Home Theater Forum and Systems banner

Value Electronics' 9th annual Shootout event

36K views 164 replies 31 participants last post by  B- one 
#1 ·
Our 2013 Flat Panel HDTV Shootout evaluation event will be held in our new store at 35 Popham Rd, Scarsdale, NY as follows:

Day one, 6:00 PM EST, Friday, May 10th and Day two, 6:00 PM EST, Saturday, May 11th 2013.

We'll have up to 70 individuals attending and participating so if you are interested please send me an email with the subject "can I have a seat at VE's 2013 Shootout." The event will also be webcast live in HD and moderated by our staff. Select questions and comments will be passed to our panel of experts for reply.

Our Shootout has proven to be a ‘must attend’ event among true HD enthusiasts and industry leaders, and this year the Shootout has continued to gain in popularity so you can expect to see many of the top industry VIPs participating. With the great advancements of LED and PDP technologies, this will be a great year for flat panel displays.

Many big announcements and surprises are planned so if you are not attending in person be sure to mark your calendar so you can participate online with our HD webcast.

Enjoy!

-Robert
 
See less See more
#72 ·
Hi all, thanks for the very kind remarks!

Tonight is a must see event. The special guests are very very special and I don't want anyone to miss this evenings event. If you go to the link now you can see last night's event, tonight's Shootout evaluation starts at 6PM EST. Here's the live HD webcast url.

Enjoy!

-Robert
 
#77 ·
Hi Robert,

Really enjoyed the event watching it online.

Question: the Samsung rep briefly mentioned the evolution kit would allow year-to-year picture quality improvements for the F8500. I am still trying to understand this - I assume anything software based could be enhanced, but the kit is also somewhat hardware based I was told. On any rate, what has Samsung said about this as on the surface it almost sounds as if one can upgrade each year without having to purchase a new set and considering the F8500 was just built from ground up, that core would be around for a while I would think. Thanks.

Second question: D-Nice mentioned still seeing floating blacks on the F8500 along with some banding seen on faces - is Samsung going to address both of these with firmware updates?

Thanks!
 
#78 ·
Hi David, thanks for joining HTS! Glad to see you here.

Samusng's evolution kit has the latest software and operating system as well as the new 1023 quad core processor. So you get all of the menu, smart apps and features of the 2013 flagship series, plus the increased web browsing speed enhancements as well as the new 2013 upgraded video processing.

The new video processor will slightly improve the picture quality, but the since the 2012 panel is not changed you will still have much of the screen uniformity issues and may not have the jet black cropping bars that the "F" series enjoys.

Interestingly, you can skip one or more years and chose to upgrade to the latest evolution kit in future years if you don't care much for the next generation's enhancements and fixes, but do want the 2014 or later upgrades.

Very cool idea from Samsung.

Hope you become an active member here as I always enjoy reading your posts.

-Robert
 
#81 ·
Hi Robert,

Thanks a lot. Maybe next year I can make it to the event. I had a TON of fun watching and listening to yourself and the panel over the two nights. The passion and excitement with everyone just comes through. Awesome stuff.

So, just a follow-up question to the Samsung evolution kit.

Assuming the 2014 panel for the F8500 is pretty much the same (and I would assume it will be since they just built this thing from ground up) one could get the new picture quality enhancements (in addition to the features) next for their F8500? I am just making sure I understand how the upgrade works as this sort of allows one to upgrade without buying an entire new display.

Very cool stuff.

I am still deciding between the F8500 and VT60, but will give you a call once make up my mind. :)
 
#80 ·
Hi Robert,

I had a great time at the shootout and I can't wait to see the results! Nice to meet you and I look forward to the next time.

Best regards,

Mark
 
#82 ·
Thanks Mark, I enjoyed meeting you and appreciate all of your contributions at the event.

-Robert

Hi Robert,

Thanks a lot. Maybe next year I can make it to the event. I had a TON of fun watching and listening to yourself and the panel over the two nights. The passion and excitement with everyone just comes through. Awesome stuff.

So, just a follow-up question to the Samsung evolution kit.

Assuming the 2014 panel for the F8500 is pretty much the same (and I would assume it will be since they just built this thing from ground up) one could get the new picture quality enhancements (in addition to the features) next for their F8500? I am just making sure I understand how the upgrade works as this sort of allows one to upgrade without buying an entire new display.

Very cool stuff.

I am still deciding between the F8500 and VT60, but will give you a call once make up my mind. :)
Yes, to everything you said especially about your attending next year.

The only exception would be if Samsung changed the panel you would not appreciate any of the advantages of the next gen panel. However, I do not expect any change in Samsung's PDP for 2014 and quite a few years forward as the new 2013 panel has been expertly developed and completely redesigned from the ground up for the future.

-Robert
 
#83 ·
The event was fantastic as always. Thanks again to Robert, Wendy, their family and everyone else who worked very hard for a very long time to put this together. No one else is doing this, and it really is a service to all us videophile geeks as well as professionals in the industry. Thanks again Robert.

Everyone is excited to see the results, but I think Robert and family deserve a day off after the whole thing. And it was Mother's Day after all.

I was there on Saturday night, and as Bill Schindler mentioned, I think we broke a record for how long the event lasted. I have to say that the length was because of all the fantastic demos/tests, explanations, and discussions - it was a chock full event. In fact I would say this was the most organized and orderly shootout yet - Robert et al are really getting the running of this event down to a science.

By the way, having Dr. Weber there is a real treat, not only because of his position as an originator of plasma, but because he really contributes a lot of information, a lifetime of experience, and an interesting viewpoint to the event.
 
#84 ·
Thank you NY Pete! All very appreciated.

I just posted some personal photos on one of my websites.


We'll crown the new "King of HDTV" tomorrow.

Thanks to all who helped make this our best evaluation event ever and that includes all of the attendees!

Enjoy the photos. I have hundreds more and we'll select a few more tomorrow.

-Robert
 
#85 ·
Hi Robert,

I first wanted to thank you for hosting this event and for all you contribute to the community.

I posted in another thread regarding F8500 but thought I'd ask here as well...

...if the issue of the F8500's full screen, 3D brightness fluctuations came up at the shootout. I'm curious in the Samsung reps spoke about it or are aware.

I'm obviously (and hopefully understandably) very keen to pass on or receive any information about this problem. I might even have some troubleshooting information Samsung might find useful.

I'd be extremely grateful for any insight you might be able to offer.

Sincerely.
 
#86 ·
Thanks for the kind words. No this did not come up at the Flat Panel Shootout event. However, I did report this to the right folks at Samsung and assuming it can be repeated by Samsung engineers I would expect a firmware fix in the next few weeks.

If you give me the 3D BD title and scene and I pass that along.

-Robert
 
#90 · (Edited)
Hi Robert,

I cant tell you how much appreciate your willingness to hep out here. Let me provide some detailed information on reproducing the problem. I have also included a BD title below with detailed descriptions of exactly where one can see this behavior. Just a couple general notes first:

  • The "pops" I'm describing are (in almost all cases) a one step brightness increase that seems to change hue somewhat as well.
  • In general the problem shows on scenes that tend to be somewhat monotone and/or indoors.
  • In the vast majority of cases, it happens directly after a cut where the scene changes.
  • Cinema Smooth must not be enabled, otherwise the problem does not present itself. The problem is best scene with Motion Judder Canceller set to "Standard" (Off and Smooth will also work but sometimes the pops manifest at slightly different times or intensity)
  • Dynamic Contrast on High seems to keep a percentage of the pops from happening, but some are still apparent even with this setting engaged. It does change the behavior though. For instance, Chapter 1 in the BD title below is fixed with Dynamic Contrast on High but not Chapter 5.
  • Decreasing contrast settings to something like 70 or so seems to reduce or eliminate the pops.

Here are details as to where one can easily view these brightness pops.

BD Title: Prometheus 3D
Chapter 1:
@2:47 Mist from waterfall toggles bright/dark
@3:16 = full screen brightness change when figure's face shows on screen (this is arguably the prime example)
@3:22 = full screen brightness change apparent if you look at the water in background
Chapter 2
@6:06 = full screen brightness pop right when text "Isle of Skye" shows on screen
Chapter 5
@15:14 = full screen brightness pop
@15.43 = full screen brightness pop
@15:46 = full screen brightness pop
@16:06 = full screen brightness pop
@17:03 = full screen brightness pop (very slight)

The problem also manifests rather regularly in Tangled 3D, Brave 3D, and (i'm told) Alice in Wonderland 3D

I hope this information is of use to somebody. As you can see, it's quite prevalent, especially in some titles.

If there is anything more I can offer please don't hesitate to contact me via PM or otherwise. I'm more than happy to offer whatever information I can for Samsung to be able to identify and hopefully eradicate this issue.

My sincere thanks again.
 
#87 ·
Hi Robert

A big thanks to you and your team for hosting a fine event again.

I lost the stream on day 2 (actually living in Scotland meant that 2 late nights were too much for me - fell asleep at pc :doh:).

Video of day 2 is not up yet so I am looking forward to results of shootout.


All the best

Scott
 
#93 ·
Here's the results of the attendees and panel of experts votes. Just in case anyone misses my comments here they are:

Here are the 2013 Flat Panel Shootout Evaluation final results based on the votes of the attendees and our panel of experts. This year it's been a difficult task to declare a winner. Here's why:

The results came out so close that it is difficult to award one winner. The ZT60 won the popular vote in important categories, black and overall pq, but the F8500 had the highest scores overall and also won in important categories, like contrast ratio and day modes. In the past nine years it has always been very clear who won our Flat Panel Shootout event.

The attendees liked the higher light output of the F8500, so when tabulating the ballots, the F8500 is the winner. They saw the F8500 as even sharper, which I would assume is also because of the brighter image in low and high ambient light conditions. Many participants told me the F8500 whites looked cleaner, brighter and in their opinion, whiter.

So the public has spoken and we therefore crown Samsung’s F8500 series PDP the new "King of HDTV" for 2013.

We also recognize and congratulate all of the development engineers at Samsung for making the most significant advancement in PDP technology this year.

Please also take note that the panel of experts selected the VT60/ZT60 as their personal choice. But even their choice was only a slight preference. As DeWayne put it to me.... “To me and just for example, if the VT60 is a 10 the F8500 is a 9 as I don’t care about panel brightness above 30fL”

However, we strongly recommend all consumers to use the same logic that the three expert panelists explained during our closing Q&A: end users should make their buying decision based on viewing habits. The three top contenders are all so very close this year that I don't see a clear winner and these three panels deserve our top recommendation equally.

In fact, all of the 2013 displays in our event this year are exceptional and have made significant advancements in picture quality, build quality and design. So my sincerest congratulations to Sony, Panasonic and Samsung for stepping up the game on PDP and LED display technology advancements.

-Robert
 
#96 ·
Wow! Great stuff. As a (very happy) VT30 owner (pro calibrated by Kevin Miller), I was really hoping the ZT/VT series sets would be the ones to finally out perform the KUROs of yore. Well, 2009 any way.

The Samsung plasma sets that I have seen do always seem to look just a little bit sharper than the Panasonics including mine but, to my eye, the VT series always had a more compelling image in spite of that fact. Although my living room gets a lot of ambient light during the day and considering my VT30 doesn't get nearly as bright as a VT50/VT60/ZT60 and certainly the F8500, I've never had much of a problem viewing in those bright conditions. At night however, the living room gets pitch black which clearly benefits the VT's dimmer image. I'm looking forward to reading more in depth reviews of the F8500 and the VT/ZT.

Thanks to Mr. Zohn and everyone involved for providing such a great service and congrats to Panasonic for producing very serious performers/contenders and to Samsung for producing reigning 2013 HDTV King, the F8500.

I think I'd still have a VT/ZT over the Samsung as the extra light output the F8500 is capable of isn't really a priority for me personally.
 
#97 ·
Thanks Robert for hosting a great event, it was definitely worth my trip from Central NJ. Also, a big thanks to Wendy and the rest of your family for the great hospitality every time I go. Big thanks go out to the calibrators: Kevin, DNice and David for the hard work put into getting these sets ready and say high to Lisandro for me too.
 
#98 ·
Thanks everyone! We love sponsoring the annual event.

-Robert
 
#99 ·
Hi Robert,

Sounds like the shootout was a big success. Congrats :D

I'm not sure where all this leaves me. As I've told you in the past I have trouble watching a plasma set. My last Panasonic plasma (4 years ago) I had caused some sort of issues with my eyes. It made my eyes feel dry and scratchy and sensitive to lights and TV watching. Was worse the more TV I tried watching. Finally after numerous Doctor and Eye Doctor visits on a hunch I got rid of the plasma and bought a Samsung UN55B8500 and all my problems went away. I really like the UN55B8500 but would like to move up to a larger set. I almost bought a 60" Elite last year and decided to hold off to see what the new models had to offer. It is looking now like I should have bought the Elite when I had a chance. I'm not sure about a F8000 set after reading some of the forums and user impressions.

Any suggestions?

Jim
 
#100 ·
I missed the dang HD shootout, didn't know it was this weekend. Anyone have a link to the video recording of the event? thx.
 
#101 ·
Jim, I would recommend the F8000, it's the best LED TV available. This week's Shootout incentive offer expires Friday and we're shipping all sizes immediately.

Take a look at CNET and Twice's articles on our 2013 Flat Panel Shootout event.

-Robert
 
#109 · (Edited)
Hi Robert, can you PM me or list the price difference between the F8000, ST60 & VT60?

PS: Do you have a link to the HD Shootout video recording? thx. :sn:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top