Samsung has its hands in so many different TV categories — front- and rear-projection DLP TVs, flat-panel plasma and LCD sets, even old-school cathode-ray tube models — that it's hard to keep track of all the stuff they sell. Here at Sound & Vision, we've been so busy chasing down their recent DLP and LCD TVs that we've neglected to check out the plasma models — a situation we'll correct right now by giving the new Samsung HP-S5053 50-inch plasma HDTV a comprehensive look.
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What We Think
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| A nice-priced bigscreen plasma that delivers a crisp high-def picture and, for the most part, good overall video performance. |
With the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats now available, you'll want two HDMI connectors on your TV — one for a high-definition disc player and another for your HDTV cable box or satellite receiver. Samsung's got you covered there with two HDMI jacks, along with dual component-video connections and a VGA port for hooking up a computer.
The slim remote control echoes the TV's sleek, black design. Although it's not backlit, the buttons are cleanly arranged and vary enough in shape and size that you can easily locate the one you want in a dim room. As with many other TV remotes, you have to repeatedly press the Source button to toggle through the set's video inputs. Fortunately, only inputs with video sources currently connected show up on the list. You select display modes with the Picture Size button. The choices for standard 480i and 480p signals include 4:3, widescreen 16:9, and two picture-zoom settings. For HDTV programs, you can select between widescreen 16:9 and 4:3.
SETUP After I plugged an antenna into one of the Samsung's RF inputs (the second connector is for analog cable hookups), the TV's channel scan feature easily grabbed the digital broadcasts in the area, displaying channel IDs for all stations in an onscreen grid. The Samsung lacks any sort of electronic program guide (not a big loss, really), but pressing the Info button on the remote will let you see the basic data embedded in the broadcast, including channel ID, title, and program description.
To adjust the Samsung's image, you press the Picture Mode button on the remote and switch between its four picture presets (Dynamic, Standard, Movie, and Custom). Settings for each preset can be adjusted in the Picture menu and the set will remember your changes, but only one preset, Custom, can be independently tweaked for each of the video inputs. When customizing presets, you can also select from five Color Tone (color temperature) modes: Cool 1 and 2, Normal, and Warm 1 and 2. During testing, the Warm 2 setting measured closest to the 6,500-K TV grayscale standard and consequently delivered the most natural-looking color.
Other features in the HP-S5053's setup menu include video noise reduction and a suite of image-enhancement features Samsung calls DNIe (Digital Natural Image engine). Enabling noise reduction barely helped at all when I watched poor-quality cable or satellite TV programs, such as a Green Acres rerun on TV Land. DNIe, in contrast, helped improve picture quality somewhat, although I preferred to turn it off entirely when viewing DVDs and HDTV, which this Samsung set allows you to do (some previous models did not).
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The Short Form
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| $2,800 ($3,500 LIST) / 31.5 x 48.3 x 3.8 IN / 94 LBS / samsung.com / 800-726-7864 |
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Plus
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| •Crisp HDTV picture •Vivid, natural color •Nice looks •Nice price. |
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Minus
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| •Limited shadow depth with dark images •Banding artifacts occasionally visible  |
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Key Features
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| •1,366 x 768 resolution plasma display •Built-in HDTV tuner •Picture-in-picture •DNIe processing to improve look of analog TV •Inputs 2 HDMI, 2 component-video, and 2 composite-/S-video, all with analog stereo audio; VGA with minijack analog stereo audio; 2 RF antenna; analog stereo audio (for DVI source) •Outputs Optical and coaxial digital audio; analog stereo audio •Price $2,800 ($3,500 list) |
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Test Bench
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| The Samsung HP-S5053 HDTV's color temperature measured close to the 6,500K standard after picture tweaks were made to its Movie preset with the Warm 2 Color Tone mode selected. Fine-tuning via the service menu resulted in an even more accurate grayscale. After calibration, the TV's grayscale tracking was ±500K from 30 to 80 IRE — below-average performance. Color decoding varied from +10% red push on the HDMI input to +10 green on the component-video input. Picture overscan (the amount of picture area "hidden" behind the edges of the TV's screen) was 5% for both the HDMI and component-video inputs — higher than normal. The set's measured picture resolution was excellent for all high-def inputs, but its picture looked somewhat soft with standard 480i programs. Full Lab Results |
I next tuned our Dish Network receiver to travel guru Rick Steves' high-def program on HDNet. The Samsung showed an impressive range of subtle colors in the gardens at the Giverny estate of the French Impressionist painter Monet. It was like watching a canvas in motion! To check the HP-S5053's ability to deliver high-def detail, I pulled out Toshiba's new HD DVD player, booted it up, waited, and dropped in an HD DVD of the sci-fi film Serenity.
Watching a scene where the spaceship's crew discovers some mates dying on a dusty planet, I could clearly see the fine strands in the salt-and-pepper beard of Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), as well as the coarser texture of the burlap sacks his head was propped on. The crispness of the HD DVD picture here didn't come close to equaling that of a 65-inch 1080p-resolution rear-projector I'd been viewing prior to the Samsung (a much more expensive option), but it was still very sharp and satisfying.
Checking out another HD DVD — the movie spinoff of the videogame Doom — the Samsung continued to look sharp, but it definitely came up short when displaying the movie's many dark scenes. Blacks looked deep, but the HP-S5053's limited capacity for fleshing out shadows in dim shots obscured details such as the interior structure of a facility the marines investigate. For instance, as Sarge (The Rock) and crew made their way through tight, dark tunnels, their faces and hands seemed to float on the black background. Also, a degree of "banding," or false contouring, could be seen on the walls in a few lighter shots — an artifact that also gave the actors' skin tones a somewhat coarse look.
BOTTOM LINE Samsung's reasonably priced HP-S5053 50-inch plasma HDTV has several things going for it: a big image, great looks, a crisp high-def picture, wide-ranging connection options, and useful extras not always found in budget flat-panels. Although its handling of dark images was a notch below that of the best plasmas, its overall performance was more than satisfactory with most programs. With sets like this now selling for less than three grand, there are more reasons than ever to choose a flat model over a bulkier rear-projection set for bigscreen entertainment.
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