Accuracy wins out.

In a rather interesting reversal of fortune, the Samsung and the Sony swapped positions compared with their rankings in last year's RPTV Face Off. This was really due to one thing: defeatable DNIe.

Samsung's "picture-enhancement" circuitry proved to be last year's ultimate polarizing factor. Some of our judges liked it; most of them didn't. Either way, it certainly didn't make the image look natural. The problem was that you couldn't disable the DNIe. This year's model had no such affliction. In fact, in Movie mode, you can't even enable the DNIe. Without this handicap, the display's strengths got to shine through.

The Samsung's most noticeable strength, interestingly, is its color. While every other display in this Face Off (in fact, most displays in general) had oversaturated color points, the HL-S6188W had nearly perfect color points. The result on the screen is an image that looks inherently realistic. This seemed to be the aspect of its performance that pushed it to the top of everyone's rankings. In fact, every judge commented on the display's natural look and realistic colors. As it won out over other TVs that had better contrast ratios and much better black levels, the importance of accurate color points seems to be clear.

The Samsung's processing was very good with both 480i and 1080i material. There were almost no noticeable jagged edges on the Silicon Optix DVD's flag scene. The Samsung picked up the 3:2 sequence quickly with Gladiator but not at all with the synthetic Silicon Optix test. Like most of the TVs, it couldn't pick it up at all with 1080i, either. The scaling was pretty good, and most of the judges gave it compliments on its level of detail. The same was true with noise, as in there wasn't a lot of it.

The judges didn't like the remote because its black-on-black design made it tough to use in the dark.

This set wasn't without its problems, and one stands out over the others. This TV is way too bright. Don't dismiss this, as it is a real issue. If you plan to watch this TV in a dark room, it will be extremely fatiguing. If, for example, a night scene transitions to a day scene, you will probably wince and squint your eyes. It's that bright. With no way to adjust the light output in the user menu, I question the usability of this TV at night, as did several of the judges. It's too bright. Several other TVs in this Face Off have an adjustable iris to drop the light output when desired. This TV needs a user-menu iris adjustment more than any display we've reviewed. Sure, everyone loves a bright display, but this one has gone over the edge. An adjustable iris would also address this TV's other shortcoming, mediocre blacks.

So, apparently, there is an iris, although, for some reason, it's only accessible via the service menu by a trained ISF calibrator. As we don't feel that it is fair to assume that this level of adjustment will be available to all readers, we're not including that performance here. If you're interested, check out my blog on our Website.

Yet, the Samsung still won, despite its eye-watering light output. The scaling and deinterlacing (except for 1080i) are good. The colors are nearly perfect, and it tracks D6500 quite well. The contrast ratio is good, although the black level is merely OK. It's one of the most realistic and natural RPTVs we've seen through here, and it's our clear winner. Just don't forget to bring some sunglasses.

Highlights
• Very natural looking
• Nearly perfect color points

At A Glance: Samsung HL-S6188W DLP HDTV

Connections
Inputs:
Video: HDMI (2), component video (2), S-video (2, shared), composite video (3, 2 shared)
Audio: None
Outputs:
Video: Composite video (1)
Audio: Stereo analog (1), optical (1)
Additional: CableCARD (1), PC-RGB (1), FireWire (2), RF (2), G-Link, RS-232, USB

Features
Type: DLP
Screen Size (diagonal): 61
Native Resolution: 1080p
Lamp Life: NA
Dimensions
(H x W x D, inches): 38.6 x 55.3 x 17.6 Weight (pounds): 79.4
Price: $3,300

Ratings: Samsung HL-S6188W DLP HDTV

Build Quality: 92

Value: 92

Features: 91

Performance: 95

Ergonomics: 88

Overall Rating: 93

General Information
HL-S6188W DLP HDTV, $3,300
Samsung Electronics America
(800) SAMSUNG
www.samsung.com
Dealer Locator Code SAM

HT Labs Measures: Samsung HL-S6188W DLP HDTV

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio—5,142:1; ANSI Contrast Ratio—561:1

Measured Resolution with the Leader LT-446:
480: 480 (per picture height)
720p: 720 (pph)
1080i: 1,080 (pph)

DC Restoration (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Color Decoder (poor, average, good, excellent): Good

Measured Color Points:
Red Color Point: x=0.642, y=0.332
Green Color Point: x=0.303, y=0.604
Blue Color Point: x=0.145, y=0.062

The left chart shows the HL-S6188W's gray scale relative to its color temperature at various levels of intensity, or brightness (20 IRE is dark gray; 100 IRE is bright white). The gray scale as set by the factory, in the Warm 2 color-temperature mode and the Movie picture mode, measures fairly warm. After making adjustments using the Photo Research PR-650, the gray scale measures very close to D6500, the accurate color temperature, across the entire range.

The right chart shows the gray scale (or color temperature) relative to the color points of the display's red, green, and blue color-filter-wheel segments. These are very close to those specified by SMPTE. Red is very slightly oversaturated. Blue is very slightly oversaturated and very slightly greenish-blue. Green is very slightly yellowish-green. The color points are adjustable, and, after calibration, red and green can be spot on with the SMPTE spec. Blue is still very slightly greenish-blue.

After calibration, and using a full-field 100-IRE white (169.7 foot-lamberts) and a full-field 0-IRE black (0.033 ft-L), the contrast ratio was 5,142:1. Using a 16-box checkerboard pattern (ANSI contrast), the contrast ratio was 561:1.—GM