Comment on Samsung UN78HU9000 Curved 78-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D LED TV by Shopping Guru.
HU9000 Vs HU8550,
** I will be constantly updating this as i get more information**
[Updated: Nov 11, 2014]
update nov 11:
So my picture issues had to do with the one connect box. I had it replaced and the difference was night and day. Although i had my 2nd box crash on me every single day but after 3 complete factory resets the problem resolved. I will write more but this there is information i need you to look up before you make your 4k tv purchase. First off i would say not to buy a 4K TV in 2014. The year of UHD is holiday 2015. Blu-ray 4K movies and players will be out then. Problem is they will support HDCP 2.2 (a requirement for any copyrighted 4k content) and the REC 2020 color space. These 2 term are super important when making a UHD purchase decision. Please google it.
a true UHD 4k uses a 10/12 bit panel and the Rec 2020 color space not the current 709 that is meant for 1080. It will not surprise me if they start marketing televisions q4 2015 and into 2015 as TRUE UHD 4K. So if your panel is not 10 bit your TV will not be upgradeable and be obsolete in a year. I can confirm that the HU9000 is a 10 bit panel and it already has a setting in the menus for UHD HDMI color. Not sure if it is active or does anything yet but i guess this what you will have to turn on when you get a 4k BD player. By definition manufacturers can legally call an 8 bit 4k panel UHD as long as it supports one hdcp 2.2 hdmi port. The problem is HDCP 2.2 is not backwards compatible.
If i had known earlier i would have returned the TV. I was so focused on HDMI 2.0 and 60hz and all the PQ testing (and all the other stuff you can see from my OP) that i did not follow through one one question that kept bugging me. i pulled the thread and a lot unraveled. Why does only one port on all 4K A/V gear support HDCP 2.2 right now (and some gear does hdmi 2.0/60hz but no HDCP 2.2). If you have hdmi 2.0/60hz why not just make HDCP 2.2 standard on all of them rather then on just one port? The answer is that HDCP 2.2 is not backwards compatible. I verified that on this and the flat version of this tv if ARC had HDCP 2.2 support. I confirmed it multiple times with Samsung tech support. However, i am now starting to be believe that that is a lie. Perhaps in a future oneconnect box update but not now and this supports the manual that states that only the MHL HDMI port is HDCP 2.2 supported. So i urge you to research this as i think the Samsung is the only 4K TV that could be upgraded to support REC 2020 and all HDMI ports supporting HDCP 2.2.
As for my PQ imprsssions, First this TV must be calibrated. its great until you watch something with a lot of dark scenes. The backlight goes insane. There are like 4 horizontal backlight bands and it can’t decide or keep up with what should turn on and off. So it looks like it is flickering. Some scenes get so dark that the TV turns the backlight off completely. To me this is an epic fail and i did not notice in store despite all my testing. On TV shows via my Tivo the blacks are not inky.
I should have just trusted my rule of not buying any TV with edge lit backlight. Full aray or OLED nothing else. Considering the original price i am surprised they did not go full array. I wish i had waited as well and paid $500 less then current price. What embarasses me is that i spent years waiting to upgrade my Kuro and i tend to be meticoulous, cautious, well researched and really size up things before i take the plunge just so i would not make a mistake and end up where i am now. The pic for the most part is fantastic but there are days that even in the same show the PQ looks stunning then looks like SD. I think the processor is having a tough time keeping up or lagging. The backlight issues in dark scenes drives me mad. I have personally calibrated this TV using calman and i will post my settings with some alternatives adjustments at a later time.
I researched and waited patiently. Then my wife was like i can’t see well so get me a big screen and thus the pressure. All of this started because of this and i heard about the F8500 plasma and how bright it was despite it being plasma. The Kuro is awesome but in daylight it is barely watcheable. The price on the F8500 was right and picture fantastic and so we thought get it now and then move it to the bedroom when the 4k OLED we wanted was available. But then the price drop on 4k and it was like well this only xxx more than the F8500 and we get 4K and upgradeability because of the oneconnectbox option and we would then move it to the bedroom when we bought our OLED set in the future. This way both rooms would have 4k. So we looked at the HU8500 and balked at the concept of curved. We were all decided and were going that route when we thought we should do our due diligence and check out the curved. We did and then fell in love it. Off course it was more but we justified it. We thought of waiting…
