Samsung PN63C8000 63-Inch 1080p 3D Plasma HDTV, Black

Review by skooba for Samsung PN63C8000 63-Inch 1080p 3D Plasma HDTV, Black
Rating:
I’ve had this TV for 3 days now. I’m not going to go into great detail on the picture quality, because other reviews have commented on how good it is. The purpose of this review is to be a data point for a buzzing set. I have the latest firmware, the ferrite cores installed around the power cord, and the tv is sitting away from the wall. It BUZZES, plain and simple. If you’re anywhere in front of the TV itself, it can be heard. If you move your head beyond the bezel of the TV, the buzzing goes away almost 100%. I sit 15 feet away and can clearly hear it during low volume. I’m trying to keep the volume loud enough to drown it out, but during quiet scenes I hear it. It’s a very high pitched frequency. My parents cannot hear it (56 years old), but I clearly can (27 years old). My girlfriend can hear it but she says it doesn’t bother her. It bothers me, to the point where I am not enjoying the TV.

I contacted ABT (one of the sellers listed here on Amazon) and they simply state “all plasmas buzz.” While that is true to an extent, they don’t buzz like this model. Both of my brother’s have plasmas. One is a 58b550 that doesn’t buzz like this, the other is a 60″ Pioneer Kuro that doesn’t buzz like this. I have a Samsung tech coming out soon, but I’m fairly confident on what will be said, either a) it’s a normal sound or b) I’ll need a complete new panel. I don’t want either. I want to return the set and exchange it for the same model with hopefully a newer build date to see if the issue has been addressed. If not I’ll move on to a different TV.

If you aren’t able to hear extremely high frequency sounds, then you’ll fall in love with this TV. If you can hear it, and you have the TV positioned so you sit in front of it at eye level, it will bother you. If you mount it above eye level so that the bottom of the bezel is above your eyes, you will not hear it.

I really wish this set didn’t buzz. It’s an awesome TV aside from the horrendous noise it emits. It’s sleek, attractive, runs cool in comparison to other plasmas, decent black levels, excellent color reproduction, great video processing, but oh man, the buzzing.

I hope this review helps others to make sure beforehand that they can/can’t hear this type of buzzing. Hopefully it will save you the headache that I am currently going through.

Review by K. Burke for Samsung PN63C8000 63-Inch 1080p 3D Plasma HDTV, Black
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I bought this tv to replace my Sony 52″ XBR4 (Which was great when it first came out) becuase I wanted the new 3D technology as well as well as a good HD TV. This is my first Plasma TV. I have 4 other LCD TVs that work great but I was really impressed witht he picture of the Plasma. The black are definately blacker than my LCDs. For a general HD TV it has the best picture out of all my TVs and it is also one of the best I have seen on the market. The internet on the TV is pretty good. It was easy to set up. I am using it directly connected to my router so it is wired. I did not fell like paying $80 extra dollars for the wireless adapter plus I had a Gigaswitch located in my rack that was easy to run a cable. The apps for the internet were quite responsice to my surprise. I though there would be a long lag time but that was not so. You have access to sports scores, weather, YouTube and Netflix just to name a few. I did notice a buzzing noise at first as mentioned in other reviews but it was only there when I initially installed it and now it its no longer there.

Now onto the 3D. I demoed it at the store and I was pretty impressed. It was on a 47″ or 52″ LCD I think. It was not until I got the 63″ in my house that I was blown away. The 3D on the plasma was so much better. The picture just looked like it was going to pop right off the screen. I was really impressed with the 2D to 3D function of this tv. It actually works. It may not be the best but it works quite well. Yes you do look silly wearing the glasses but they felt really comfortable. I wear glasses and the 3D glasses fit right over them nicely. I did not get dizzy or get any headaches.

I wanted to clarify some information about setting up a 3D system. when going to some stores i was given some wrong information. I was told that I would need to buy all the same brands for all the equipment needed. So I would need to buy the Samsung TV, Glasses and Blu-ray player. I knew that I need the TV and the Glasses to be the same but the Blu-ray player does not. I wanted to purchase the Panasonic Blu-ray player becuase it had the duel HDMI ports on it so that I would not have to upgrade to a receiver that has HDMI 1.4 to get the HD audio. I did purchase the Panasonic blu-ray and it works just fine. This is the way to go if you have an older Reciever with HDMI Switching and you want to get Dolby Digital HD and DTS Master Audio HD from your Blu-ray player.

I would definately recommend it to anyone.

Review by K. Arsala for Samsung PN63C8000 63-Inch 1080p 3D Plasma HDTV, Black
Rating:
I researched for about 1 month before deciding on this TV. Initially I thought I would buy a Sony but I started leaning towards the Samsung 55 inch LED. However after demoing this TV and reading about it extensively, I decided to go for it. I made the right decision. If you are thinking about getting the Samsung LED over this, I would strongly suggest this Plasma. Infact I think its the best TV available other than the Samsung 9000 series LED which costs more than twice as much and is smaller.

Pros: Outstanding Black level, I didn’t realize how important black level was to the overall picture quality.

Outstanding color reproduction, I am seeing shades that I didn’t know existed.

Good color vibrancy: Bright and outstanding in low lit rooms. Ok in bright rooms, there is some reflection. and not as bright as the LED, but viewing LED at angles is absolutely horrible. This TV is great when watching from any angle.

Cons: Does buzz a bit, but its just at the borderline of being annoying. So far I only hear it when listening at very low volume when the kids are sleeping. But not too noticeable. It does get a little louder when switching to 3D. If it gets any louder i would have a problem with it, but not now.

Also this set generates alot of heat, i was surprised, but read elsewhere its normal. I mean it is a very big screen so its understandable.

Other thoughts:

Only get this TV if you don’t watch much standard definition TV, its too big and just magnifies the defects of SD, get 46 inch or smaller. If you watch alot of HD, then you’ll be happy.

I was not impressed with the 2D to 3D conversion. Maybe i’m not watching good source material, but it didn’t seem to add much depth and instead made the picture darker.

Watching my home movie which is recorded in my HD Camcorder is amazing! Its like watching HD TV.

Can’t wait for the PS3 upgrade to be able to play 3D videos and games. I’m sure watching a 3D source will be worth the wait.

This TV’s picture quality is so good that you notice the slightest defects in the picture itself when for example the camera is trying to focus, you can see the slightest shifts in focus, light changes and camera movements. I was thinking that the picture is so good and large that it amplifies the defects of the recording itself.

All in all, this is a fantastic TV.

UPDATE After 1 Month of Ownership:

There were many factors that made me choose this TV over the LED. For the same price, the size–going from 55 to 63 inches is a big difference, you are increasing viewing area by about 25%. 600 HZ refresh is also very important, I hate to have pixilation or picture jutter, when demoing the LED I noticed it more….. I only get it very rarely on this TV, usually when the entire camera pans up/down, not so much side to side. Also the picture brightness is almost equal to the LED, the LED has an edge in this area, but it also makes the picture appear a bit artificial, almost too much vibrancy that does not seem natural. The Black level is superior but 3D is alot better than the LED. Plasmas reproduce better 3D. Also, viewing angle was important to me since my viewing position would not be head on in my living room. LEDs are not good when viewed from angles. It has been one month now since I’ve purchased this TV and am very sure I made the right decision. I would strongly urge getting this over the LED.

Review by DASH RIPROCK for Samsung PN63C8000 63-Inch 1080p 3D Plasma HDTV, Black
Rating:
I have this tv in my bedroom, high on the wall about 8.5 to 9 feet from where my head rests. I enjoy the tv very much except I sometimes notice wavy lines around people or objects when they move across the screen. I don’t know much about the new tv technology so I can’t say if it’s because of the tv, the blu ray player or maybe it’s on the actual blu ray discs. I tried the different judder settings but it made no difference…not even sure what the judder settings are for as I haven’t read thru the manual yet. It bothered me alot for awhile but not as much anymore because once you accept a flaw you can relax more and enjoy the otherwise great picture. Anyway, I enjoy watching blu ray movies on this big screen tv and also enjoy watching tv shows in hd. Although the hd tv picture isn’t as good as blu ray it’s still great. I usually just watch the tv in bed at night before I fall asleep. It kind of feels like I’ve got my comfy bed in a movie theatre. Also the 3 wake up timer settings are great as well. I have all 3 set so I’m sure to wake up in time. If I had the tv a year ago the wake up timer settings would have paid for the tv by now, since I often couldn’t wake up in time to get downstairs intime to start trading stocks when the market opened so I lost a lot of money because of it. I tried the clock radio but even putting it across the room so I had to get up to turn it off couldn’t keep me up as I was often very tired from only getting a few hours sleep for days at a time. Now I have the tv turn on 3 times between 6 am and 6:20 am to wake me up and I set it to a high brightness and there is a setting to have the volume at whatever level you like. Regarding brightness, another feature I like is the picture can be set differently for when watching a blu ray movie or from the cable pvr box or from the built in tv tuner. So even though the tv comes on bright to wake me up, the picture settings for watching a blu ray movie are not affected, which for me is a nice convenient feature so I don’t have to change the picture settings when I watch a blu ray movie or when watching shows from the pvr box. While on the subject, at first I was actually dissapointed in the tv because I found it too bright to watch but now that I have the brightness, contrast and colour turned down a lot I find it a lot nicer and easy on the eyes. I guess that might be because I watch it it a dark or dimly lit room. Also at first when I watched the 3d monsters and aliens movie I thought it was enjoyable but nothing great…however when my sister came over and watched it she liked the 3d alot and I guess her enthusiasm kind of rubbed off on me so I guess I’ll get a few more 3d movies. Also I’m probably going to buy a lot more blu ray movies as I’d like to watch even some of the older movies on blu ray like for example north by northwest is an old favorite I’d like to see on the “big screen”. Before I had the tv I’d feel kind of depressed a bit near the end of the day, since another day was over and there was nothing left to do but get into bed and try to fall asleep. Now at the end of the day it kind of feels like I’m going to the movie theatre each night.