Hi,
I am only a recent member to this forum, but having had a fair bit of advice already, I thought I would give something back.
I bought the Samsung UE40ES5500 TV in the New Year and have been driving the Mrs mad playing around with all the settings for a few days.
Having eventually downloaded and created the free AVS HD 709 calibration DVD, I thought I would share the calibration results for this set (haven't found these widely available on the net and they would also presumably apply to the 32 and 46 inch models). I have these same settings applied to all my HDMI inputs.
The first thing to say is that ALL the advice out there is to immediately switch the TV to Movie mode when it arrives. However, in my opinion, this resulted in a far WORSE picture than standard UNTIL I calibrated the set (dunno whether a recent firmware update has altered how the Movie mode appears by default!).
Here are the results:
Picture Mode: Movie
Backlight: 13 (highly dependent on your surroundings)
Contrast: 85
Brightness: 40
Sharpness: 20
Colour: 53
Tint (G/R): 49/51
Screen Adjustment: Screen Fit
Advanced Settings:
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Black Tone: Off
Flesh Tone: 0
RGB Only Mode: Off
Colour Space: Auto
White Balance: Defaults
Gamma: -2
Motion Lighting: Off
Picture Options:
Colour Tone: Warm2
Digital Noise Filter: Off
MPEG Noise Filter: Off
HDMI Black Level: Low
File Mode: Auto2
LED Motion Plus: Off
A couple of things to mention:
The colour setting from the calibration actually came out at 48. However, I personally found this far too weak. Increasing it to 53 makes it a lot better.
I also tried to adjust the white balance (based on advice found on the net) by reducing both the blue offset and gain to about 12. But this resulted in weird colours, so I left alone!
The gamma one is also interesting - have seen some people recommend +3 when I have it at -2!
Just for good measure:
Sound Mode: Movie
Some of these options are "greyed out" depending on whether I'm using PS3 as source, or Sky HD.
I do have to say that this is an excellent TV and I don't think the out-of-the box standard picture is as bad as people make out. However, calibrating the set is definitely worth it - Frozen Planet on HD is absolutely out of this world!!
I was also panicking about the need for an expensive soundbar prior to purchase, but I have deemed it not necessary. The sound is a lot better than anticipated.
If there are any negatives then motion blur does happen during fast moving camera shots - but it doesn't really detract from the experience.
At the end of the day, the set was £449 with a 5-year warranty (and it's coming down in price) so you can't really go far wrong!
I am only a recent member to this forum, but having had a fair bit of advice already, I thought I would give something back.
I bought the Samsung UE40ES5500 TV in the New Year and have been driving the Mrs mad playing around with all the settings for a few days.
Having eventually downloaded and created the free AVS HD 709 calibration DVD, I thought I would share the calibration results for this set (haven't found these widely available on the net and they would also presumably apply to the 32 and 46 inch models). I have these same settings applied to all my HDMI inputs.
The first thing to say is that ALL the advice out there is to immediately switch the TV to Movie mode when it arrives. However, in my opinion, this resulted in a far WORSE picture than standard UNTIL I calibrated the set (dunno whether a recent firmware update has altered how the Movie mode appears by default!).
Here are the results:
Picture Mode: Movie
Backlight: 13 (highly dependent on your surroundings)
Contrast: 85
Brightness: 40
Sharpness: 20
Colour: 53
Tint (G/R): 49/51
Screen Adjustment: Screen Fit
Advanced Settings:
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Black Tone: Off
Flesh Tone: 0
RGB Only Mode: Off
Colour Space: Auto
White Balance: Defaults
Gamma: -2
Motion Lighting: Off
Picture Options:
Colour Tone: Warm2
Digital Noise Filter: Off
MPEG Noise Filter: Off
HDMI Black Level: Low
File Mode: Auto2
LED Motion Plus: Off
A couple of things to mention:
The colour setting from the calibration actually came out at 48. However, I personally found this far too weak. Increasing it to 53 makes it a lot better.
I also tried to adjust the white balance (based on advice found on the net) by reducing both the blue offset and gain to about 12. But this resulted in weird colours, so I left alone!
The gamma one is also interesting - have seen some people recommend +3 when I have it at -2!
Just for good measure:
Sound Mode: Movie
Some of these options are "greyed out" depending on whether I'm using PS3 as source, or Sky HD.
I do have to say that this is an excellent TV and I don't think the out-of-the box standard picture is as bad as people make out. However, calibrating the set is definitely worth it - Frozen Planet on HD is absolutely out of this world!!
I was also panicking about the need for an expensive soundbar prior to purchase, but I have deemed it not necessary. The sound is a lot better than anticipated.
If there are any negatives then motion blur does happen during fast moving camera shots - but it doesn't really detract from the experience.
At the end of the day, the set was £449 with a 5-year warranty (and it's coming down in price) so you can't really go far wrong!

