Two submenus—Advanced Settings and Picture Options—offer additional controls. Black Tone darkens the image, but it does this by crushing the darkest grays without actually reducing the set’s fundamental black level. Dynamic Contrast, on the other hand, punches up the brightness and simultaneously raises the black level. It definitely made the image pop more, and it might be useful in the most brightly lit rooms. But overall, I felt that it added a garish touch that did the picture more harm than good.

On the other hand, the Gamma control is definitely useful. It affects the midrange brightness without (in theory) altering the full white or absolute black levels. I rarely ventured beyond settings of 0 or +1, but the change in image quality between just those two settings wasn’t subtle—the best option depended on the program material. The Samsung’s measured gamma averaged about 2.2 at +1, 2.35 at 0, and just under 2.5 at –1. In all cases, it was marginally higher (darker) than these averages at low bright- ness levels and lower (brighter) at higher brightness. Accurate gamma settings optimally should mirror the gamma used to create the source. Expert recommendations range from 2.2 to about 2.4.

In its Custom position, the Samsung’s Color Space control acts as a color management system, which lets you move the set’s primary (red, green, and blue) and secondary (yellow, magenta, and cyan) color points. While this adjustability can be useful in calibrating a set’s color gamut, the Samsung’s color gamut was satisfyingly accurate out of the box in the Auto setting (see HT Labs Measures).

The Samsung’s White Balance controls offer both high and low red, green, and blue adjustments. You can use these with the appropriate test tools to calibrate an accurate D6500 white point.

The Film mode provides four different settings: Off, Auto1, Auto2, and Cinema Smooth. The Cinema Smooth option displays 1080p/24 program material with 4:4 pulldown—in other words, at 96 Hz. It repeats the additional three frames; no frame interpolation is involved. If the source is 1080p/60, the Film mode defaults to Off, and if the source is interlaced, the available Film mode options are Auto1, Auto2, and Off. If you select Cinema Smooth with a 1080p/24 source and subsequently switch to a 1080i source, for example, the Film mode will automatically switch to Auto1—and back, again automatically, as needed.

Unlike many HDTVs, the Samsung offers both 4:3 and Zoom aspect ratio options when the incoming resolution is 1080i or 1080p. This means the Samsung can display standard-definition 4:3 programs (or non-16:9 letterbox sources that have been unconverted to 1080i/p prior to entering the set) without distortion. With sets that lack this capability, you must input these types of SD sources to the set at 480i/p. If not, they will be stretched or squeezed out of proportion.

A Blue-Only mode is also available. When you use it with an appropriate color test pattern, it’s the best way to set up the set’s Color and Tint controls.

The Samsung’s video controls, including White Balance and Color Space, are separately adjustable for each input. Your calibrator will need to remember to manually transfer the calibrated adjustments to all of the active inputs, unless he or she sets up each input individually.

The Samsung’s menu structure is identical to the one in the company’s new UN55B7000 LCD HDTV (HT, August 2009). My main beef with the menus, both there and here, is the inadequate dwell time for the White Balance and Color Space menus. They pop back to a full-screen menu before you can complete a meter reading. This has been a problem in all the recent Samsung sets we’ve reviewed. While it won’t annoy most users, it will drive calibrators to drink.

The remote is a good one. It doesn’t offer direct access to inputs, and it can’t control other components (apart from a few exceptions through the Anynet+ feature). But it is fully backlit and has comfortably large, well-spaced and -shaped buttons.

Bells, Whistles, Bells, and Whistles
What we’ve covered so far—just the critical stuff about the controls available to optimize the set’s performance—takes up about five pages in the set’s 101-page (English section alone) owner’s manual. The manual devotes another 30 pages or so to hookup, setting up the onboard tuners, and regurgitating in fine print and even finer legal-speak the intricacies of the licensing agreements for the set’s software—every word of which I’m certain all owners will eagerly digest.

The remaining 70 pages are given over to exhaustive descriptions of the set’s cutting-edge special features. I’ll make no attempt to describe these in depth here. If you want to know more, you can download the manual from Samsung’s Website and peruse it in more detail than any review can cover. But here’s the short tour, just for completeness:

PC display, either via the VGA or an HDMI input. Connection to a home network via Ethernet into the set’s LAN port. Playback of compatible music, videos, or photos from a USB device connected to the set through one of its two USB inputs. Playback of compatible music, videos, or photos stored on a computer via your home network and the set’s LAN port. Wireless home network connection using Samsung’s optional wireless LAN adapter. PiP (Picture-in-Picture). Software upgrades through a USB input. Anynet+, Samsung’s version of the industry’s standard HDMI-CEC feature, which allows unified control of compatible components connected together via HDMI. Home Network Center, a feature that can wirelessly network your cell phone to the television, including an onscreen alarm window that will notify you of incoming calls, text messages, and schedule items on your phone. Internet TV directly to the set, via your Internet provider, to specific Internet services and sites that have partnered with Samsung. Onscreen Widgets that provide direct access to these sites and services, which at press time include news, weather, and financial information.

Whew! I often wonder just how often most users will use such features. Most likely, we’ll each choose our own poison. I might want Internet TV. You might want to be alerted, by a message splashed across the screen during an engrossing episode of 24 or Fringe, that yr BFFL Jo wnts u 2 call hm tmro AM. To each his own.

Performance
The Samsung turned in a solid video processing result with two exceptions. It had difficulty on our standard 3:2 standard-definition pulldown test and displayed a trace of herringbone on the highest-frequency high-definition luma resolution pattern. The latter was enough to give it a Borderline score for luma resolution in our Video Test Bench rather than a clean passing score. But I never saw any sign of this shortcoming on regular program material.