBoy]

2. Simply outputting a bad RGB signal in and of itself.

This. Early SNES and Super Famicom models have blurry RGB output, and because it comes out that way from the second PPU there's no way to fix it.

[Xan]

Always worth mentioning that the 1CHIP has issues of its own (http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 52&t=46303), some games aren't fully compatible with it. The 1CHIP-01 and 02 also have the vertical bar issue, which isn't there on my SHVC-CPU-01 at all. Personally I'd rather have slight blurriness than that dreaded bar.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think that the later, almost immediately pre-1CHIP models (i.e. high UN28 serial number or so) have pretty good color, and certainly no unacceptable blurriness, while also not having any vertical bar.

I'd love to get a really early SNES for comparison's sake but many of the ones cheap enough to gamble on end up being DOA.

RGB from his original SNES compared to RGB from a SNES Mini.

Oh, via transcoder on a plasma then. Unfortunately this doesn't disentangle the panel technology variable.

[andykara2003]

My modded PAL 1-chip-02 has absolutely no bar - mint image.

[Xan]

Just did some pics showing how my SHVC-CPU-01 Super Famicom looks like on a good CRT using straight RGB. Same games as in Josh's photos.

http://i.imgur.com/EatuVmZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PRNw4bb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uYoi8m7.jpg

In real everything looks pinsharp, the pics don't fully show this as I'm not good at photographing. The brighter spots on the blue background in PoP are caused by the camera.

[BuckoA51]

Always worth mentioning that the 1CHIP has issues of its own (http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 52&t=46303), some games aren't fully compatible with it. The 1CHIP-01 and 02 also have the vertical bar issue, which isn't there on my SHVC-CPU-01 at all. Personally I'd rather have slight blurriness than that dreaded bar.

I wasn't aware of that, very interesting. I'm overall pretty happy with my Super Famicom though I have considered going 1-chip, don't think I'll bother now.

Apparently installing an RGB bypass mod cures the vertical bar on most 1-chip consoles too.

[ApolloBoy]

It's still not as good as a 1chip or mini though, the edges just aren't as sharp and white text is a little blurred. I took some comparison shots between my SHVC-CPU-01 Super Fami and my SNES mini earlier, I'll post them once I get home from work.

It's also worth mentioning that the earlier models still have the vertical bar and ghosting, but they're not as noticeable as they are on the 1chip or mini. The increased sharpness certainly makes up for it though.