Samsung UN46C8000 Review

Glasses

Samsung doesn’t provide glasses with the television. Costs are 70 – 130 $ depending on the model you choose. Your options are limited between Samsung rechargeable or non-rechargeable, the latter working on special batteries. Glasses from other manufacturers don’t work.

For this test I used a set of non-rechargeable glasses. I found them to be average in both looks and comfort. They don’t look as good as the more expensive rechargeable glasses. And I felt a pinch at the touching point near my ears. Moving the glasses as bit relieved the pain.

Samsung claims that the glasses can work over 100 hours with a single battery and those numbers are impressive. But despite that I have to advise everyone to go for rechargeable ones – at least for yourself. They’re better looking, more comfortable and nobody wants to buy batteries these days. My family member decided to purchase 2 rechargeable for regular use and 3 non-rechargeable ones for guests.

Conversion

Samsung’s biggest change for 2010 is 3D. It’s not a surprising move; competitors like Sony have pushed it and everybody knew it was coming this year. But I still don’t have any comparison because Samsung is the only one out there with a fully available 3D set. I’ve seen Sony’s 3D engine a while back at a demonstration, but can’t use it to compare because they were running special demos. For this part of the review I tried the special 2D to 3D conversion on a wide range of media. I couldn’t test the native 3D engine because I don’t own the 3D Blu-Ray player.
The 2D to 3D conversion is very easy to use. There’s a button on the remote saying 3D, press it and the real time converting begins. Further tweaks are possible in the menu, controlling things like depth simulation, color correction and so forth. For this test I kept everything at default because the depth simulation at maximum emphasized mistakes too much, and a lower value made the whole 3D experience an average experience. I started with SD.

Glee was a good test case. The busy hallways of overly stereotyped teens gave me the perfect opportunity to see if the Samsung C8700 is capable of aligning objects properly. And it was. People in the front ‘popped out’ a bit, while background students really remained in the back. Even with movement everything stayed fine. I can truly say that an episode of Glee is worth watching in 3D, despite a small loss of colors.

Next was a motion test. I played back a F1 race that I had recorded. F1 is like NASCAR but with corners and modern technology. It was raining and I was interested to see how timing graphics and cars would show. After ten minutes of viewing I was disappointed and forced to take off the glasses. All of this was because my glass of water was empty and I had to refill. After refilling the glasses stayed off because the fast moving cars were a pain to watch. Cars going from the right side of the screen towards the left weren’t sharp and ‘shook’ heavily on the screen surface. The system clearly couldn’t keep up with the fast pace. On a positive note: graphics were rightfully showed in front of the action, and the extra depth was exciting to watch at times. Just not when there were any fast moving cars around – Red Bull cars and such.

Commercials are never fun to watch, except when they’re about a product you want to purchase. This has nothing to do with my third 3D test though, which was regular television. I’m sad to say that the C8700 made mistakes regularly when the commercials hit in. I found slogan text (buy cheese now) to pop out while the price remained in the background. On top of that some of the graphics weren’t sharp. Overall the loss of brightness and the discomfort from the glasses made regular television not recommended for 3D conversion. Of course your mileage may vary, some shows lend themselves more to the system than others.

I popped Avatar in my PS3 and hit 3D on the remote. Mind you I haven’t seen this movie in 3D in the cinemas so no reference there. Avatar looked amazing in 3D. The opening scene when the main character floats looks fantastic. Objects looked sharp, and the television made to mistakes in depth calculations. The only downside isn’t really Samsung’s fault but a compromise in the active shutter glasses technique. These darkened glasses work like sunglasses and remove some brightness when viewing 3D. This occurred in all the footage I saw.

Last but not least: gaming. I turned on my PS3 and started the titles I discussed earlier. I was again torn between good and bad experiences. LittleBigPlanet made no difference at all. But it does work in racing titles. Overall I felt the games were built up in 4 layers of depth, with nothing really coming out of the TV or sitting completely in the background. I found a lot of instances of crosstalk and that wasn’t the only problem. Some of objects showed ‘halos’ around them, some weren’t sharp and other weren’t as far on the background as they needed to be. It made the experience very tiring and therefore I won’t use it much. Native 3D games can change my mind but for now gaming in 3D is a no go, with the Samsung C8700 at least.

So here’s what I think about the conversion system by Samsung. It works but your mileage may vary. Some of the television shows/movies don’t work too great, especially with a lot of moving objects. I also found SD 3D way more frustrating than HD 3D, with the latter displaying very sharp textures and objects. Gaming for now is a no go with conversion, a nice gimmick that will not last. Also a no go is watching 3D in a resting position. You can’t watch 3D with the glasses in a 90-degree angle. Doing so will result in a black screen.
I’d like to stress that I wasn’t able to test native 3D, so for now my opinion about 3D is subject to change.

Conclusion

Samsung did a terrific job with the C8700 LED television. Its design is beautiful and will please most buyers – but not all. Watching SD is a bit of a pain on the large screen so a few feet of viewing distance is advised. HD content looks excellent though, with great black levels and amazing color reproduction. But the overly smooth motion can annoy some and please others.

The 3D conversion system is very easy to use and can work great. Especially HD movies are converted well. Fast paced SD or gaming should stay into the 2D realm for now.

You can’t really go wrong with the Samsung C8700. It’s an excellent television but be prepared to overlook some minor flaws for this expensive silver piece of engineering brilliance.

Samsung C8000 television
Design
Image quality
3D
Value

Overall

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