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Samsung HLN617W 61-inch DLP Television Review
Samsung HLN617W 61-inch DLP Television Review - PCSTATS
Samsung was one of the first companies to jump into the DLP display market, which is based on Texas Instruments revolutionary HD-2 DLP micro device.
 92% Rating:   
Filed under: Home Theatre Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: Samsung Oct 20 2004   M. Dowler  
Home > Reviews > Home Theatre > Samsung HLN617W

In use; HDTV, Gaming, and DVDs

Samsung's HLN617W is built for movies, and this showed when we hooked it up to a DVD player with component outs. DVD quality was excellent, with a very 'movie-like' feel to it (as you might expect on a 61" widescreen). The picture was crisp and colours were vibrant and well reproduced.

Using the component inputs produced solid, respectable black, while the black from the S-video inputs was rather washed out.

Viewing angles were quite impressive. We did not notice much of a decrease in clarity until we moved far enough to the side that we could not see the whole screen properly, so this will not be a concern. Samsung advertises the set as having 160-degree viewing angles so this is no surprise. Vertical viewing angles are a little less, but when set up properly this shouldn't affect a users viewing experience.

Samsung's HLN617W can function as a test case for the superiority of component inputs over S-video (not that there was much doubt in the first place). We used a DVD player with S-video and component outs in combination with the TV's Picture-in-picture feature to create a half-component, half-S-video display for comparison purposes. Not only were the colours much more vivid and life-like on the component side, the blacks were also much deeper. There's no doubt in our mind as to what this TV needs to work best then.

As you would expect from DLP technology, there is no sign of 'ghosting' in the Samsung HLN617W's picture during rapid action scenes.

The brightness of the set was fine for darkened areas, though when we viewed the display in a normally illuminated office area with large windows it overwhelmed the screen until we changed to the 'dynamic' picture mode intended to deal with bright areas. Overall we were satisfied with the brightness of this Samsung DLP screen.

Testing with regular TV signals always feels like a bit of a letdown on a screen this size, but the HLN617W did not do badly. The panorama picture mode lets you use the full screen area while only stretching the image at either edge of the screen, which we found to be an acceptable compromise. 4.3 mode works well also, but is very under whelming in comparison.

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Contents of Article: Samsung HLN617W
 Pg 1.  Samsung HLN617W 61-inch DLP Television Review
 Pg 2.  Introduction to DLP
 Pg 3.  Physical Attributes of the HLN617W
 Pg 4.  Audio and Video Inputs
 Pg 5.  On-Screen Menus and Settings
 Pg 6.  — In use; HDTV, Gaming, and DVDs
 Pg 7.  In use - Computer Display
 Pg 8.  Sound, Tehchical Conclusions

 
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