2 Comments to “Samsung PN63C8000 63-Inch 1080p 3D Plasma HDTV, Black”

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1. K. Burke
   June 5, 2010 at 11:28 am | Permalink

   I bought this tv to replace my Sony 52″ XBR4 (Which was great when it first came out) becuase I wanted the new 3D technology as well as well as a good HD TV. This is my first Plasma TV. I have 4 other LCD TVs that work great but I was really impressed witht he picture of the Plasma. The black are definately blacker than my LCDs. For a general HD TV it has the best picture out of all my TVs and it is also one of the best I have seen on the market. The internet on the TV is pretty good. It was easy to set up. I am using it directly connected to my router so it is wired. I did not fell like paying $80 extra dollars for the wireless adapter plus I had a Gigaswitch located in my rack that was easy to run a cable. The apps for the internet were quite responsice to my surprise. I though there would be a long lag time but that was not so. You have access to sports scores, weather, YouTube and Netflix just to name a few. I did notice a buzzing noise at first as mentioned in other reviews but it was only there when I initially installed it and now it its no longer there.

   Now onto the 3D. I demoed it at the store and I was pretty impressed. It was on a 47″ or 52″ LCD I think. It was not until I got the 63″ in my house that I was blown away. The 3D on the plasma was so much better. The picture just looked like it was going to pop right off the screen. I was really impressed with the 2D to 3D function of this tv. It actually works. It may not be the best but it works quite well. Yes you do look silly wearing the glasses but they felt really comfortable. I wear glasses and the 3D glasses fit right over them nicely. I did not get dizzy or get any headaches.

   I wanted to clarify some information about setting up a 3D system. when going to some stores i was given some wrong information. I was told that I would need to buy all the same brands for all the equipment needed. So I would need to buy the Samsung TV, Glasses and Blu-ray player. I knew that I need the TV and the Glasses to be the same but the Blu-ray player does not. I wanted to purchase the Panasonic Blu-ray player becuase it had the duel HDMI ports on it so that I would not have to upgrade to a receiver that has HDMI 1.4 to get the HD audio. I did purchase the Panasonic blu-ray and it works just fine. This is the way to go if you have an older Reciever with HDMI Switching and you want to get Dolby Digital HD and DTS Master Audio HD from your Blu-ray player.

   I would definately recommend it to anyone.
   
   Rating: 5 / 5

2. Russell L. Mclaughlin
   June 5, 2010 at 1:16 pm | Permalink

   I bought this a few weeks ago from the local big box (Amazon didnt offer it for sale yet). Did extensive comparisons with the Panasonic 3d TV but bought this one because it is thinner and I might want to eventually mount on a wall. I did notice that Aliens vs. Monsters does have some halo effect where sometime when something very light is next to something very dark it is like there is a smudge around the item (in the movie it most often occurs with the bleach blonde hair of Susan when she is in front of dark background, or around the moon at the beginning). This really bugged me. However, there is no other 3d source material to watch yet, and you cant even use the panasonic 3d demo as it wont work with the samsung tv, so I cant otherwise comment on this rare effect. It does not occur in 2d to 3d conversion or in 2d ever.

   The screen has some glare when viewing dark material in daylight, but otherwise the TruBlack does a great job of reducing glare, and 3D glasses reduce glare by 50% as well. I rarely notice glare at all, which is surprising for a plasma.

   Other than the rare halo artifact (which is not visible on the Panasonic demo, but I havent seen Monsters vs. Aliens on the Panasonic tv) the tv is virtually flawless. Put in a quality blueray source and the picture is a knockout. Try King Kong, or Pirates of Caribean. Wow. I gaurantee you have never seen such a quality picture ever before. Then, as there isnt currrently any significant 3d source material, try the 2d to 3d conversion (not available on the Panasonic). Wow. It does not have quite as much depth as made in 3d, and sometimes the 3d is not absolutely perfect, but it is amazing. I just watch 2d to 3d all the time and cannot figure out how they do it. The only thing that is annoying with the 2d to 3d is when multiple lines of text are on the screen, each line of text will be given a different depth apparently randomly which is a little wierd, especially because usually it should all be in the same plane. People, scenery, sports, playstation games, etc. all look great–it just does a superb job of extrapolating the 2d into 3d. Love Call of Duty in 2d to 3d. It is like you are there.

   I do think that when viewing in 3d you want to be closer to the tv than you would be ordinarily (and many others feel the same). You will also want a bigger screen than you would ordinarily want for 2d. Otherwise, it is like you are looking through a window at a 3d world. I have a home theater room with 100 inch screen and cant wait to get a 3d projector (not available yet in 1080p), but would recommend the largest 3d tv that you can afford, and 63 inches to me is only a half as large as I think is optimum.

   Sony and LG are supposed to come out with 3d tvs this June in time for the ESPN 3D launch for World Cup Soccer. As they are LCD based systems they are inferior to the plasmas of Panasonic and Samsung because of the much lower refresh rates. The professional reviewers who saw them at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas commented that they were not as good as the Panasonic and Samsung.

   Only things I dont like about the tv besides the occasional halo effect: The stylish remote will only control samsung components, and it annoyingly does that. For example, each time I turn on TV it turns on the samsung blueray player as well which automatically starts playing. I only wanted to watch TV. Rubbish. Plop down a few hundred extra dollars and get the Harmony One remote (but the other harmonies are all crap). Youll be glad you did.
   
   Also avoid the Samsung receiver, it is known to have a lot of problems. Pioneer carries the only other HDMI 1.4 receivers at this time that I am aware of and it works fine for me, although not truly necessary unless you want to pipe the HDMI through the receiver on the way to the TV.

   Overall this TV rocks. The 2d and 3d pictures are stunning. The glasses are more comfortable than the Panasonic’s. The TV is only an inch thick compared to 4 inches for the panasonic which makes it look like it is from yesteryear. If you are going to wall mount for this reason alone get the Samsung. The LED tvs all suck compared to the plasmas for 3D (although the LEDs are reportedly a little lighter, brighter, lower energy, and better ambient light control all these advantages are slight and the difference in 3d picture quality is large).

   Get this TV, you will be glad you did as it is the best of the currently available choices, unless you can wait a year for 3d 1080p projectors and have a dedicated dark room for the projector.

   Yes, there is almost no 3d source material currently, but the 2D to 3D conversion alone makes it worth it.

   One more note about the 3 channels coming for 3d (ESPN 3D, Discovery 3D, and the third I forget). All cable boxes currently in existance have HDMI 1.3. This wont carry enuf bandwith for 3D, so you can only view 720P picture in 3D as I understand it. I will update post in mid June when view these 720P 3D on ESPN 3D. So far, DishTV and Comcast have contracted to become carriers for ESPN 3D but noone else. Hopefully, 3D TIVO and cable boxes will come soon, as well as more movies besides just Monsters vs. Aliens. Mid summer is release of playstation 3D upgrade, and 3d games should shortly follow, but because of the HDMI 1.3 jack on PS3 these also in 720P only.
   Rating: 5 / 5

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