Samsung 30-inch EDTV

As Good As Green Eggs and Ham

by Grant Clauser

Hopefully you know something about high definition television. Briefly, it’s the high resolution version of digital television. But you may not know that there are actually several variations of digital television, one of which is referred to as enhanced definition television. EDTV differs from HDTV in that it can be in either a standard 4:3 aspect ratio or 16:9 and a minimum resolution of 480 progressive lines. HDTV on the other hand has a minimum resolution of either 720 progressive or 1080 interlaced.

Is this important? The truth is that most people who are now enjoying their “HDTV’s are enjoying the 480p resolution they get from DVDs either from progressive scan DVD players or from their TVs’ internal line doublers. Because of the lack of HDTV broadcasts and the limited number of people who have purchased HDTV tuners to go with their TVs, few HDTV owners ever see the full resolution their HDTVs are capable of displaying.

Samsung realized, wisely I think, that if EDTV resolution is all most people are watching anyway, and those people are very happy with it, then why not simply build TVs to EDTV specification rather than throwing all that extra resolution capability away. A good idea?

If you’ve ever sat in front of a widescreen TV with a progressive scan DVD hooked up to it you’d see the beauty that 480p EDTV can be. Except on very large TVs, most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference between 480p and 1080i HDTV. But some people insist that anything less then high definition is not worth watching. Those people remind me of the character who won’t eat his green eggs and ham, that is, until he tries it.

So that brings us to Samsung’s 30-inch widescreen TSK3092WF DynaFlat EDTV. This DynaFlat, as the name implies, is of the flat screen tube variety made popular by Sony’s line of Wega TVs. It also sports the 16:9 aspect ratio that has made DVD lovers so giddy. The kicker to this TV, of course, is that it can display 480 progressive pictures either from a DTV set-top-box tuner (Samsung makes an off-air tuner for about $700) or from a progressive scan DVD player. Non-progressive or digital sources, such as regular cable, satellite TV, VCR or standard DVD player get upconverted to 480p via the TV’s internal line doubler, which Samsung calls a Pro Chip.

This TV has quite a nice feature package for its $1,999.99 price tag. A 3D Y/C digital comb filter helps clean up cable TV pictures. A set of Dolby Pro Logic spring clip speaker ports and the two built-in Impact Port bass speakers give you a good surround experience if you don’t have an A/V receiver and 5.1 speaker setup. One set of component jacks give you connection for a progressive DVD player or a digital tuner, but you can’t hook both up at the same time (unless you have an a/v receiver that does high pass component switching). Three sets of standard A/V jacks give you connection to VCRs and such. There’s only one S-video jack on the back of the TV. There’s another set of A/V jacks on the side, plus S-video and a headphone jack.

The connection department could use an extra S-Video jack and a second set of high-pass component jacks. A Toslink or digital audio coax input for DVD would also be nice to better take advantage of all those speaker spring clips.

After letting the TV warm up a big with test loops spinning off a Toshiba SD-6200 progressive DVD player, we ran the TV through the usual batch of test patterns found on Avia and Video Essentials. True to its word, the TV showed A crisp enhanced definition picture, with all the resolution Toshiba’s excellent DVD player could deliver. Blacks looked very black, whites looked white, but red seemed a bit overdone. With a little adjustment to the user-accessible video menus I was able to fix the color to acceptable levels, though there was still a bit of a red push.

Oddly, when checking letterboxed patterns, the picture appeared pinched on all sides. This was most noticable in 2.35:1 modes. Lines on 1.85:1 test patterns also appeared pinched, but when watching actual video footage at the same aspect ratio, the pinching was only slightly noticeable. Most likely this was the result of rough handling on the TVs long trip across country to our office. I didn’t try this, but a Samsung spokes person said this could be corrected in the service menu.

Interestingly the TV reacted strangely when I first hooked up the DVD player. The TV thought it was connected to a digital TV tuner, and would not behave well with the DVD player until I went into the menu to change the settings. I haven’t seen this problem in other TVs, which automatically know how to handle the different signals, but as I said, it didn’t really cause a problem, just a moment of confusion.

I ran sections from several DVDs to check out real-world performance of this TV. Bedazzled’s rich colors and sharp detail looked superb. Gladiator’s dusty digitized backdrops were full of depth without a hint of MPEG artifacts. When hooked up to two interlaced DVD players, through the component and S-video jacks, the TV’s Pro Chip line doubler mostly did a fine job of turning the interlaced pictures into smooth progressive images. Star Trek Insurrection’s torture test opening scene was riddled with jagged edges though. Other movies, such as The Haunting and Saving Private Ryan converted much better.

One caveat to a widescreen TV of this size is that standard TV gets displayed in a small box in the center of the screen. To avoid spending $2,000 on what amounts to a 27-inch TV nestled in the middle of a 30-inch screen, Samsung built in several screen modes. Like the Philips 34-inch widescreen TV reviewed in the May/June issue, this Samsung does a very good job of filling the screen without distorting the picture too terribly. If you plan on watching a lot of standard TV, spend some time cycling through the different screen modes to see what suits your tastes best.

What this TV should make abundantly clear is that EDTV is certainly sufficient for the TV sizes most people will own. A good 480p signal will look as good or almost as good on any TV under 40-inches. Truthfully, most TVs claiming to be HD-ready can’t really display all 1080i lines anyway. I liked EDTV as a concept, and now that I’ve used one, I like it Sam I Am.

One last thing that I for one really appreciate — convenient handholds on the rear of the set! As someone who moves around a lot of TVs, and has probably done permanent damage to my back in the process, I award extra credit points to whoever designed those hand holds. No crushed fingers this time.

Finely, the bad news: For reasons probably tied in more with marketing than with reality, Samsung has announced that they will not be supporting enhanced definition TV for much longer, instead opting to make all it’s digital-ready sets HDTV. As I write this, Samsung is preparing an updated version of this TV with HD-capability for an additional $500. I doubt though that most people will be able to tell this difference. In the meantime, this EDTV will probably be available at a good discount.

Pros: Excellent progressive scan image. Dolby Surround ready. Easy-to-use interface and menus. Good, compact remote.

Cons: Small picture in 4:3 mode. Sometimes pinched picture in letterboxed movies.

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