Digital Trends

Samsung LN-S2651D March 27th, 2007 | by Jason Tomczak

Testing

I have a number of movies that I use to test the video and audio qualities of televisions and computer monitors. They run the gamut of dark, brooding colors and heavy bass all the way to bright, vibrant colors and lively music and spoken words (I should also note that I tested audio and video quality with the AppleTV and a Samsung DVD-HD860 DVD Player).

HDMI Results

In movies like Bourne Supremacy and Underworld, plenty of night scenes help me judge how dark colors render on screen. The Samsung LN-S2651D provided excellent blacks with few to no artifacts. Colors are very life-like. Audio is crisp, clear and held up well with deep, booming explosions and high pitched sirens and wails. Despite the 4000:1 contrast ratio, I noticed a slight amount of color banding in some scenes. Granted, I was sitting less than a foot in front of the screen, looking for flaws. Had I been 4-6 feet away, I would have noticed nothing wrong at all.

The 500 cd/m2 brightness and the awesome 8ms response time really help provide a genuine HD picture on-screen. Using the HDMI connection with the Samsung DVD-HD860 player was great - not flawless, but truly great. I also tested the AppleTV via HDMI cable. Clearly an issue with the AppleTV, I noticed ghosting all over the screen, especially in areas that recently held images but then faded to black. Those images could still be seen as faint dark grey apparitions.

Kill Bill running on the Samsung LN-S2651D

Component Video Results

While I loved the simplicity and near-perfection of the HDMI cable connection, especially the fact that HDMI carries audio AND video on the same cable, component connections seemed to give better results. Blacks were still pitch black, colors were jumping off the screen and audio was flawless. The major difference I noticed was that the slight color banding visible with the HDMI connection was eliminated with component video. Despite the fact that this adds 5 times the cable bulk behind my TV, I would clearly select component connections over HDMI if picture quality had to be perfect. I got the same results with two different brands of quality HDMI cables.

AppleTV Results

The HDMI and component video connections are ideal for Apple's newest, hottest product, the AppleTV. While I found that the AppleTV gives better results with component cables, the HDMI is also very good. Component just rendered close to flawless in my numerous tests. The picture integrity is much stronger. Audio sounds awesome either way the AppleTV is connected to this HDTV.

Samsung LN-s2651D and Apple TV

5G Video iPod Results

The Samsung LN-S2651D can even be paired with a 5G video iPod for watching movies, TV shows, video podcasts and more. A conversion cable is required for this - one that converts right audio, left audio and video from the iPod's single 1/8" plug to standard RCA jacks. Apple sells these cables for about $25.

I tested the same movies on the LN-S2651D using a 5G video iPod as I did using the Samsung DVD player and the AppleTV. The displayed video was very impressive. No doubt, the higher quality your digital movie file, the better the resultant picture. I tested movies and TV shows downloaded from within the iTunes store and they played very, very well. The video compression required to cram a full 16:9 digital movie into the iTunes/iPod video format admittedly bleeds plenty of quality away from the original. Some pixellation is evident, but at 4-6 feet away, it looks pretty darn good. In fact, I would put the video quality from a 5G iPod on par with video from digital cable TV.

Samsung LN-S2651D and Apple iPod