Samsung 55-inch ES8000 - Smart Interactivity

Appealing To Your Senses

Samsung is one of the pioneers to kickstart the Smart TV campaign during a time when most televisions were 'dumb' and happy to stay offline. With the arrival of their 2012's series of televisions, it is undeniable that the South Korean firm has invested a fair bit of their R&D efforts to spice up their almost predictable Smart TV routine, and no other model that marks this change better than the flagship 55-inch ES8000 LED TV, introduced only two months ago. Let's discuss its cosmetics later, but more significant aspects will have to be its new set of interactive interfaces, in the form of gesture controls, voice triggers, and face recognition. Honestly, we do believe that a Smart TV's usability has the power to make or break the user experience. After we're done with this review, however, we'll be in a better position to impart if Samsung's approach is truly a practical effort, or simply an expensive gimmick, so to speak. 

The ES8000 is an edge-lit LED model at heart. And it's powered by a dual-core processor although Samsung did not specify if it applies to the video processor or otherwise. The stylish LCD display features Samsung's Micro Dimming Ultimate, a 'cluster backlighting' technology with relatively more dimming areas than Micro Dimming Pro used by the ES7500. The ES7500 follows just behind the ES8000, but with less spectacular qualities like a slower Clear Motion Rate of 600Hz for example. Having dynamic backlighting on the ES8000 is better than not having any, however, this feature still pales in comparison to dedicated local dimming facilities on a full-array display for instance. Moving on, the Koreans also have plans to introduce a Smart Evolution Kit - a thumbdrive-like contraption which enables you to upgrade the TV's performance capabilities like "transforming your TV's dual-core CPU to faster quad-core technology" as stated on Samsung's website. Sounds fantastic? You bet. However, this feature won't be available till 2013. That said, let's take a closer look at what the ES8000 offers today in the next few pages.

Picturesque Frame

Samsung has taken pains to reduce the width of their Smart TV bezels in recent generations besides slimming their TV's profiles, starting with the C-series two years ago. With the ES8000, the bezel size is almost non-existent. A 3mm-thin aluminum border frames the 55-inch screen, resulting in a clean and minimalist screen suitable for wall-mount installation or seated on its new stand. Speaking of its new stand, Samsung has ditched the Quad-stand found on previous models for a new Arc-Flow foundation. It looks somewhat similar to the one sported by the LG LM9600, but Samsung's version packs a wider base. The Arc-Flow, however, lacks swiveling options which makes it less versatile than their rival's solution. Given the bezel's narrow width, Samsung has made concessions for a little "tab" just below the panel to showcase their brand name. The web camera and microphone are built-in, and they're located at the top. A little beveled knob situated behind the camera enables you to 'close' the lens to ensure your privacy concerns are taken care of. Like most of Samsung's LED edge-lit panels, the ES8000 brandishes a glossy and reflective screen. You might want to dim the room lights if you're catching the latest blockbusters on this model.

Little has changed in terms of connectivity. There are three USB ports, three HDMI slots, and a Composite jack by the side, but note that the latter requires a breakout cable as with most of Samsung's premium tellies. In addition, the ARC (Audio Return Channel) function is integrated on the second HDMI port (HDMI2) for those who want to pipe audio back to the receiver. Along the lower row of the AV panel, you'll find the component jacks, RF input, and LAN port, aligned in a downward-facing orientation. Fortunately, Samsung has avoided any rear-facing ports to make it easier for wall-mount installations.

A Smart Touch Remote is included in the ES8000 package along with the standard remote, but note that it's only exclusive to the ES8000 and ES7500, as well as E8000 plasma display. Using a Bluetooth connection, the Smart Touch Remote is thus named because it also features a touchpad to facilitate navigation on the Smart TV interface. Comparatively, we'd roll with LG's Magic Remote instead of the Smart Touch. Reason being it is easier to point-and-click rather than manage a trackpad in our book.  

Smart, But Not Necessarily The Smartest

It's heartening to see that Samsung's has upgraded their Smart Hub platform with a HD makeover. The interface is more defined now compared to last year's fuzzier standard-definition effort. Layout is similar on the whole, but we did observe three new sections on the splash page, and they are - Family Story, an interactive and social service for family members to share messages and photos, while the Fitness section enables you to track things like your Exercise Progress and BMI. The Kids segment, on the other hand, is packed with lots of infotainment content to keep the little ones busy. On top of these, Samsung is also offering 5GB worth of cloud storage for Smart TV users. Like last year's models, you'll need a Samsung Smart TV account to login to Smart Hub. Alternatively, you may use the TV's built-in Face Recognition Mode.

Samsung has a decent number of apps in the News, Education, and Entertainment aspects, but there isn't anything to shout about honestly. Singtel's VOD service, otherwise known as Singtel Video Store, is still available. You may also stream multimedia content (mainly videos, photos, and music) from a Samsung smartphone or tablet to the ES8000 via the renamed AllShare Play. This feature is based on DLNA technology essentially, meaning that your device is required to be on the same home network as your TV. To stream, simply hit the Share option on the selected file, and activate 'AllShare' on the Samsung mobile device. Cloud storage services like SugarSync is supported by the TV too. We also observed that Samsung's introduction of a dual-core processor seems to have improved loading times for most of the applications as well.

So what did we think of Samsung's interactive controls? Here's our opinion in a nutshell:

• Motion Control - You'll need to run the Motion Control Environment Test first to check if the room is bright enough for the camera to register your hand movements. To activate gesture controls, lift your arm and face your palm towards the camera. Clench your fist to activate an onscreen icon. And to return to a previous page, simply move your hand in a circular motion.
  
  
  
  Verdict:  Arm gets tired after a while. We'd rather use a remote.
  
   
• Voice Control - To activate voice control, press the Microphone button on the remote. A pop-up menu would appear on the TV with a list of voice commands. Additional voice commands will be listed by saying "More Commands". Surprisingly, Samsung's voice feature worked very well in most instances. Commands such as Volume up, Source, Smart Hub, Web Browser and Exit were spot on most of the time. The only caveat is that it is very sensitive to ambient noise. You'll have to ensure the room is relatively quiet for this feature to work as stated.
  
  
  
  Verdict: It's a nice-to-have feature, but again we'd prefer a point-and-click remote anytime.
  
   
• Face Recognition - The camera was able to register our faces without too much trouble. Although Samsung advised us not to try this in low light conditions, we went ahead any way, just to test the odds. And it worked reasonably well. One drawback is that you have to keep your head perfectly still. 
  
  
  
  Verdict: Probably the most practical feature out of the three. Signing into the Samsung Hub account via Face Recognition also signs you in to the rest of your social media accounts, like Facebook, Twitter, etc. 

Calibration - Spyder3TV Report

To maintain a standard across our review units, we calibrated the Samsung ES8000 with Datacolor's Spyder3TV Home Theater Color Calibration kit prior to our visual tests. This is to ensure we assess the HDTV based on optimal display settings and not on visual estimation alone. Using the TV's Standard preset, we've also disabled all the necessary enhancement features.

Here are the recommended picture settings after calibration - Brightness: 48, Contrast: 98, Color: 50 and Tint: G49 R51. Black and white luminance levels are measured at 0.141cd/m2 and 371.828cd/m2 respectively. These figures are very close to the TV's native values, which shows that Samsung's engineers have taken great care in getting the picture settings right with minimal deviations as possible. Sony's HX855, another edge-lit set with similar dynamic backlighting technology to Samsung's, garnered a black and white luminance reading of 0.020cd/m2 and 84.159cd/m2. The Bravia has a superior black depth in comparison, but Samsung's white luminance is much brighter. Typically, brighter backlights would produce a picture with greater detail. However, too much of it may result in washed-out images and poor black levels as well. We'll see how the Series 8 holds up during our DisplayMate and video tests.

DisplayMate Tests

DisplayMate is an application which generates a sequence of test patterns to determine the capabilities of imaging devices, like color, uniformity, and gray-scale accuracies for example. For our tests, we've hooked up the Samsung ES8000 to our display test-bed system via a HDMI connection. Similar to our calibration setup, we have also disabled all visual enhancements on the TV to reduce the variables involved. Here are some of our findings.

IDT HQV Tests

IDT's HQV Tests (on Blu-ray) are designed to assess image quality and handling of digital displays through a variety of video signal processing tasks which includes decoding, de-interlacing, motion correction, noise reduction, and film cadence detection. We've programmed the Blu-ray player to playback in 1080i to test the TV's de-interlacing capabilities. Here are the results we noted on some of the more crucial HQV tests:-

Standard-Definition Tests
 

X-Men: The Last Stand (DVD)

The 55-inch ES8000 has weathered our tests fairly well so far. Now let's see if its built-in scaler is able to rise to the occasion with a low resolution DVD source. Close-ups of Wolverine and Storm in the early sequences bear testament to the Series 8's video processor's confident capabilities and attention to detail. Unfortunately, this was marred by motion noise and aliasing artifacts which remained inextinguishable in various scenes, especially on the periphery of moving objects in the film. The TV ranks highly when it comes to fleshing out darker tones with minimal black crush issues, but some of its advanced picture settings are needed, such as Dynamic Contrast and Black Tone, to mitigate the slightly washed-out textures on the ES8000. Toning down the backlights and brightness levels might help, although shadow details might suffer as a result. There are a handful of Full-HD displays out in the wild, like Sony's HX855 and LG's LM8600 for instance, capable of pulling off a 480p clip as a high-definition source when viewed at an appropriate distance. Unfortunately for Samsung, it's quite perceptible that we were watching a DVD movie on the ES8000, and not high-definition content.

High-Definition Tests
 

Vantage Point (Blu-ray)

The ES8000 delivered much better results with Blu-ray content on its native Full-HD screen. For starters, motion noise and aliasing artifacts associated with the low-res source were no longer applicable or apparent. One of Samsung's strengths is its potential to deliver pin-sharp detail and textures. For example, even the pores on the faces of Matthew Fox and Dennis Quaid at 11:45 were easily visible. However, we can't help but notice a 'paper-like' quality on the overall image. We can recommend a quick fix by lowering its backlights to '10' and trimming the Gamma value to '-1', resulting in a more wholesome Vantage Point to spend the next hour and a half with. The ability to produce deep but natural hues is another asset of the ES8000. Observably, this is a notable improvement over earlier generations of Samsung HDTVs with the propensity for overly saturated hues. Cadence detection worked well with Film Mode primed to 'Auto1' as well. We did not notice any odd artifacts or motion judder with this feature applied. In summary, we enjoyed the film without Motion Plus enabled, but if you must, you may combine Samsung's Motion Plus (frame interpolation) and LED Motion Plus (backlight scanning) to reduce any motion blur inherent in the movie title. For a warmer picture, try the Movie preset with the default 'Warm 2' Color Tone setting.

3D Test

SSG-4100GB Active-Shutter 3D Glasses

We had a mild shock when we spied on Samsung's latest 3D eyewear bundled with the ES8000. Not that the glasses suffered from an electrical leak, but because it was visibly less attractive than the slightly older SSG-3700CR model. Looks aside, the main selling point of the SSG-4100GB is that you get to wear it over prescription glasses. We tried it, and it worked as claimed. Design wise, the SSG-4100GB is a lightweight affair, and it comes with a flexi-band which wraps around your face. They are detachable from the frame as well. Oddly enough, this model does not offer any rechargeable features since it uses a button-cell battery with a touted battery life of 150 hours, according to the South Korean CE manufacturer. Samsung is currently bundling two pairs of the SSG-4100GB with the Series 8 Smart TV. 

Monsters vs Aliens (3D Blu-ray)

It was two years ago when Samsung kickstarted their 3D campaign with the introduction of their C-series LED TVs. Instead of resting on their laurels, it's encouraging to know that Samsung has made a concerted effort to resolve the terrible crosstalk issues inherent in their first-generation 3D TVs. Although crosstalk is still present on the ES8000, they are rare and negligible in most instances too. If we had to draw a comparison, we'd say that the ES8000 delivered a marginally better 3D performance compared to its Series 8 predecessor. Generally, 3D images are more defined than those experienced on last year's flagship model. The other thing with the Samsung 3D experience is the intermittent flickering we've detected in occasional scenes. Not flickering, as in those associated with external 'pulsating' fluorescent lights, but those emitted via the TV's panel itself. As for the set's 2D to 3D conversion, little improvements have been made since the D8000, and we'd rather watch our content in 2D on any given day.

We also often get the question on how the latest crop of these active shutter 3D glasses based TVs fair with a passive 3D TV. To simply put it, If we had to pick between the Samsung ES8000 series and a passive 3D TV model, we'd probably go with the latter. They might offer shallower 3D depths, but the crosstalk-free and comfortable viewing experience more than makes up for the shortfalls. This holds true only if 3D movie viewing is a priority and not an afterthought or an extra frill.

The Final Word

Having placed the display through its paces, it is now time for the ES8000's reckoning. And here's our verdict. Overall, Samsung's Series 8 is the best 3D Full-HD model they've coughed up so far. However the display is still plagued by a number of shortcomings which we'll highlight as we go along. Aesthetically, Samsung's combination of a single-glass design, extremely thin bezel, and sleek styling, easily makes it one of the more attractive LED edge-lit models in the HDTV market today. LG's LM9600 Cinema 3D TV, by far, is the only model we know which trumps the ES8000 in terms of its design presentation. Features-wise, we fancy the upgraded Smart Hub interface in HD (smart move, Samsung), but apart from the newly minted Kids, Fitness, and Family Story online services, there is little else on Samsung's portfolio to pique our interest. And while the whole slew of interactive controls are nice to have, we'd rather use a point-and-click option to navigate a Smart TV's interface. It's more practical and effective, especially with applications like a web browser for instance.

We can't fault the ES8000 much with regards to its visual performance. There are, however, some caveats which Samsung might want to address. For instance, color reproduction was accurate enough, while black depths were commendable but not great for an LED edge-lit model. More pertinently, the panel remained prone to subtle 'clouding' which requires a bit of assistance from its dynamic lighting functions to compensate for. As for standard definition content, the TV coped well in general with a decent display of detailing. On the other hand, its inability to eradicate motion noise effectively proved to be a thorn in some instances. It was only with higher resolution HD sources that the ES8000 could realize its full potential, judging by the concise and punchy visuals. As for its 3D score card, Samsung's latest Series 8 is most definitely an improvement over the D8000 we reviewed last year. There were lesser instances of crosstalk, and Samsung's 3D depth and clarity are quite impeccable as well. All said, although it is unlikely we'd shell out S$6,499 for the 55-inch Series 8, Samsung has most definitely made a leap in the right direction as far as HDTV and 3D TV technologies are concerned. They might want to rethink their approach for the Smart TV controls though; they are advanced, but a more straightforward approach would be better.

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