14 DAY TRIAL // For all you "I must have a 1080p HDTV in order to be happy" users out there, Samsung has taken heed of your complaints, and is now revealing an entirely new lineup of flat-panel LCD and PDP HDTVs, thus leaving you the decision of what kind of other "over the top" product to buy in order to display digital content in HDTV format. The choices are many, from a new graphics card that will set you a couple of hundred dollars back, to a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player, which comes closer to the "half a grand to a grand" in cost, or even to combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD player, whichever suits you best.
The product lineup Samsung has in store is made of three series of LCD-TVs, the M8, R8 and S8 series, all of them being available in the 32-inch to 52-inch sizes. Both M8 and R8 series come with three High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connections, while the S8 series comes with only two HDMI connections.
Soo bong (Bong) Kim, Vice President for Samsung's Visual Display Division said: "This new lineup perfectly illustrates the evolving industry of streamlining digital technology. The high performance multimedia device makes the LCD TVs the ultimate interface for viewing motion pictures, connecting to the laptop or the camcorder while maintaining a premium high definition viewing experience".
The M8 series is the "flagship" of the LCD lineup, with a full 1920x1080 resolution support, a 15000:1 contrast ratio and featuring three, again three, patented Samsung technologies: Super Clear Panel, Movie Plus and Wide Color Enhancer. Super Clear Panel improves "color reproduction levels" and "boosts the contrast ratio", while Movie Plus "calculates the motion component of the incoming video signal and interpolates the action to create new frames without the judder effect; the third technology, Wide Color Enhancer, allows for better color representation in bright pictures.
On the PDP lineup there are the Q9 and C9 series, the Q9 series incorporates the Ultra FilterBright technology, as opposed to the C9 series which uses the FilterBright technology. The Q9 series has the upper hand on the C9 series because of the new Optimal Light Filter and Super Black Panel technologies. Both the C9 and Q9 series have an 18-bit processing unit and the 15000:1 contrast ratio. They also include anti-burn technology and offer up to 60.000 hours life span. For the 42-inch and 50-inch PDP HDTVs, as well as for the 40-inch or bigger LCD-TVs, the auto wall-mount feature is available, allowing users to swivel the screens up to 20 degrees horizontally and to tilt them up to 15 degrees down.