My thoughts on Samsung UE32C6510 TV

[bigboss]

Ok, my OH wanted a TV in the gym room, to play fitness DVDs. So I decided to move my ageing 32-inch TV from my bedroom to the gym room, & get a new TV for my bedroom. Also ordered a used Oppo OPDV971H DVD Player supposedly in excellent condition for £10 from Ebay to go with the TV in the gym room.

I first thought of the Sony KDL32EX43B which also has an integrated blu-ray player. I spoke to Direct TVs requesting a demo, but their showroom is small & could not arrange one. Going by its price, it seemed that this TV is related to the 403 series. I was already disappointed with the SD performance of the 403 & 503 series so decided to skip it.

I then came across the Samsung UE32C6510 in white when I was browsing on Amazon. Quite liked the look of it, besides matching the rest of my bedroom's decor (the TV being placed in a shelf above where I've placed my Sonos ZP90 & white Audioengine A2s).

The reviews of the Samsung 6 series' have been generally good, & I was impressed with what I saw in the shops (although not this particular model).

The best price was on Best Buy offering a 20% discount through Quidco. But after a nightmare experience trying to order from there, I decided to order from my trusted Amazon for £579. Not a bad price for a TV with good features I thought.

The TV arrived yesterday. I was surprised at how light the package was! Much much lighter than my old 32-inch LCD.

Unpacked & set it up. Here are my thoughts:

1) Looks: This thing is a beauty. I must really commend Samsung for making such aesthetically pleasing TVs, with a transparent acrylic border surrounding the white bezel. All the feather buttons on the TV are along the transparent acrylic border in the lower right side. The screen sits on a chrome stand which is also beautifully finished. The TV itself it very slim. My only grouse is that Samsung has supplied this TV with a black power lead! I would've expected them to have paid attention to this very last detail. No worries, I've ordered a white power lead from Amazon.

2) Picture: The colours initially were overly saturated. A few tweaks set it to acceptable levels (turning picture processing off). Motion handling is ok. I was pleased to see many options in the advanced settings to tweak the picture. Overall, I'm pleased to see the advancement in the LCD technology and must say that it's coming close to plasmas, except for the blacks of course. Blacks in this TV are good but in dark scenes, the shadow detail is lost & black tends to get a bit grey. I haven't noticed any dead pixels or backlight bleed.

I've lost my THX optimiser glasses given free by WHF last year. I'm still waiting for the glasses I ordered for £4 including shipping (ignore the shipping cost given on the website) from THX.com over 3 weeks ago. Once that arrives, I'll calibrate it further.

3) SD performance: Surprisingly good. In fact, excellent! Very sharp images, almost like HD. I like the upscaler in this Samsung!

4) HD performance: Even though freeview website states that I won't get HD channels in my area, I'm getting Channel 4 HD, BBC HD & ITV1 HD at least (can't remember if there are any more HD channels). HD performance, as expected, is very very good.

5) Freeview HD tuner: In one word- outstanding! Certainly one of the best TV tuners I've seen.

6) Sound: To be honest, I was expecting a poor performance in sound. But I was pleasantly surprised. Obviously, some of the sound detail is lost, but for speakers of this size, I am impressed. I'll later connect it to my Sonos & compare the performance with the Audioengine A2s.

7) Internet: I bought the Samsung WIS09ABGN WiFi Link Stick as well. It was quite easy to connect it to my wifi router (it straightaway lists the routers in the range, & asks for the password when you select one). Internet content is extensive; dailymotion, youtube, BBC iplayer, cartoon network, accuweather.com, google maps, History channel, box office 365, facebook, picasa, twitter, yahoo and a few games besides lovefilm.com and ace trax movies. So far, I've only checked youtube & BBC iplayer, & the quality is exceedingly good. It actually rivals the SD channels. I can only imagine that we're not far off from exclusive internet streaming of TV channels.

So far, I'm very impressed with this set. I never had high regards for Samsung TVs until October 2009. I now think it has enough in its arsenal to challenge and even better the likes of Panasonic & Sony.

 

[Liam19]

Agreed, especially about the gorgeous looks (albeit mine is the black version, to match my glass workstation)!

Interesting how you decsribe motion as 'ok' - does that mean you see substantial room for improvement? I only ask because that's the most disappointing aspect of my 6530. With the help of Motion Plus, LED Motion Plus and various other settings, it can deliver pretty smooth, composed fast motion, but it lacks the rock-solid quality of the Sony I had previously. Turn all the technology off, and things can become quite ugly! :S

Slightly jealous you had it for such a good price too - I paid substantially more than that at my specialist dealer, but it was mainly for the privilege of being able to pay over 6 months interest-free, as well as the added bonus of a 5-year warranty!

Hope you continue to enjoy your TV - I know my opinion of mine has improved in the 3 or-so months I've had it!

 

[bigboss]

Liam19: Interesting how you decsribe motion as 'ok' - does that mean you see substantial room for improvement? I only ask because that's the most disappointing aspect of my 6530. With the help of Motion Plus, LED Motion Plus and various other settings, it can deliver pretty smooth, composed fast motion, but it lacks the rock-solid quality of the Sony I had previously. Turn all the technology off, and things can become quite ugly! :S

The first time I checked the motion, it was quite bad. Got a bit better with one of the settings....which is ok. Of course there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm used to the slick motion handling of my Kuro plasma. Once I run the THX optimizer disc, I'll see how the overall improvement is.

 

[Liam19]

Good luck with that, let us know how you get on!

If it doesn't improve to your liking, I can post my settings up here (took me a looong time to get these just so!) which I think make for a pretty damn good picture with most sources! Obviously our tastes may differ, but I am very wary of ruining the 'filmic' look of 24fps, so my settings reflect that.

 

[bigboss]

Thanks!

Actually, your settings will be useful as a starting point.

Once my THX glasses arrive, I'll try to improve the picture further & will post back my settings.

 

[Anonymous]

bigboss:

The first time I checked the motion, it was quite bad. Got a bit better with one of the settings....which is ok. Of course there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm used to the slick motion handling of my Kuro plasma. Once I run the THX optimizer disc, I'll see how the overall improvement is.

Does the THX disc offer a setting for motion? I thought that depended on the TV?

 

[bigboss]

Of course motion depends on the TV, but I want to optimize everything else first, & then try the different motion options to see which is better.

 

[Liam19]

Here goes!

Picture Menu

Mode: Standard

Backlight: 12

Contrast: 100

Brightness: 55

Sharpness: 55

Colour: 50

Tint (G/R): G50/R50

Eco Solution: Off (all)

Advanced Settings

Black Tone: Dark

Dynamic Contrast: Off

Shadow Detail: 0

Gamma: +3

Colour Space: Auto

Flesh Tone: -5

Edge Enhancement: On

LED Motion Plus: On

Picture Options

Colour Tone: Normal

Size: Screen Fit

Digital Noise Filter/MPEG Noise Filter: Off

Motion Plus: Custom (Blur Reduction: 10, Judder Reduction: 4)

I've experimented with infinite combinations of all these, and found myself using things like Black Tone, Edge Enhancement and Gamma against my intuition (I always used to keep most things off!). But this TV is a bit of a delicate flower, it seems to need all these functions just to get it performing well!

Blur Reduction is at Max because it does what it says on the tin well without ruining motion - but don't set Judder Reduction any higher than 4, because it really does ruin things!

Also, the slightly high Backlight setting is to compensate for the severe dimness that comes with LED Motion Plus (which definitely keeps smearing and colour bleed at bay!) Same with the high-ish Brightness and the Black Tone feature - they balance each other out, providing better contrast.

I'd still suggest giving the THX Optimizer a whirl too, and basically fiddle incessantly like I did to coax a decent performance out of this set!!!

 

[bigboss]

Thanks! I'll give it a go tomorrow.

 

[Clare Newsome]

bigboss:I never had high regards for Samsung TVs until October 2009. I now think it has enough in its arsenal to challenge and even better the likes of Panasonic & Sony.

Well Samsung has won TV Awards from us for the past couple of years...

And I know it's not a quality indicator, but worth noting that Samsung has already surpassed those rivals in terms of sales: it's No1 globally (and UK) for TVs. LG is second, Sony third at present.

Thanks for the write-up BB - we don't often get white sets in for review; we should do a special at some stage...

 

[bigboss]

Both Samsung & LG have changed the face of the TV market, driving down prices & making better quality TVs. Like Samsung, even LG since 2010 is coming up with some stunning TVs. These Korean manufacturers are the main reason for the demise of the Kuro (apart from the economic slowdown) & are responsible for putting the Japanese manufacturers in a spot of bother by producing quality TVs at cheap prices. With the huge R&D budget that Samsung has, things can only improve from here on.

Thanks for the settings Liam19!

The picture is already looking much better.....skin tones appear more natural!

Motion handling is far from perfect, but is better now.

 

[Liam19]

YVW

 

[bigboss]

I'm loving the skin tones! The picture is not at all oversaturated. I tried to improve the picture further following on from your settings Liam19, but couldn't. I'll now attempt after the glasses arrive.

 

[Liam19]

bigboss:I'm loving the skin tones! The picture is not at all oversaturated. I tried to improve the picture further following on from your settings Liam19, but couldn't. I'll now attempt after the glasses arrive.

Well it seems we have a similar picture taste (if that makes any sense??)

On a random note, been watching The Shield on DVD this evening, and (played and upscaled by the Sony BDV-E370) the picture is pretty rock solid on this telly. Watched Top Gear earlier this evening too on BBC HD, which looked excellent.

Be good if you could upload a picture or two bigboss - haven't seen the white version of this set since the dealer, and I remember it looked beautiful then (was tempted but it wouldn't work in my room!)

 

[hunnyy]

I have the Samsung UE32C6510 (white) as well; lovely TV.

I had already tweaked the settings to improve the picture, particularly to lose the effect of blu-ray films all looking like they were filmed on the set of Eastenders, but thanks Liam19 for your input because, following your own settings, the picture has improved still further.

 

[bigboss]

Liam19: Be good if you could upload a picture or two bigboss - haven't seen the white version of this set since the dealer, and I remember it looked beautiful then (was tempted but it wouldn't work in my room!)

I will upload some pics soon in "My system". I'm just waiting for the white power leads to arrive.

 

[Anonymous]

guyz,hello/i am new to all this stuff.until now i was using an old lg l222ws pc monitor for most of my needs,and i mean xbox360,dvd movies and some tv series.couple of days ago,i bought this BEAUTY!!So...i am kinda lost with all those settings,though i am a fast learner.thing is,i am having difficulties to calibrate correctly,i have tried various settings (i havent still tried the above settings posted,will do it cause of a certain "poblem" r8 now),but until now,,i end up having realy REALY dark shadows when there is a shadow on an item (like a weapon on battlefield) and very bright lights (like when looking a lamp).so,uhm,if you have any suggestions,i would realy appreciate(i thank you in advance for the settings already provided,will post tommorw when i try them)

 

[bigboss]

How did you get on with the settings? Any improvement?

 

[Anonymous]

i have used the posted settings;only difference (probably a matter of personal opinion) i use the Movie profile,i dont like the blueish tint the others have.B-I-G improvment from my newbieSettings!!!

The thing is,it seems to me or to my taste,that it is just a little bit dark and some sort of fog-ish.i tried to use BlackTone Off instead of Dark,but that messed the shadows,although fixes the "too dark for me" thing (i mostly try to optimize it for my xbox360 since its my main concern,although i used some movis and i seem to have the same opinion there too about a little dark and fog).my main problem though,is that,in dark areas/rooms,its tooo dark

I also seem to have some screentear effect when moving the camera fast...dont know what that connects too and if i can do smthng for it

any advice for that? by the way THANK YOU for your help and settings,gr8 improvment from my previous set up.

*****after some digging,i came across some posts that say may problem (too brigh lights/too dark places) has something to do with colorspace option on tv and "refference level" whitch is the same option as color space in xbox360.still,cant get it r8