Sounds like we've got a problem Scotty... (Samsung LE-40R88BD)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Samsung LE-40R88BD
Date:	12/04/08 (1142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent picture quality on all sources; outstanding value for money

Disadvantages: Lipsynch and volume control issues with external audio via optical link

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Surely that's a complete waste of money?" No, not the TV that I bought and that I'm reviewing; what we did before this. We rented.

We've rented TVs and Video Players for years and I must admit that I have often considered terminating our rental arrangements and buying instead. Over the years technology has advanced and sets have become more reliable or, at least, as reliable as is necessary considering that if something goes wrong after as little as three years you would probably want to go for something better rather than get the broken one repaired.

It's not as though we were even renting state-of-the-art technology. Our TV was a 28" widescreen CRT box, you know, the ones that weigh a ton. In fact, with CRT TVs you don't even get to see the claimed screen size. Most of these 28" models only have a visible screen area of 26"! Over the years we had various different makes as each in turn developed a fault, so I suppose we did actually get some value for money out the agreement; it was probably borderline.

What made me change my mind was our acquisition of Virgin Media's V+ set top box. For years we had simply used a standard ntl/Virgin Media Pace set top box without any recording capability. These were beginning to show unreliability and so I took advantage of the 50% installation fee discount to sign up for Virgin's competitor to Sky's Sky+ technology. I have reviewed the V+ box here on Dooyoo, if you're interested.

The V+ comes with a High Definition (HD) output socket in HDMI format. Obviously the CRT TV wouldn't accept this; CRT TVs don't support HD, not that Virgin's HD content amounts to a lot at this time. Virgin are promising to do something about this but to date the HD programmes are limited to the BBC's HD Review channel and to the odd few On Demand Movies that are available to purchase in HD format. Be that as it may, a primary requirement would be a TV that was HD Ready but also performed well with Standard Definition (SD) material since this would, for the foreseeable future, be what we would be watching. No good getting a TV that had a worse picture than we already had!

I must admit I put off a decision for some time. Despite buying an almost endless supply of magazines in order to read up on what was recommended and what was not, it always seemed to me that the other articles in these mags were forever suggesting that something better was on the horizon. It never seemed to be the right time to buy. In the end I decided that if I didn't make a decision we would still be waiting next year. However, my primary decision was to get the best value for money that I could but not to bother going for the best that money could buy. I decided to set the absolute limit at £900, and less if possible.

Having considered our room I decided that the optimum TV screen size would be 40". I was prepared to go to 42" if necessary but even 37" would be acceptable. I wasn't particularly bothered if the TV came with an LCD or Plasma screen; the difference is marginal these days but 40" is about the boundary between LCD and Plasma technology. Ironically, 40" was about the size of the casing on the old TV! The room is 4.4m x 5.6m in size.

One other thing that I was looking for was a TV that had an optical audio output socket. We have a JVC Home Cinema Surround Sound system, which will accept audio input from external sources via both optical and RCA stereo plug connections but the optical link is audibly better and supports full AC1 surround sound sources. Taking the audio signal from the TV means that the sound track is whatever is showing; you don't need multiple audio connections to every source device. Sadly this meant that Panasonic models were out of the equation as they do not appear to have optical output audio sockets.

I read a review of Samsung's 37" LCD TV and the write-up gave it a very strong recommendation. In fact the mag was very enthusiastic about Samsung in general, which is a good sign. Time now to go and have a look at actual models and this I could really only do by visiting the "High Street". In my case the nearest outlets are Currys and Comet. Yes, I know I could get a better deal online but I wanted the TV right away, having made a decision, and I wanted to see the TV in action anyway.

Both Currys and Comet had the 40" Samsung model on display. Comet seem to be capable of demonstrating their TVs on SD source material such as that broadcast by Freeview but Currys only display their TVs using HD source material. The excuse is that the manufacturers dictate the way that their machines are displayed and they only want them shown at their best! However, the Samsung did look good on all sources, even with Comet's dodgy in-store aerial signal. I decided to take the plunge.

I bought from Currys rather than Comet as they were offering what was essentially the same model at £50 less than Comet. I know it isn't exactly the same model but the difference in features is cosmetic and certainly not worth an extra £50. Both stores did have the honesty to warn me that this model was shortly to be replaced with a new model but then this new model would be another £200 over and above the existing one. The Samsung was on offer at £599.99. I decided that I didn't need to wait any just so as to pay another £200 when I was satisfied with this one.

The Samsung LE40R88BD is an LCD TV and is HD Ready. This means that it will accept most HD source material but is itself not the highest specification. The native screen resolution is 1024x768 pixels and will accept HD material up to 1080i. Now, this may not sound a lot; the screen on my laptop, on which I am writing this review, has a resolution of 1680x1050 and it's only 15.4" widescreen. However, this can be misleading. You have to see it in action in order to get a true impression of how detailed a picture the TV can display. You have to remember that you are likely watching the TV from over 3 metres away, not the less than a third of a metre that you would a laptop screen.

The TV is very neat. The surrounding frame is black and is only about 4cms wider than the visible screen, a little deeper at the bottom where the SAMSUNG logo is displayed, above the faint blue glow of an LCD light which, fortunately, can be turned off if it annoys you! It stands on an oval swivel base that enables you to orient the screen just as you want it without having to move the whole TV and table on which it stands. The TV doesn't come with a TV table but Currys were offering a very attractive glass one with three shelves for £100, if bought with the TV. Ironically the table is a lot heavier than the TV itself! The TV can also be wall mounted and brackets are provided.

The rear of the set, which is itself only about 10cms thick has input sockets for 2 SCART leads and 2 HDMI connections as well as a socket for an aerial lead to feed the internal analogue tuner and the digital Freeview tuner. In addition the TV will accept Composite Video and Audio input as well as DVI. There is also a standard 15 pin D socket for a PC Monitor lead. On the side of the casing there is a third HDMI socket plus sockets to take input from camcorders and suchlike. There is also a headphone socket. The output audio consist of both a Toslink optical audio socket as well as standard stereo RCA sockets. Bear in mind that the TV comes with no leads other than an aerial lead and the power one so you will have to buy in addition an HDMI lead and, as in my case, an optical audio lead.

I started off by simply plugging in the TV to the power and to the aerial, which is one designed specifically for receiving digital signals. Our nearest transmitter is Crystal Palace, about 45 kilometres away. Switching it on took it straight into set-up mode and most things it seemed to be able to work out for itself. It then asked if I wanted it to scan for TV channels. Absolutely! The TV can be controlled from a series of touch-sensitive buttons on the right-hand edge of the casing but mostly you will control it with the supplied remote.

The remote has a nice couple of touches. The buttons at the top of the remote enable you to control with it certain other compatible devices. There are TV, DVD, STB (Set Top Box), CABLE and VCR buttons and the User Guide lists the makes and models of these types of devices with which the Samsung's remote is compatible. Also, if you like watching TV in the dark, the remote has a button marked with a light bulb that glows dimly. Pressing it illuminates briefly the TV, Volume and Channel buttons, so that you can find them!

Anyway, first of all the TV started searching for analogue channels and found all the [limited] usual suspects. It then started its search on the digital Freeview tuner. Once again it found all of the TV and Radio stations that I would have expected it to find based upon the results from all of the Freeview set-top boxes connected to the other TVs in the house.

Immediately it then displayed the analogue BBC1 picture. Straight away I'm impressed. The analogue TV signal is the lowest quality signal you can receive but if the picture looks this good with this signal then things can only get better! Not that everything was perfect mind. The picture did seem overly bright but, let's take our time and see what else we can find first. So, I switched to the TV's Freeview tuner. Immediately the improvement in the same BBC1 signal was noticeable; a sharper picture and better colour definition. Even the sound sounded better!

The remote control has a button marked D.MENU and it is this that gives you access to the Electronic Programme Guide of the Freeview tuner. You get a "Now & Next Guide" and a "Full Guide", which do pretty much what they suggest. You get a small window in the top left of the screen showing the currently selected programme whilst you search for something else to watch. There is also a "Schedule List" identifying those programmes which you have selected to be shown. You select these from the on-screen programme guide simply by highlighting the programme and pressing "ENTER/OK". The programme gets a little clock symbol to indicate that you have scheduled it to be shown when it starts. The D.MENU screen also gives you access to other settings related to the built-in Freeview tuner.

Next thing to try was the V+ box and this meant connecting the HDMI cable I had bought at the same time. Connecting the two produced nothing when the TV's HDMI1 socket was selected so I needed to connect the V+ box to the TV using one of the old SCART leads as well, simply to be able to see what the V+ box controls were showing. I had to go into the V+ Settings menu and from there the "Change Display & Audio Settings" selections. The "TV display format" needed to be set to "HiDef HDMI" and the "V+ Box HiDef output" set to "1080 wide". Once these were set, switching the TV back to the HDMI1 input at last displayed the programme source from the V+ box in all its glory.

If anything the V+ source was even better than the built-in Freeview though the difference was not as significant as that between the analogue and digital sources. Nevertheless, the picture quality was exceptional and this wasn't even HD material, only the normal SD! Having connected the V+ box to the TV using both SCART and HDMI connections, I was able to judge the improvement that the HDMI connection offered in comparison. There was noticeable difference. Everything was sharper and better defined. For certain, you would want to use the HDMI interface wherever one was available.

However, the picture balance did need adjusting; it was still far too bright. Pressing the "Menu" button on the TV remote immediately displayed the settings menu and the first setting category is the one I want, the TV display settings.

I must admit it took quite a while to get the picture how I wanted it. The main controls that I changed were the Contrast and Brightness. Both were up at their highest settings, 100. The Contrast I backed off a tad to 95 but the Brightness I changed right down to 45. Even so, the screen still looked too bright and then I noticed down at the bottom a Backlight control. LCD screens have to have a backlight in order for the picture to be able to be seen at all, unlike Plasma screens. The control was set to the maximum 10. I hauled it all the way back down to 3.

Finally the picture looked really good. Skin tones were realistic and colours natural and balanced. Fine detail was excellent, especially when judged by the appearance of hair. Don't forget, we're still only accessing SD material; we haven't even got on to HD yet. Even blacks, which are often the Achilles Heel of LCD displays, looked deep and natural.

So, time to try some HD and for this the only option is the BBC HD Review channel via the V+ box. This channel shows a loop of brief excerpts from various well-known BBC programmes such as Cranford, Ian Stewart's series about the Earth and Michael Wood's series about India. Finally the TV's true potential was on display and the result was astonishing. Not only the pictures but the sound as well jumped to a whole new level.

However, if anything the most disappointing feature of the TV, compared with the pictures, was the sound. The built-in speakers are only stereo of course and I have no doubt they do a decent enough job for the technology but, compared with a surround sound system, the results were disappointing. The settings do offer what is called SRS TS XT mode, which tries to resolve the issue of broadcasting 5.1 surround sound audio over stereo speakers and enabling this option does make a significant improvement. Anyone not planning to hook the TV up to a home cinema system would find the sound quality entirely adequate I'm sure. Still, I wasn't planning to use the TV's speakers so it's time to connect up to the home theatre system, and this means plugging in the optical audio cable.

Immediately the sound bursts into life but with an echo; of course, the TV speakers are still working as well and appear to be slightly out of synch with the sound from the home cinema system. Muting the TV sound solves that but you wouldn't want to run the TV all the time with the mute symbol on the screen. There must be some way of turning off the speakers completely. A search through the TV Settings identified in the Audio settings an "Internal Mute" option. Setting this to Off switched off the TV's sound.

Now I had a chance to judge the sound quality and one thing I found straight away was that the Samsung's volume controls didn't work. The only way to control the sound volume was with the home cinema remote control! Now, you may think that this would be expected but with the old TV you could switch off the TV's speakers but still control the volume sent to the audio output socket with the TV's remote control. I was hoping that the Samsung would be the same but it seems I am to be disappointed. This is a backwards step!

Next thing I notice is that the audio is very slightly behind the pictures. It isn't much, possibly as little as a tenth of a second but on full-face close-ups, still noticeable. I plugged in an RCA stereo lead between the TV and the home cinema and switched to that input source and the problem went away. This is doubly annoying. The main reason I bought the Samsung was because it had an optical audio output capability, for best quality audio, and now I can't use it! I shall have to decide what action to take about this. It may be an inherent design fault in which case swapping the TV for a new one isn't going to make any difference.

I also have a Daewoo VHS/DVD Recorder Combi plugged into this setup, which I bought at the same time as the TV. I bought it to replace the video recorder that came as a part of the rental agreement. It combines into a single unit a VHS tape deck and a DVD recorder. I got this so that I could transfer all of our old camcorder video of our kids to DVD and also to retain some programmes recorded on the V+ hard drive so that I can clear up space for new recordings. I will review this machine separately later.

So, overall, what's the verdict? Well, picture-wise I doubt I could do very much better without paying twice or probably three times as much as I have for the Samsung. SD material is superb, HD astounding. Sound-wise the situation is a little different. OK, the actual quality of the sound is very good even using the RCA stereo interface; the Optical Digital audio interface is even better but because of the lip-synch problem I can't use it. For now I will live with it until I can get someone to give me a definitive view on whether this is a manufacturing or a design fault.

For now the Samsung holds pride of place in the corner of the room and hopefully I will be able to keep it once the sound issue is resolved. I very much want to because as an overall package it would be very hard to beat, especially at the price. If you have no need for a connection to external audio systems then I could strongly recommend this TV. Bear in mind also that this model is due to be superseded and so you can expect both Currys and Comet, with its virtually identical version, to be offering the TV at even lower prices in the months to come, so that they can clear their shelves. It may be worth waiting a month or so for an absolute bargain.

Summary: A superb package that would be hard to beat at twice the price

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