Hi guys,
I recently bought a second-hand Samsung 40" LCD LE40M87 (...or it might be the M86). I've been using it with Virgin HD service and very happy with its performance so far, until I got a Blu-Ray player to go with it (Sony BDP-S480). The picture quality is great - but I noticed a flickering in the background, particularly in scenes with dark patches or a generally low light level. It was like watching a monitor with too low a refresh rate. If I turned the backlight of the TV up, the effect became *less* noticable, which is the opposite to normal.
This only happens in 1080p24 mode. When I switch the bluray player to output 1080i60, the flickering goes away.
The Samsung TV is supposed to support 24Hz input, but as I've observed, there's a horrible flickering. I've changed all the picture settings in the TV menu, and the only thing that makes a difference is turning up the backlight - which only hides the problem.
There seems to be a lot of debate about whether 1080p24 does or does not create a better picture than 1080i60 - I can't see any reason 1080i would be worse, and I haven't watched enough content at 1080i to judge subjectively for myself. However, even if it's technically identical, it seems a bit perverse that the bluray player has to interlace and resample the raw 1080p24 output, for the TV to de-interlace it back at the other end with a few extra frames added.
I did consider that I used a cheap tesco HDMI cable, but it's 1.3b complient and clearly marked as "High Speed" so unless it's got some major shielding problems I doubt that's the issue. And then, I'd expect 1080i to be awful as well.
From some extensive googling, 24Hz input flickering seems to be a common problem with samsung TVs. But I've not found any real info on how to solve it - some people are suggesting firmware updates, but I haven't seen any solid evidence that this is the case. And even if so, would I have to go to a samsung approved technical support to get the patch? I don't see any way of doing it for myself via the samsung website.
Thanks,
GT
I recently bought a second-hand Samsung 40" LCD LE40M87 (...or it might be the M86). I've been using it with Virgin HD service and very happy with its performance so far, until I got a Blu-Ray player to go with it (Sony BDP-S480). The picture quality is great - but I noticed a flickering in the background, particularly in scenes with dark patches or a generally low light level. It was like watching a monitor with too low a refresh rate. If I turned the backlight of the TV up, the effect became *less* noticable, which is the opposite to normal.
This only happens in 1080p24 mode. When I switch the bluray player to output 1080i60, the flickering goes away.
The Samsung TV is supposed to support 24Hz input, but as I've observed, there's a horrible flickering. I've changed all the picture settings in the TV menu, and the only thing that makes a difference is turning up the backlight - which only hides the problem.
There seems to be a lot of debate about whether 1080p24 does or does not create a better picture than 1080i60 - I can't see any reason 1080i would be worse, and I haven't watched enough content at 1080i to judge subjectively for myself. However, even if it's technically identical, it seems a bit perverse that the bluray player has to interlace and resample the raw 1080p24 output, for the TV to de-interlace it back at the other end with a few extra frames added.
I did consider that I used a cheap tesco HDMI cable, but it's 1.3b complient and clearly marked as "High Speed" so unless it's got some major shielding problems I doubt that's the issue. And then, I'd expect 1080i to be awful as well.
From some extensive googling, 24Hz input flickering seems to be a common problem with samsung TVs. But I've not found any real info on how to solve it - some people are suggesting firmware updates, but I haven't seen any solid evidence that this is the case. And even if so, would I have to go to a samsung approved technical support to get the patch? I don't see any way of doing it for myself via the samsung website.
Thanks,
GT