Samsung A650 picture quality not satisfactory

[bilgirami]

Guys, I am in a bit of situation. I had a small 37" 1080i LCD TV that I was wanting to upgrade. A friend of mine who was moving was trying to sell his Samsung PNA650, 50" full 1080p plasma TV. I read reviews for the TV on the internet. Nobody had anything but good stuff to say about the TV. Since I was going to install the TV in my basement, I decided to go with this plasma TV.
I have it all set up now. For Cable, I have my cable box connected directly to the TV with a bluejeans 1.3a compatible HDMI cable. For video player, I have my Samsung BDP-3600 feeding into my Yamaha RX-V663 receiver which then feeds into the TV. Both these connections are again with bluejeans HDMI cables 1.3a compliant.

I have tried every possible setting that I could on my own or calibrations people have posted on the forums for this TV, but I am not happy with the picture quality I am getting. Cable is still ok, but video from my plyer is just plain wierd un-natural. Specially the outdoor scenes seem like they are over exposed, too bringht and the colors are not real. I have played with the brightness and cell light options in the basic setup but that is not doing it. I know how to get into advanced menue settings but I have this far decied to refrain from them because I do not want to ruin those settings. Has anyone else ever run itno this problem? Does anybody have any suggestions. i want to try out a few things on my own before I go spending hundreds of dollars for professional calibration.

Thanks guys

 

[bandphan]

Did you calibrate each input? How did the calibration go? Are you applying any processing in the 863?

 

[FirstReflection]

Samsung's displays are pretty darn accurate if you simply set them to "Movie" picture mode and set the colour temperature to "Warm2". Not perfect, but pretty darn close and certainly "close enough" for most people.

Since this is a used display, simply select the "Movie" picture mode and then reset it to default (in case the previous owner mucked around with the settings).

Run through Digital Video Essentials: HD Basic or even just the THX Optimizer on any THX Blu-ray disc to get your contrast and brightness settings correct. Go for a full ISF Calibration is you truly want the most accurate picture possible. But for most people, just setting a Samsung to "Movie" mode and the "Warm2" colour temperature will get you close enough to the industry standards.