Samsung LE40M86BD Review

[poweld2]

Your site is awesome!! Can you please let us know when you are likely to complete this review. As I need to know whether to order the Samsung or the Sony KDL40W2000 before I go back to work.

[avid]

Hi again Vincent,
Not sure if this message will reach you before you finalise the review... but I saw some early user feedback on another forum that complained of judder problems when playing some Blu Ray 1080p movies suggesting potential issues with 2:3 pull down especially as the PS3 players reported no such problems!!!! I have pasted that specific posting below FYI.
Cheers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> extracted from: http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=481233&page=96&highlight=Samsung+LE40M86BD
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I have just watched my first BluRay film from my PS3 on the Samsung LE40M87 LCD TV. The picture quality is excelent but there is loads of movment judder. It was like watching an NTSC film on a PAL TV. For shots with movement or where for instance the camera panns arround the screen the movment is not smooth at all it just judders across. I must say I am very disapointed when there is little movment the picture quality is excelent. I am not sure I can cope with the judder.

I believe that Movie Plus is suppose to fix this but I cannot turn it on when watching a film it is grey out.

Have anyone else played a Bluray film on this LCD model and what are you opinions. Are there settings on either the TV or PS3 that will make the movement judder not so bad.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[Ed]

About the judder; looking further through that forum thread it looks like it could be a 24p problem with the PS3 (PS3 doesn't support it - yet). Apparantly this is going to be fixed in a firmware update.

Come on Vincent! Kick Colin and get this review sorted

[avid]

About the judder; looking further through that forum thread it looks like it could be a 24p problem with the PS3 (PS3 doesn't support it - yet). Apparantly this is going to be fixed in a firmware update.

Come on Vincent! Kick Colin and get this review sorted

Thanks Ed.... those forum threads can be a bit laborious when there are so many tangential lines running through - all the more reason why such a review on this site is a good way to wade through the facts. Can't wait for the all important remainder of this review also - cheers.

[Steve]

Got a look at this TV in a showroom today, and convinced the salesman to hook up the samsung blu-ray player to it. 

Looked pretty damn good, but unfortunately couldn't persuade him to check it was 1:1 mapping.  There was some quality issues, but I've a feeling this was the DVD rather than the TV,  the disc was Jazz Legends - nice!  You'd think they would use a film of some sort? lol

Slight motion blurring but only when too close to the panel,  when stood the correct distance it looked pretty damn good,

[Brunob]

I have just watched my first BluRay film from my PS3 on the Samsung LE40M87 LCD TV. The picture quality is excelent but there is loads of movment judder. It was like watching an NTSC film on a PAL TV. For shots with movement or where for instance the camera panns arround the screen the movment is not smooth at all it just judders across. I must say I am very disapointed when there is little movment the picture quality is excelent. I am not sure I can cope with the judder.

I believe that Movie Plus is suppose to fix this but I cannot turn it on when watching a film it is grey out.

May be 1080i (not 1080p) output is necessary for the 3:2 puldown of Movie Plus to work.

[pumper]

hello,

this is a great artikle but i miss something.

is it possible to test the contrast? is it really 15000:1 better than a plasma panel?

and what about the overscan? it is a pitty that the F7-series have such problems... i hope the F8-series are better now and there is absolutely no overscan.

have a nice day and thank you for regards

[andrewilley]

Great review so far, I'm really looking forward to the in-depth bits. I'll probably be going for the 46" version, but this is giving me a great idea of what that set will be like. Reflection is luckily not an issue for me as we watch TV in a room where the natural light comes in via a glass door from the kitchen, which can be shut off with curtains, so no direct light issues. And anyway, I've lived with a glass-fronted CRT TV for 30 years, so I'm not sure why it should suddenly start bothering me now.

What will really interest me though is how this set copes with a true 1080p/24fps input signal (such as movies on high-def discs in the future). I emailed Samsung UK Technical Support and they told me it does handle 24Hz signals "correctly", and when I emailed them back specifically about this comment they confirmed that the set would display 24fps at 24Hz (or multiples). I very much doubt it personally; I think it will accept a 24Hz input, but I strongly suspect it will convert it to 60Hz for display. I'd love to know the truth anyway - looking forward to someone knowledgeable testing it.

Just out of interest, this is what I emailed Samsung the second time:

[Your email] did not confirm that these sets will display movies at the original native 24fps, or more probably doubled up to 48Hz or 72Hz. i.e. I do not want to watch 24fps material at either 50Hz or 60Hz refresh rates (e.g. with a version of 3:2 pulldown applied internally to match the frame rates).

Could you please confirm that 24fps material will be displayed *CORRECTLY* at 24Hz on these sets, rather than just that it can be displayed at all? Sorry to labour the point, but I don't want to buy a £2000 TV now and then find myself regretting it in 12 months time

And their reply was:

In reference to your enquiry 24fps HD content will display correctly on our new M88BD and M87BD range.

I hope this has been of some assistance to you. If you do have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

So eagerly looking forward to finding out! (the "M88" was a typo on their part, the discussion was about M86/M87 sets)

Andre

[Flamebait]

I was going to wait for the rest of the review, but spotted a couple of these at Costco in Reading on Friday evening, couldn't stop thinking about them last night (sad, I know), and raced back this morning to pick one up while they're still there. 4 more left at least when I left. Selling at £998.73 including VAT for the 40" M87 BDX with a 3 year warantee honoured by Costco... box fits easily in an estate with seats folded but not with seats up (an A6, so even a fairly wide estate) and Costco is strictly cash and carry. Still in the box for a few more hours if you're about to tell us it's actually rubbish and laden with bugs and quirks. Don't keep me in suspense!

(Actually the SD performance at Costco looked worse than most of the others on display, including the R87 beside it, but I'm assuming that's because of very degraded signal split to all those screens... I just went on faith, and Costco's fairly liberal return policy)

[pumper]

hey people,

today i was at media-markt where the LE-46M86BD was presented.

it was great to see that you can see a better contrast on lcd than on plasma television.

the black is really BLACK, you now? there was no grey colour to see in the demo of lord of the rings. REALLY BLACK!

it was really a difference between the 46M86BD and the other lcd and plasma panels which were also presented in the shop.

an lcd with an contrast of a plasma tv, GREAT TO SEE!


i am curious about a reviev which shows if the new samsung panel has an overscan or not.

[Slakerr]

Hi Vincent

I have just received the M87 and I am very pleased with it so far, apart from a few little issues with some of the colours when watching some HD content on my PS3 through HDMI.

Basically I sometimes get little greenish pixels near some areas of grey. Is this just a calibration or setting issue (there are so many settings I dont know which ones to enable or not for the best). Do you think this could be resolved with a bit of tinkering in the settings and will you post the settings that you calibrated the set to in the rest of the review.

excellent site by the way

Slakerr

[Phantoma]

Slakerr,
Vincent wrote an article about green trails but that was regarding to some plasmas.
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/2007/04/01/plasma-phosphor-trail/


Have you guys seen this video?
http://www.cinenow.com/uk/play-video-692.html

I know it may be biased but i'm back to being undecided as to which panel to buy.
Besides the M8* range of Samsung LCD, the other panel i want to have a look at is the soon to be released range of Panasonic plasmas.

[KeanosMagicHat]

Thank you very much for the review.

As I said over on the AVForums, I'm pretty pleased with what I've just read.

I was interested to hear how it handled SD feeds and it seems to have fared pretty well.

The second concern for me was motion blur and, as the review states, there was just "a hint" of blurring when watching SD football. I think I can live with "a hint" especially at this price point.

About the auto enabling of Movie Plus every time a the source or resolution changes.  I know there's a temporary resolution by activating it through the menu and turning it back off but this would seem to be a firmware bug.

Will you be reporting this back to Samsung and asking when a firmware upgrade will be released to fix this please?


This aside, I've pretty much decided I'm going to go for it. I could wait for the 100Hz LCD's, which are I've heard are even better at handling motion, but I feel as if I've been waiting forever already.

Based upon this review my conclusion is that the Samsung is a good balance of PQ and value for money.

I hope I'm proven right should I make the purchase in the next few days.

_____________

Oh and finally, and most importantly, could you post your recommended setting for both HD and SD viewing please?

Personally I'll be initially using it for freeview / Sky SD and a PS3 over HDMI for gaming and Blu-Ray movies.  Sky HD to follow.

Thanks again.

[Goblin]

Great review, made my mind up on buying this set.

Another request for the calibration settings as would make getting a good base level to tweak to my own tastes a lot easier. Not all of us have access to colour calibration kit (or the ability to fiddle as well as we would like).

Thanks again

[furbo]

Thank you for a great review!  

Also I would like to request about your calibrated settings for this set?