HL-T5087S - Measurements and Glitches

Calibrating this set was a bit of a pain. I'm using both the Sencore ColorPro5000 and Colormetre HCFR software. Basically, Sencore is great for calibrating your set but doesn't give you the pretty graphs that we like to show in our reviews. That's where Colormetre comes in. Well, when I went to measure the color temp of the default settings (Dynamic and Standard) with Sencore, all I got was N/A. Thinking that was weird, I tried the Colormetre which has a bit of an adjustable scale. Still nothing. Finally, I tried Movie mode and got about 7500k (not a bad reading before calibration) which means that my measurement tools were in fact working. It seems that the blue is so far off that it is reading somewhere above 15000k! Now that is high! In essence, the picture has an overall washed out appearance with a slight blue tinge. Seeing how far out the blue measured, I couldn't help but wonder if the LED technology was somehow affecting the reading. Contrast ratings were very good (Dynamic was so bright that in a dark room you'd find yourself squinting from time to time) with a post-calibration contrast ratio of 1100:1 on movie mode with a color temp of 7500k.

Dynamic - over 15000k (2200:1 contrast ratio)

Standard - over 15000k (1750:1 contrast ratio)

Movie - 7500k (1100:1 contrast ratio after calibration)

Calibration options were very limited on the HL-5087S with basic Color and Tint controls only augmented by a "My Color Control" screen under "Detailed Settings" under the Picture menu (got it?). Unfortunately, there were no Low/High gain and cut controls for Red, Green, and Blue like we would expect. Instead we found more nebulous controls for Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, and Pink that had no discernable affect on the picture either by eye or through measurements. Essentially, you are stuck with the Movie mode/Warm 2 setting for best evening viewing. I could find little effect of any of the "Detailed Settings" options leading me to believe that it is a menu that is used on other displays but disabled for this one. I ended up with these settings:

Mode - Movie
Brightness - 20-35 (depending on lighting conditions)
Contrast - 90 (default)
Sharpness - 0
Color Tone - Warm 2 (default)
Color Gamut - Wide (default)

And these measurements (with no real work on my part):

CIE (left); RBG Levels (right)

Color Temp (left); Gamma (right)

It's not all that surprising that you'd want to use a different brightness setting depending on the lighting conditions in your room. What we usually suggest is that you use the Movie mode for your nighttime viewing and adjust one of the other settings for your daytime viewing. Unfortunately, you don't have a lot of control over the calibration of this display (meaning you'll have to call someone to get into the service menus for you to make those adjustments) so you can't do that. Your only real option is to remember to adjust the brightness for each lighting condition or to live with one of the washed out, bluish, and overly-bright Standard or Dynamic settings for daytime viewing. What I did was to live with the Dynamic setting after bumping the brightness way down and engaged the DNIe setting (which I felt gave a bit better saturation to the colors and blacks as well as counteracted some of the blue). It wasn't as good as changing the brightness on the Movie mode on Warm2, but it was easier and I tended to fiddle with it less (lowering considerably the amount of family tension in the house).

Audioholics/HQV Bench Testing Summary of Test Results

Perfect Score is 130

Samsung HL-T5087S Benchmark total score: 80/130. All tests were run through component inputs.

Comments on Audioholics DVD Torture Tests

To be honest, I was a bit surprised at these results. I didn't think the set would score as well as it did. The big problem that isn't reflected above is the excessive banding the HL-T5098S displayed. I was noticing it constantly which was kinda nice in that I could show my wife what it was, though I imagine I'd be a bitter little boy if I had purchased this set. This display is one of the first I've come across to pass the noise reduction tests. If you want absolutely no noise you'll have to set the NR control to High but I don't recommend it as you'll start to notice some artifacts. The Film Detail fail was disturbing as was the lack of 2:3 pulldown. I did engage the "Film Mode" option but the unit still didn't manage to pass these unflagged tests. All in all, this set scored very well and should provide a very good picture in most cases. Feed it a progressive signal and you'll bypass the poor 2:3 pulldown issues.

Issues, Glitches, and Hiccups

Sometimes I scatter some of the oddities I find with equipment throughout the review but in this case I'm going to list them all in one place. Honestly, I feel like there is more than a good chance that this set had some sort of firmware issue. Regardless, this is some of the weirdness that I encountered.

No 480p through component?
When I'm running through my evaluations, I sometimes like to switch back and forth with the Denon DVD-3910 from interlaced (display doing the processing) to progressive (player doing the processing). This gives me a chance to view a "known reference" as I'm familiar with the Denon and know the tests it can and cannot pass. Unfortunately, whenever I'd switch to progressive output (through component) it would give me an error message. Now, in the next component input I was running my Xbox 360 in full 1080p without a problem so I can't explain these results.

HDMI defaults to Dynamic
All these calibration and settings I've been talking about? Well, every time you turn the set off or change an input, the HDMI switches back to Dynamic picture mode. It remembers any changes you made to the Dynamic setting (or any of the other settings) but you'll be right back to Dynamic. Annoying? Oh yeah. What was really weird, it that it didn't do this to any of the other inputs.

Substandard remote
The remote just doesn't seem to work all that well. Sure the backlight is useless but if the display does what you say at the time you say it, that makes up for it doesn't it? In this case, only 1 out of every 2 or 2 out of ever 3 commands was recognized. Not to mention the lack of individual buttons for each input… well, substandard pretty much sums it up.

No sound
Don't ask me why the speakers didn't work with the HDMI input because I don't know. They just didn't. Weird.