Samsung PN50C550 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV (Black)
- Mega Dynamic Contrast
- E3-panel single filter design
- Exceeds ENERGY STAR Standards
- Game Mode
- Clear Image Panel
Get a true cinematic experience without going to the cinema with a Samsung plasma HDTV. This Samsung PN50C550, with Mega Dynamic Contrast Ratio makes sure every frame is saturated with dense, rich color. Samsung is also ENERGY STAR compliant so you are assured that your 50 -inch plasma HDTV is helping the environment by using less enery while saving you money.
List Price: $ 1,299.99
Price: $ 1,299.99
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Comments
2 comments
jartwo “jartwo”
June 11, 2011
Not Only Excellent For The Money, But Excellent, Period.,
I had tried to buy the previous “B” model at close-out prices, but I missed the boat. Thought I might be outta luck until the “C” version started showing up a day or so afterward and it turned out to be basically the same TV, just about 25lbs lighter – only 2 people needed to wall mount – I was down with that and $[…] bucks still didn’t seem too bad. I had already researched for some time and Plasma was it for me. The Panny G-10 had a similarly good picture too, and although it offers much to consider, I liked the Sammy’s picture just a bit more, but you may want to check it out as well. I received the set with zero problems or issues: no dead pixels or any buzzing, whines or anything amiss at all. Outta the box the picture was quite good, and showed me good resolution performance even with SD cable with no video noise issues (although initially I did find it necessary to use the 3 supplied ferrite, choke magnets that snap onto the power cord. These not only eliminated the several horizontal noise bands in the picture, but cleaned up the resolution on the overall picture with no downside – an easy fix that totally nixed the problem for me).
But, tweaking the picture a bit is where this set shines the most. When researching, I came across a site that offered a list of picture control settings for the “B” version. Since this is really the same panel, I factored it into my buying decision accordingly. Especially since the settings were said to be obtained with a Sencore color analyzer (about a $10,000 pro device for calibrating video displays and is the sort of thing used by the Imaging Science Foundation – ISF. They at least did pioneer and continue to legitimize the video calibration practice, but more to the point, it WASN’T done by any of the more lame imitators that have since cropped up (like Geek Squad, Spyder and others) whom, I feel, exist to separate you from your money (at about $300 a calibration) while hardly giving you a better picture adjustment than you can get on your own with a $25 calibration DVD).
What this means to us is that the results of, what I’m taking to be the equivalent of a $300 (legit) picture calibration, for this particular set anyway, have already been posted on the web for free – not an inconsequential consideration, for anyone interested. I’m posting those numbers here, for those who are:
White Balance Settings:
Red-Offset: 22
Green-Offset: 25
Blue-Offset: 12
Red-Gain: 33
Green-Gain: 25
Blue-Gain: 33
Picture Settings:
Picture Mode: Movie
Color Temp: Warm 2
Brightness: 56
Contrast: 90
Cell Light 8
Color: 53
Tint: G35/R65
Sharpness: 10
Black Tone: Off
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Gamma: 0
Colorspace: Auto
Flesh Tone: Off
Edge Enhancement: Off
Digital NR: Auto
HDMI Black Level: Low
Film Mode: Auto
When I tried these settings I noticed a very organic, natural-looking picture, one that offered me a few surprizes. This set happens to be inherently capable of showing a more-than-generous amount of color saturation without problem. I personally prefer a picture that’s just slightly undersaturated, if anything (but, I expect this set will accomodate anyone’s taste on that score, if yours are different than mine). With all this, what I found was that even when slightly undersaturated and I felt the picture was indeed realistic-looking, whenever an unusually colorful object was displayed (like a particularly vivid piece of clothing, or a brightly flourescent color – like some NASCAR colors, for example), this TV displayed BOTH the less intense colors of the more mundane objects, and the most decidedly vivid ones, equally well in the same scene AT THE SAME TIME – never subduing the most vivid colors even when the overall color level looked ‘properly’ undersaturated to me on the more everyday objects. Nor was it unnaturally emphasizing them, for that matter. The result was a TV that, on any good, HiDef, cable feed, regularly showed me a surprisingly wide (yet natural-looking) “dynamic range” of color intensity in the images. I could just about feel as if the TV itself were getting out of the way and showing me clearly (and more truthfully than I’ve seen in my home before) just what the camera saw. Very nice and, as I say, surprizingly convincing (and this with simply 1080i and 720p cable feeds – a Blu-ray player is definitely next!). This set, after my preferred adjustments, didn’t make all the colors look too subdued, like some plasmas I’ve seen have ended up doing, nor all the colors too vivid, like some LCD’s. I felt like it walked the line beautifully – not merely a good…
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|G. Bell
June 11, 2011
Outstanding picture, better value than LCD/LED,
I’ve had mine for two weeks now and could not be more pleased with my choice. I reviewed LCD, LED and Plasma as I was looking for something in the 46″-50″ range. I had narrowed my options down to the Panny G15 ogr G20 and this set. Frankly, they both had a few reports of problems. The Pannys being the changing black levels that panasonic says is a planned adjustment as the set ages vs. the buzzing that some Samsung Plasma owners seem to get. I decided that the buzzing was a hit or miss and if I got one that did buzz, I would return it and by another at a later date. Sicne the Panny is engineered to adjust it’s black levels and they are clearly not going to fix the issue with a firmware update, I scratched them from the list. This set has the best picture of anything I looked at straight out of the box. After tweaking with some settings I found on the web, It is truly like looking out a picture window into the real world. Acturate, lifelike colors that are not over saturated and look as natural as I’ve ever seen. Sound on this set is much better than many reviewers give it credit for as long as your not expecting 5.1 theater type sound from a tv. Plenty loud, no humming or hissing or problems for my family. There’s plenty of hookups (4 HDMI, PC, Componet and composite for most everyones needs.
I’ve mounted mine on the wall using a mount from monoprice and it’s now it’s like the home theater I always wanted. Great picture from about 10′ viewing distance. For under $1200, I feel like I stole this set. If your looking, make sure you give this one a try.
One last thing is to READ the manual. there are a few tips inside that are priceless. One is that the “pixal orbiter” that prevents burn in requires a certain setting (can’t remember it exactly since I set it up and forgot it). I used the settings in the Most Helpful Post in this forum and then tweaked slightly to the lighting conditions of my room. I’m currently running well below max brightness to help break the set in but it looks great so I doubt I’ll turn it up any once I get a 1000 hours on it.
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