Samsung LE40R87 Problems

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Hey guys.

I recently (two days ago) bought an LE40R87 in the high street along with a Kenmark stand and a bunch of highly marked up but then highly discounted Monster cables.

After watching the screen for a few hours, using settings loosely taken from the dedicated thread in an av forum, I began to notice that there are constantly diagonal, almost vertical lines going down the screen, that are noticeable both on Scart and HDMI. The bars are most noticeable when the picture has lots of single colours, like Brainiac on Sky. I can lower the contrast on my STB to medium which makes the lines harder to see at a cost of every scene thats remotely dark having no detail at all. No amount of adjusting the TV contrast/brightness/etc will get rid of the bars. Sky+ is connected by Scart using the cable sold for £120! No aerials are connected, simply the STB and HDMI from my AVR, with 360 connected to it with HDMI.

There is also a large light patch towards the bottom right of the screen that can only really be seen when the ambient light is low, but is quite noticeable during dark scenes in films, even more so with the Sky contrast set to medium!

Input lag is another issue i'm being plagued with, makes watching movies unwatchable when using my AVR for sound, which annoyingly has no lipsync settings. (CA 640R)

I took the set back to the store today, who refused to refund me directly without first having an engineer visit my home to declare the set faulty. Though, he offered me a Sony KDL-40T2800 at a price matching my current set, so it'd be a straight swap affair. I declined, not knowing that this set is the same as the KDL-40S3000, but under a name unique to the group, even though they sell the S3000 as well!

I'm going to be called with an engineer visit date tomorrow, should I ask to just come in and exchange for the Sony, or stick with it, get a refund, and get something else from somewhere else?

With all the problems with Samsung looming around, I could do without the hassle of getting another one and having it not work. Any ideas guys?
 
Have a look on the M86/M87 thread on avforums - you can't miss it as it's had nearly a million views! The scart banding has been done to death in this thread. It appears it's a design flaw but is only an issue on Ext2. Again, lipsync I believe is dealt with by doing a firmware update; ensure this is set to auto in the D.Menu or do a manual update when Samsung are broadcasting the new firmware. A check on avfourms suggests there's a new version being broadcast tomorrow from 9am until the 4th.

Backlight problems are panel specific. My M86 does not have any issues so I think I've just been lucky.
 
I have an R87 sadly :( I don't think it offers OTA firmware upgrades, but I wouldn't know for sure, I've not had an aerial attached to it at all.
Had a call from them today, he had the cheek to say they can charge me for the engineer callout if the TV is found to be not faulty! If I want to return a 2 day old TV then it's going to be faulty! :(

I really can't afford to spend more than I've spent already, so I'm limited to what they sell around that price.

I can only really consider...
PHILIPS 42PFL7662D/05 £799 (only if he'll budge on the price)
HITACHI L42VPO1 £799 (only if he'll budge on the price)
SONY KDL-40T2800 £799 but he'll pricematch my Samsung
TOSHIBA 37X3030DB £699

All are 1080p except the Sony. What to do!?
 
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Hi

The scart banding has been a issue for years i have a 2 year old samsung 40" lcd tv and that has the same scart banding issue that the newer samsung models have.
 
Need a quick response as going in a few mins!

SONY KDL-40T2800 £799 but he'll pricematch my Samsung
TOSHIBA 37X3030DB £699

Anyone quick?!!

Well, got the Sony, will report back how it goes!
 
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Direct quote from avfourms m86 thread:

"has anyone else who was experiencing sacrt interference tried the solution i posted back on 18/12 of routing the scart and power cables away from the main connections using the cable tie that is fised on back of the set?

i have treid this and noticed massive reduction in scart interference along with using decent sheilded cables."

Decent quality scart cables can dramitically reduce the problem too. How about using S-Video for Sky?

I suggest you look closely to see if you can upgrade your firmware as this may well cure the lipsync problem too.
 
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Heh, well never mind. I'd have thought this silly expensive scart cable would have done a good enough job at lowering/removing external interference. It's the Scart cable sold at £119.99...big chunky thing, does give a clearer and brighter picture than the scart cable that come with my Sky box though!

I'm seeing exactly the same stripes running down my screen on this Sony, so I'm inclined to say its the box! I don't have any other devices to check, so I'll have to buy a DVD player!

The stripes can only be seen when the screen has a lot of the same colour, but goes away if I lower the contrast on Sky to Medium from High. Will have to check if that kills the blacks though!

This TV isn't annoying me any where near as much as the Samsung though, very little input lag, so close behind the AVR that it's even acceptable using both sound sources at once. Not got the picture settings 100% how I want them yet though, and there don't seem to be any T2800/S3000 settings lingering around :(

Thanks for all your advice though guys! Ultimately I was limited to what this retailer had, and I couldn't spend any more.
The Toshiba 37X3030 had an awful viewing angle, couldn't have lived with that, the colours almost invert!
 
Hope you're going to be pleased with the new set. There's little more annoying then spending a fair old wodge of cash on something only for it to let you down by it's performance. It's interesting that the 'lines' are still evident even with the Sony - it's a fair old bet then that its the box to blame, as you say.

Lag on the samsung is an annoyance but I'm very pleased with my LE40M86 now I've sorted out the settings. SD tele via the inbuilt freeview actually looks pretty swish on channels which aren't highly compressed.

Best of luck with the Sony!
 
I've found an odd single pixel defect, by accident, when I turned off my 360 and the screen went black. It looks a different colour dependent on the angle its looked at. The pixel isn't dead though, it can change to any colour, it just seems to let light through when asked to make black. Can't see it from over a meter away though, so I can live with it, plus its near the edge :)

I'd worry that if I bothered replacing it, it'd have an even worse pixel defect, and I can't be bothered with that really!
 
I noticed by accident, a small pixel defect. When showing a black screen, there is a pixel about inch or so from the top of the screen that won't go black, but it'll go most other colours. I can't see through solid red green blue screens etc, and can only see it from some angles and within a metre or so. I'd rather it wasn't there obviously, but it's not enough of an annoyance to want to try a replacement which may be worse. If it were a stuck on red pixel or something, then it'd be going straight back!

I'm sure there's people that'd send a TV back if they had the same defect, but it's not a computer monitor, it's a TV that I'm sitting across the room from, totally impossible to see, unless you stand up and look at it from a metre or less away. Thankfully!

Happy with it so far, near non existant input lag and far less smearing/blurring going on in games. Seems small already, want something bigger! But thats to come a couple years from now, when large 1080P plasmas are a more sensible price perhaps :)

EDIT: Must have had an old copy of this thread on a tab, didn't look like I'd posted!
 
Bah, theres been an annoying niggle with this screen that I've not been able to put my finger on, and I just have!

bright areas of screen images appear to be making darker areas lighter.

I noticed when I paused Pacman CE (Xbox 360) which is predominantly black, that the pulsing menu select cursor thing causes the entire screen to pulse light and dark to the rhythm of the cursor. Or when starting Burnout revenge/paradise, the dark splash screen as the game begins flash lighter as the animation in the middle of the screen runs. It's been bugging me when watching tv, in dark scenes as something bright slowly pans onto the screen, the dark areas suddenly get brighter. My computer monitor doesn't seem to do the same thing, even if I whack the brightness right up.

I can alleviate the problem on the TV by lowering the brightness below 57/100, but at this point I start to lose a lot of detail in the blacks, and the resulting image just looks boring.

Is this behaviour normal of LCD TV's? or have I got yet another duff and should get it replaced asap?

Cheers :)
 
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