Samsung HLP6163W 61-Inch HDTV Monitor with DLP Technology
terrible color accuracy ruins an otherwise nice set
After much research and in-store staring, I picked up this set.  I found that the colors were quite a bit off, no matter what adjustments I made, so I traded it for another -- sadly, to no avail.  The brightness, contrast, and detail are all great -- but the color is just wrong.  And you can't fix it yourself -- there's a special \\"service port\\" that doesn't take USB or any other normal connector; you have to hire a pro to come out and \\"calibrate\\" your set for several hundred bucks.  In other words, you're paying someone to play with the hue and contrast knobs.  No thanks.  For this price, it should either work out of the box, or I should be able to adjust it myself.  It's not rocket science -- or rather, if it is, then the product is badly misdesigned. <br /> <br />The most noticable color problems are with skin, which looks either too green or too pale or too pink -- and it varies with the scene.  That's the killer: it's not a single-directional error, like \\"always too green\\", which you could potentially correct.  It's variable.  The most common problem is that it makes yellows too green, but sometimes it makes them too orange.  It also tends to make reds look magenta, and exaggerates blues. <br /> <br />Another thing, which will probably vary from person to person, is that I find the picture exhausting to watch.  Unlike a CRT or plasma or LCD, the DLP image has absolutely no residual.  That's great for fast motion, because it'll never streak.  But it means that you're not looking at a steady light source, you're looking at a strobe light.  In theory, it's flashing fast enough that you can't tell.  In practice, I find that it wears my eyes out, in much the same way that very early CD players would wear your ears out.  It's just a very harsh thing to look at. <br /> <br />Low-light images look horribly grainy.  Star Trek: Enterprise, X-Files, Twin Peaks, anything that has a lot of dimly lit scenes looks just awful -- like you're getting it off a UHF antenna.  Speaking of Enterprise, that's a good place to observe the color problems.  Watch the color of the uniforms -- as the surrounding scenery changes, they go from almost neon-blue to dark gray. <br /> <br />Finally, whatever set you buy, don't repeat my mistake of only watching the store's HD feed.  You need to see what it does with normal low-res content, because that's going to be 95% of what you're watching for the useful lifetime of the TV.  No, really.  You don't realize how little HD content there is until you have an HDTV.