Comments on: Mini Review: Samsung LNT4065F 40″ 1080p LCD

By: Bob Z

Bob Z — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:46:48 +0000

I own 2 of them and love ‘em. Bought them end of last year from crutchfield when they had their free bracket deal. However, as prices continue to drop, I’ll be moving one of them into the office for the ‘puter and upgrading the den unit

By: Adam Griffith

Adam Griffith — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:53:09 +0000

Oh, and by the way – don’t sweat not having 120hz/AMP. I studied it with different sets for hours. It is over-rated. Most I know who have the feature leave it off most of the time. It seems to honestly be one of those things that seems amazing at first but less cool as soon as you own it and sit with it. I say the word “honestly” because I had to go through it all myself before I could be convinced it wasn’t a godsend either.

It truly is only good for a small handful of the content out there (HD documentaries, 3D animation, what have you). And most of that reason is because none of its implementation runs glitch-free yet. I don’t think it ever really will either since the frame-extrapolating/guessing stuff it has to do is no exact science. It will be like noise reduction in DVD players – despite years of adjustment – it only works so well, even in the best models.

I don’t know about you but I can’t watch a movie and not nitpick when I see a stutter here, some ghosting there, some wierd frame speed up there. Even if those things only occur every 5 minutes or so – that kind of stuff takes me right out of the movie. And saying they only occur in that length of time is being generous. Seems to me, like such glitches occur practically in ever scene or angle change (maybe a slight exagerration, yes – but its so annoying it seems like such…).

Oh, and I’ve said nothing of the likeablity of the “soap opera” effect yet. I’ve found that the effect seems awesome on an in-store display but the longer you sit with it at home the more you reach for the button to just turn it off so you can watch your movie in the “normal” way without such artificiality. “Plastic” movies like Fantastic Four for example, look so wierd – so much like a soap opera, that you could swear you are watching some low-budget Days of our Lives remake of the movie.

IMO, most of the time, 120hz/AMP is a hinderance more than a benefit.

By: Adam Griffith

Adam Griffith — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:38:01 +0000

Yes, this is a very good set – one of the best LCDs, I feel. I owned one for a while before I ultimately “upgraded” to a Kuro. Obviously, the Kuro beats it but its a plasma and a Pioneer. Still, with some tweaking these new Sammy’s have a very strong black level for what we’ve had to endure with LCDs for so long. Speaking generally about how deep the average AV fan wants black, I’ve found that most LCDs (including many of the ones that have come out recently too) barely can achieve even an “acceptable” level. However, these new Sammy LCDs are solid. And LCDs are so good at everything from use as long-term PC monitors to general TV use. They don’t run as hot and handle ambient light so much better than plasma too.

The primary reason I use the Kuro is only because I want to get the most out of HD media movies. I rarely use it for much else. I have a 4:3 36″ SD CRT I use to watch all my SD DVDs (I find any kind of HDTV just doesn’t handle SD content as “cleanly”/well as a decent old SD set will, due to the forced upconversion).