I would love to love this tv. But, until Samsung begins to even acknowledge brightness pops and the continuous gray bars in letter box washing out, I won't ever buy another one from them. I currently have the 59d8000, but I also have the panasonic vt60 64 inch. Probably the best picture I've ever seen with the Panasonic.
Samsung PN60F8500 3D Plasma HDTV Specs
Type: Plasma
Screen Size (diagonal, inches): 60
Native Resolution: 1920 x 1080
3D: Yes (active glasses)
HDTV Tuner: OTA
Wall Mount or Stand Included?: Stand
Dimensions (W x H x D, inches): 54.8 x 32.5 x 2.1 (without stand); 54.8 x 34.2 x 11.8 (with stand)
Weight (pounds): 64.3 (without stand); 71.4 (with stand)
Price: $3,150
Connections
Inputs: Video: HDMI 1.4 (4), component video (1, shared), composite video (1 shared), antenna
Audio: Stereo analog (1)
Outputs: Audio: Optical digital (TosLink, 1), IR (1)
Additional: EX-Link (service, 1), USB 2.0 (3), LAN (1), Audio Return Channel (with compatible AVR), Port for Samsung’s Evolution Kit
Company Info
Samsung
(800) 726-7864
samsung.com
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robbi1121, I was the first one to discover the brightness pops and personally reported it to Samsung engineers. Samsung was able to repeat and see the problem in their lab, acknowledged it and completely fixed the brightness fluctuations in early May with firmware 1102, last week further enhancements were released with firmware 1104.
Regarding the cropping bars I've personally seen more than 60 F8500s that we professionally calibrated and have not seen grey cropping bars. We put a Klein 10 meter on the CinemaScope 2.35:1 bars and the MLL was measured at .00167fL, which is very dark.
I agree that Panasonic's VT60 is an excellent display, but suggest you take another look at the F85000 that is properly set-up and in a good viewing environment, I think you will like what you see.
-Robert

Tom, love your review, very accurate and well written.
-Robert


This may be a question for Robert Zohn or Rob Sabin, but does anyone know whether the PN64F8500, which competed against the Panasonic TC-P65ZT60 and TC-P65VT60 in the Value Electronics HDTV Shooutout, had the "Black Optimizer" enabled or not?
The "Audience" and especially the "Experts" rated the black level of the Samsung to be worse than the Panasonic's, and then when the Panasonic's were compared to the Kuro, it was noted there is still a way to go.
Yet Thomas in this review has stated that in comparison to his Kuro the black level ranges from "couldn’t quite keep up" to "essentially indistinguishable."

MODEL BLACKS WHITES CONTRAST
Samsung F8500 (0.0017ft/L) (214.74) = 126,317:1
Panasonic ZT60 (0.0011ft/L) (114.90) = 104,454:1
Panasonic VT60 (0.0012ft/L) (81.90) = 68,250:1

No one argues that the Samsung isn't capable of a higher peak brightness than the Panasonics. If you do most of your viewing in a very bright room this might be important. But a brightly lit room will dramatically increase the measurable black level and make the contrast ratio that was measured in a dark room irrelevant.

First, I have to say thanks everyone for their insight.
My wife has ordered me this television, as a surprise. I'm looking forward to it showing up. I know these settings are calibrated for watching a movie in a dark room, but what should I change for optimal sports viewing? Most of our Saturday afternoons are spent watching football games, and our teams seem to always have the 3:00pm game.

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