Should I send it back?

[notaclue]

Just had a brand new Samsung 46C8000 delivered, this is after many months of dithering about what to buy, in the end I bought with my heart - not head, so I expect no sympathy from most on this forum!

Aesthetically the TV looks great, Blu-ray looks amazing, however when I put it against my 6 year old non-HD 37" Panasonic Viera the SD picture via freeview is poor, just trying to watch the football on ITV was so bad I had to switch over. The biggest difference is in the contrast and black levels which are way better on the old Panasonic.

So my question is, could I expect a better SD picture from any other Full HD TV of this size? I looked at the 50" Panasonic but it was much bulkier for wall mounting - on a stud wall. Although if I had to I could go back to this as an option.

I am not in a freeview HD area before anyone suggests I should have watched the football on that.

Any thoughts?

 

[Messiah]

Have you calibrated the TV??

I would also try another channel. SD ITV does have a poor picture in my experience, especially with football.

I assume you sit the same distance away as before. It may be that the flaws are now more noticeable than before??

 

[ear]

color and contraste on the samsung are very good.37 to a 46 you will certainly notice some differences.

 

[Anonymous]

Was your 37" Viera a plasma tv? i believe that if you have switched from Plasma to LCD (LED or not) then that would one of the reasons why you don't like standard def pictures on the new tv as ive always preferred a plasma picture on the bigger sizes of flat screen tv's as i thought they gave a more natural and deeper picture on the standard def side of things aswell as HD which looks great anyway on any tv. It's one of those things, i did have a LCD to begin with and then have had Panasonic Plasma for the last 3 tv's ive bought in recent years and i cannot go back to owning a LCD anymore. Thats my personal opionion anyway and it's a shame you did not pick up the 3D VT20 from Panasonic as it is one of the best tv's ive seen with a great picture, even so that im upgrading my own tv which is only 6 months old to the VT20.

Regards> M

 

[SpiceWeasel]

I think you will struggle to find a full hd tv that will beat your Pany with SD content, especially as your new tv has a bigger screen. A full hd tv has to scale the picture to a higher resolution than a hd ready tv and with a bigger screen the flaws are much easier to see.

Have you calibrated your new tv or are you using the default settings? A few minutes calibrating your settings with the free thx optimiser can work wonders as the default tv settings are normally miles off, the default settings are there to grab your attention when viewing in a brightly lit store.

As you are using freeview what sort of tv ariel do you have installed at the moment? If it is one of the older smaller ariels you might find a new bigger ariel properly aligned will improve the signal strength, which should improve the picture quality. A cleaner bigger signal will mean the tv has less work to do. If the signal is generally poor in your area then you could always think about getting freesat (via satellite dish) or maybe sky/virgin.

Trying to find any tv that will make ITV look good would require the skills of Ethan Hunt

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