Samsung UN55HU8550 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED HDTV

Samsung Second Generation 4k UHD – I Am Weak – I Had To Buy, April 17, 2014

By 

Carter H “1amazonreviewer@gmail . com” (Tulsa, OK USA) –

  

  

This is the best picture quality of any TV I have had. It is a 4K TV and even though there isn’t any 4K content yet without getting movie on a hard drive and paying out the nose. This Samsung upscales the content up and it looks pretty darn great. Noticeably sharper then others that I looked at. The sound is also very good. There are plenty of smart features and internet hookup without having any external devices like Roku, Apple TV. Upconverts any source inputted. Samsungs latest backlighting technology.

I bought the TV for the picture quality not really for the 3D. Most of the smart features are just extra pluses.
It does a decent job of upscaling the HD content, but remember it is trying to upscale from HD to near 4K and the information is just not there for it to do real 4K. It, for the lack of better terms, makes a guess on what 4K should be. That withstanding it does guess well, and will offer a better picture than standard HD, just not UHD so expect that. Samsung isn’t talking about what the specs are for the up scaling at the time of this review.

Pros:
1. Excellent color and sharpness. Also controls to can easily adjust the picture to any way you wish (moe color saturation, less saturation, sharpness, brightness, etc) Lots of smart features I am still learning.

2. Excellent sound upgrade from standard HD Samsungs. For the price it should have good sound huh.

3. Watching Lord Of The Rings On This Will Make You Cry

4. 3D works great and comes with four sets of glasses.

Cons:
1. Dialog box pops up telling you that you can use voice controls. This is very distracting and I don’t need the a dialog box on the TV to pop up to tell me this. Its in the instructions booklet. It doesn’t happen very often- but it is annoying. You can disable this but it takes some time to dig through the screens until you are there.

2. Heavier than standard HD versions of Samsungs, like the 8000. Good info for those mounting on wall.

3. No Content to justify early adopter purchase price.

4. Friends watching Lord Of The Rings (Also crying picture is so good) begain plotting to take “Precious” from us.

There is just nothing to watch right now and the prices of these 4K sets are going to drop at least another 500 just like when the HD sets came on the scene. Plus the 4k technology will most likely get better when they decide just how the content is going to be implemented. On the upside Samsung uses what they call a Hub or One Connect box so if content inputs get better you can just replace the hub box instead of kicking yourself that you have to get a new set.

I tried the Netflix 4K streaming and it’s a mixed bag at this stage. Some of the nature documentaries look like 4K and some look more like 1080P.

The UHD dvd players are coming so if you have this Samsung you will be ready from day one. I think even the xbox is going to offer 4k content when connected. Does have a superior picture than non UHD tv’s. Its just gonna cost ya a little more brother. I had to have it. I couldnt wait. My current tv died on me and I had to do something. The only thing I could rationalize, being addicted to great new technology, was to go into debt to feed my habit. I am so ashamed at my weakness.

In all seriousness:
My suggestion is if you must have the latest 4k tech then here it is. Much better than Sony especially with their no customer service. The LG’s do look good, just not this good.

UPDATE 4-25-2014

Ok there has been a big controversy on whether this model comes with a one connect box or not. You get a different story everywhere. Found a Samsung training representative who spent two hours educating me on every 4k tv on earth and what was what. One Connect; 2013 version of this model had the external One Connect box. 2014 version of this model has internal One Connect with no external box. When One Connect technology is updated you can get the external box and it overrides the internal to keep everything cutting edge. He said samsung is supporting One Connect for a guaranteed four years to guard against your tv becoming obsolete. I asked him about the 1080p to 4k upscaling. He said yes it does a good job at kicking up standard HD better than Sony or LG, but if you want to see something great, get a 4K bluray player, then he drug me around to show what it could do. It was very impressive. He shared a story about the 9000 which requires an external One Connect box to opperate as all the technology is in the box and the tv is basically a monitor, said stores all over the place are misplacing the boxes when they move a tv and have all these dead big screens everywhere.This TV is a keeper.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Glossy screen, black bezel and cabinet, silver T-Shape stand

The Tuner receives over-the-air HDTV broadcasts (Seperate HDTV…
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Awesome TV you will love it but set it up!, April 22, 2014

I am not affiliated with Samsung or CNET.
[Side Note: I believe Samsung should provide free 2014 One connect boxes to F9000 owners because of the H265 codec, Google’s superior VP9 codec, and HDMI 2.0 as a gesture of good faith toward early adopters.]

This review will help you get the most out of your HU8550. I won’t waste your time listing all the specs.

I am posting here because some people badmouthed and down rated the Samsung F9000 because they did not know how to use it. I do not want the same thing to happen to this excellent TV. I have last year’s top-of-the-line F9000 4K model which is virtually the exact same TV as this, released only 5 months earlier. Only the Smart Hub software and HDMI ports changed.

I cannot believe how absolutely amazing the picture is. It’s colors explode, it’s blacks are black, it’s whites are white, flesh tones are real, and all of it is super sharp. With newscasts or interviews, people look like they’re sitting right in front of you. It’s almost scarey. Aerial shots and night shots of cities will blow you away. You cannot ask for a better picture. And that’s not just my opinion, read all of the professional reviews. Every single one of them love this TV.

NOTICE: Do not worry about 4K content not being available. This TV upscales. It has to because the screen is made of 3840 X 2160 pixels. Go to [….] and check the US news section. I quote it in the comments section. The upscaling of Samsung’s Quadmatic Picture Engine works wonders, especially with anything in HD (1080P). It also works fine with SD material but not as well because upscaling works with the material it starts with. That’s what it scales up. I can honestly tell you that I do not want a sharper picture than this. You can see every facial feature including eyelashes. Blu Rays and 4K YouTube’s will make you cry. Pause the picture anywhere, even get close to it, and be amazed.

Any person giving this TV anything less than five stars reveals their own foolishness for not setting it up, or they got a weird factory defect. You have to set it up(calibrate it for your room). If you are a newbie to electronics you have three options.

1. Learn how to set it up and you’ll love it. It is very easy.(I will help you in this post).
2. If you’re too lazy, don’t buy a piece of high-quality electronic equipment like this. You don’t deserve it.
3. Pay someone to calibrate it for you. Actually that’s a waste of money because in 20 minutes you can easily do it yourself with this post. You can make this TV look anyway you want it to look. Which is why comparisons in stores are superfluous unless you make all settings equal between the TVs.

Out of the box the picture looks disappointing , that’s Samsung’s fault, although most manufacturers do the same thing for the retail store lighting. When I first turned on this TV it looked like a soap opera or documentary. I knew this was not right.

Because I researched the F9000 (same internals as Hu8550) I knew what to do. The first thing to do is go to the System menu, scroll to the Eco-Solution Submenu, and turn OFF the accursed eco-saving feature and eco-sensor.

CNET has evaluators that are among the best in the industry. A professional named Katzmaier uses $30,000 worth of equipment to calibrate these TVs. Don’t know if I can post links here, so search for CNET’s HDTV picture settings forum forUN65f9000 or HU8550-a bit early for this as of this date. (The 55 inch versions take the same calibrations.)

However, there’s one problem with their settings. They calibrate their TVs in a dark room. Therefore their brightness levels are way too low. They acknowledge this, but it is a necessary starting point and equalizer for the different models. No problem, use Samsung’s default settings for Movie and set Backlight to their setting(12). It worked great with gamma at +1. The first thing you want to do is set it to Movie mode, which is what CNET uses. Play with other modes later.

———————

The settings I’m about to list are based on Katzmaier’s from CNET(get them and print them out) with some tweaks of my own made by going between his and the Samsung defaults. Do that, that’s safe. If you set your TV to these, you will love the picture. If not, tweak it for yourself somewhere between his settings and the defaults.

It is very easy, so don’t freak out. If you can turn your volume control up and down you can change your settings. The settings have a combined effect, so do not just do one area.

HOW TO SET A FANTASTIC PICTURE AND REMOVE MOTION BLURR/Judder:

Picture menu – Use all Samsung’s defaults for Movie mode with a slight color tweak
mode: Movie – the most important change.
backlight: 12 – CNET’s setting of 7 is way too low unless you are in a really dark…
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