Why not have both? I keep a large crt tv in another room for viewing projects that I know will be viewed by customers who still have crt tv's.

Bought a Samsung 40" 6000 a few weeks back for the bedroom. Learned the difference between LED edge lighting (which replaces the continuous-on fluorescent tubes used in other LCD displays) and the local-dimming kind of backlighting I thought all LED LCDs had. Nonetheless, I like it. A lot.

Advantages:
1. about 1" thick. Hangs on the wall like a picture.
2. at less than 40 lbs, it's lightweight.
3. uses VESA 400x400 mount pattern (spreads load out well)
4. beautiful picture
5. adequate sound from internal back/down-firing speakers
6. LED edge lighting claimed to use 40% less power than fluorescent (unless they are fudging and comparing it to plasmas, which are more like heat radiators than televisions...)

Cons:
1. remote doesn't work well with other devices but doesn't matter as I custom program a URC MX-850 for system control...and URC's database of remote codes rocks.

By the way, I feed it 1080i HD from the living room DVR's analog YRB output using two passive baluns that convert the YRB to CAT-5. Even looking at the signal after the DVR downconverts the signal to analog, transcoding to the balun/CAT-5 and back to YRB at the set using the second balun, the picture is stunning.

The baluns allow me to distribute the HD signal via an inexpensive CAT-5 A/B/C switch to the bedroom or kitchen. This way I don't have to have/rent another box from Verizon/FiOS for each TV. Downside is we have to agree to watch the same channel in both locations unless one TV is switched to the roof antenna signal...assuming what you want to watch is being broadcast.

Broadcast M2T is the best you can get anyway, though FiOS fat laser/optical is very, very good.

But you know, I still think my Sony 52" XBR7 in the living room is the slightly better picture. Sony just knows video: the subtle things that make for a good picture. The Koreans know how to make a really bright picture that sells at Costco but Sony knows TV.

OK, I solved the audio sync problem using a trick I found in the AVS Forum. You access the service menu (Mute - 1 -8 -2 - PwrOn). Go to the control menu and set the speaker delay to 0. Gets me very, very close. When I eventually upgrade other equipment, I can obviously get this perfect, but it is good enough for now.

Sidecar, were you able to find discrete (separate) Power On and Power Off commands for this set in the URC database? If so, do you remember what the codes were?

"You access the service menu (Mute - 1 -8 -2 - PwrOn)."John, Here's a lesson I learned when messing with the color wheel settings on my Samsung DLP TV - always take a digital picture of the service menu before changing any values. It's easy to make accidental changes and not be able to get back to original values.

Good Luck!
...Jerry

johnmeyer,

Finding those discrete control codes were genuinely a breakthrough. As you know the Samsung OEM remote toggles most of the functions, making programming a multi-machine remote like the MX-850 a nightmare.

I dug around the URC forum (http://www.urccontrolroom.com/) and one very helpful user pointed out that URC provides "Discrete Codes 2007" (code 515) that cover all the newer Samsung TVs. It's at the top of the IR list under Samsung TV. I was pretty upset until then. It just wasn't working for me. I couldn't even use the OEM remote to "teach" my system with all that toggling required.

I created two devices on the MX-850 remote: One (I called it "SAMS" uses the codes that duplicate the OEM remote "UN40B6000" (code 578) and the other device (called it "SAMS2") uses the Code 515 discrete codes that allow me direct access to HDMI-1, Component-1, Discrete Power On, Discrete Power Off, etc. Between the two devices I can build macros that make the TV do almost anything reliably.

By the way, I attended an on-line training URC forum and the teacher pointed out then that if you need discrete codes for almost any TV, amp or any other device out there, there is probably a "Discrete codes" listing under that manufacturer somewhere.

URC makes many if not most of the OEM remotes for the electronic components out there and has access to "secret" IR code sets not available to the general public. They also have excellent software that takes a bit of fiddling with to master but really does give you a ton of programming options. I really like my MX-850's.

Now if their new MX-5000 professional programmable remote didn't cost upwards of $750 it would be a lot more fun to control my gear.

Unfortunately, the audio sync problem has resurfaced. It is turning out to be a bear to troubleshoot. On Monday, I'm going to call Samsung and see if I can get some help. I am now about 95% certain it is a bug in how the set handles composite video combined with analog audio input. It is sometimes even out of sync on the internal speakers. Everything works fine on analog that arrives via the RF connector. So, I am going to try tomorrow to use the Channel 3 output from my old satellite receiver (gag ...) and fee that to the receiver. If this works, then that will have to make do until I get around to upgrading the satellite and, eventually, the home theater receiver.

So, while this is a very, very good monitor for HD, it is clearly a very marginal monitor (compared to other LCD monitors and projectors) when dealing with analog composite video. I've probably used several dozen LCD projectors and never once had this problem.

I've fed SD composite or Y/C into video projectors in theatres and it didn't look at all shabby. That said they were quite older projectors and I don't think they were much over SD resolution.

I think Glenn pretty much nailed it. Trying to upscale interlaced video is very problematic and the outcome variable. Our old first gen Bravia makes SD from the PD170 unwatchable and yet the sd from the Z1 looks fine. On a SD CRT it's the other way around. SD from really good digibeta ex BBC looks really, really good. I wish I could put my finger on what's the cause of this.

Looking forward to hearing how you go. Getting close to the time when I have to get a HD TV.

Bob.

John, do me a favour, and hopefully yourself, prep a DVD of your SD work and borrow a DVD player with an HDMI output. Just try it.

I had the SAME pancake-disappointment until I realised the HDMI option. What's this? Another weird plug? But it does work.

My SONY BRAVIA picks up the original SD output from the SONY DVD HDMI output and thinks its 1080 - done! No pancake.

This HAS come up before. Your SD should look at least as good as you've seen it on a CRT.

Remember my posts about 3 years back? About the look of LCDs? How I thought they were all crapola?

Here's are 2 comparisons for you - SAME TV!:

A] TV Terrestrial signal, from an aerial on roof, straight to the BRAVIA internal-digital-signal converter gets me "Pancake". No 1080 anything.

B] Same TV Terrestrial signal from roof, now THROUGH my digital BT-Vision converter box allowing HDMI > BRAVIA = No "Pancake" and fully registered 1080

Now, why this should be, I haven't a clue. But I'm telling you, my SD content, out from my SONY DVD Upscaler via HDMI, into the BRAVIA HDMI - rox!

Grazie

Only thing I'm confused by is A].
Did you feed the RF signal from the aerial into the TV's own tuner?


Bob.

Thank you all for your wonderful input. You are awesome. We did buy Samsung 8000 series yesterday. It is about a $1000 cheaper than the top of the line 8500 series. It looks nice.

I need to know what is the best way to calibrate this TV, short of paying the big $$$.

I need to know what is the best way to calibrate this TV, short of paying the big $$$.

Try this thread

John

> Did you feed the RF signal from the aerial into the TV's own tuner?
Yes, here's the route

Roof > RF Socket of BT-Vison Box ( which is switched-OFF!) > RF from BT Vison Box > SONY BRAVIA.

In this A] scenario the BT-Vision is ONLY a connector. The box is switched off.

Grazie

"Unfortunately, the audio sync problem has resurfaced. It is turning out to be a bear to troubleshoot."


I wonder if this might be related:
From my Onkyo receiver manual:

When using progressive scanning on your DVD player,

So I wonder if you're using progressive scan for a setting... or maybe even some other odd ball setting on the dvd player?

But at any rate, generally speaking I agree with grazie. The entire flat panel concept works better if everything is connected to an upscaler of some kind and then fed to the tv through hdmi. The flat panel becomes little more than a monitor. As mentioned above I have the Onkyo receiver and EVERYTHING connects to it, gets upscaled and then is sent to the flat panel all through one neat little hdmi cable. Any sync issues, scaling issues, 5.1 surround balance issues...etc are all cleaned up and balanced by the receiver

I have found Onkyo 805 to be an excellent machine, but there are lots of other makes out there that will do the same.

"Why not have both? I keep a large crt tv in another room for viewing projects that I know will be viewed by customers who still have crt tv's."

My solution exactly.

Thanks for all the input and ideas. I really appreciate it.

The RF input that doesn't have sync problems is when I feed either my cable TV to the RF input (this is very old-fashioned cable like we all had in the 80s: strictly analog). It also is just fine with OTA digital TV.

Also, anything that I put into the set via HDMI works just fine (my son got an XBOX 360 for Christmas, and we've streamed Netflix movies via that).

The DVD player is old and needs to be replaced, so I'll get an upscaling Blu-Ray/DVD player and so I'm not too worried about that. The big issue is my 12-year-old Sony/DirecTV satellite. I am in no hurry to upgrade that, even though it would be nice to have HD satellite and also get the Tivo option. The reason I am in no hurry is that it will be a BIG hassle to upgrade and install. The dish is on my roof in a very awkward place that I installed myself back when I was considerably more nimble. With the closure of a small mom&pop dish installer that I used to recommend to everyone, we don't have any reliable installers, so I'm going to have to do this myself. Also, I really don't want to pay another $60-80 each month. So, I'm going to live with this older system for a long time. This is why solving this problem is important.

I'm hoping Samsung will be able to provide some help. Obviously I can design & build, or just purchase an audio delay line, and I have a few other ideas as well. Also, my Pioneer VSX-D2S receiver, which was the top end of the consumer category back in 1993 (just below their Elite line) is starting to go flaky (I suspect electrolytics are failing) and when I replace that, I will then have a delay line, and possibly analog to HDMI.

My two reasons for posting was just to notify people that there is an audio sync problem (something that many others have found as well) and also that you need to look elsewhere (the DVD player or HTPC) for decent SD upscaling.

Typically, the only time we humans are bothered by audio sync issues is when the audio is heard in advance of the image. Since light travels much faster than sound, we are all used to hearing the sound of an event after we see the event. Hearing the sound before the image is just not something that ever happens in nature. In TV, people don't generally notice a problem if the audio is up to 2 frames late, but they will notice it if it's even half a frame early. Just standing 30 feet away from someone, you will hear them talk the equivalent of one frame later than you see their lips move. If you're 100 feet away from the stage at a rock concert, you will hear the drum hit 100 milliseconds later than you see the drummer hit the drum. That's three frames in NTSC video, but it doesn't bother us. If we heard the drum hit before we saw it, we would instinctively know something was wrong.

Keeping audio and video in sync was a problem back in the TBC (timebase corrector) days. Each pass through a full-frame TBC would delay the video by one frame relative to the audio. This would set up the unnatural "audio before video" problem and it only got worse with each pass through the TBC. Fortunately, relatively inexpensive digital audio delay units could be used to delay that audio and get it back in sync with the video.

Video processing delay continues to be a problem in the new digital video age, processing a frame of video in real-time can take a finite amount of time and the video can appear later and later in relation to the audio. I'm certain that this is the situation that John Meyer is experiencing with his glorious new Samsung 8500, it's doing quite a bit of video processing before it displays the picture. Rather than upgrade everything else in the chain, get an inexpensive high-quality stereo digital audio delay from a music or pro audio store and adjust it in 33 millisecond increments until the audio syncs with the video again. Behringer probably makes something that's cheap and fits the bill.

What I did for my old material (VHS tapes) is to buy a DVD/VHS VCR combo unit. The one I have is from Toshiba and the output I use from that unit to my TV is HDMI. This moves everthing into the digital domain before the TV. Works great and the bonus is the upscaling to 1080.

The cheap costs EXPENSIVE!

OK, everything is working fine now. I can now upgrade each component at my leisure (DVD player first, then home theater audio and then, maybe, the DirecTV, which I watch less and less as time goes on).

The "secret" solution was a little complicated and only works because my old Pioneer VSX-D2S receiver has a separate switching path for the audio and the video. Actually, to many of the old audio people on this forum, the solution is probably obvious.

Since the audio on the internal speakers in the TV seem to mostly be in sync, the solution is to let the home theater (analog receiver) switch the audio and video from the five sources and feed those to the TV. However, I then use the "tape monitor" function to take the audio output from the TV (which is delayed by the Samsung to match the delay in the video) and substitute that for the audio in the source. I was a little worried about feedback, but the receiver circuit has good isolation, and everything now works fine.

I'm confused. So you're not taking it back after all?

I too was one to go with a flat screen late in the game. I had the same old 27" RCA in the living room for years (my place is small). I first got a Philips 42" LCD, but didn't like the motion artifacts. I took it back to Costco and replaced it with a Panasonic plasma. I am much happier with the Panny.

I'll say this about High Definition. I still have yet to see a picture as clear as I saw more than 10 years ago on an analog HD CRT in a Texas electronics showroom. Digital compression is the bane of everything these days. But folks are so used to it, that it's commonplace and expected.

So the screen size and thickness of today's flat panels are impressive, but certainly not the picture quality. I saw a better picture a decade ago. We went backwards, not forwards.

"Digital compression is the bane of everything these days."

Well, not everything... I have yet to see a digital compression artifact on a commercial Blu-ray disc.

I still have one 34" CRT HDTV (Sony XBR 960 Ultra-fine pitch) and there is something special about watching a good Blu-ray source on the CRT.

I just spent the weekend with a Samsung 8500 and a stack of Blu-ray discs, it looked spectacular. That last little issue of the blacks not being black enough on an LCD are now a thing of the past.

> "Actually, to many of the old audio people on this forum, the solution is probably obvious. "

Sure, this is what I decided to do and it works nicely too. AND I get the audio adjusts I don't get with the BRAVIA. Also I can "play" my USB stills (like most LCDs today, BRAVIA has a neato USB input - so straight from Camera SD Card in USB SD card reader!) to CDs and make a quick and dirty show-reel/stills to BG music from the DENON.

BT-Vbox Audio > DENON Audio System (Tape OR CDR Function)> Monitors/Speakers

BT-Vbox Video > HDMI BRAVIA

SONY DVD Player Audio > DENON Audio System (Tape OR CDR Function)> Monitors/Speakers

SONY DVD Player Video > HDMI BRAVIA

Grazie