Samsung's 50" HL-R5078W delivers outstanding picture quality with DVDs and HDTV programs.

Man, what a difference a year makes in TV land.

A year ago, I reviewed Samsung's 50" HL-P5063W DLP TV. It was my first extended experience with a digital big-screen TV, and I found a lot to like about the set. For the past few weeks I've been spending a lot of time with one of Samsung's most advanced DLP sets: the 50" HL-R5078W. Its biggest claim to fame is "1080p" resolution, but there are many more significant improvements compared to Samsung's previous 50-incher.

Why 1080p is the real deal

Big-screen TVs based on 1080p technology have only been around for a couple of months. Prior to that, digital big-screens had resolution at or around 720p. On paper, the difference in resolution is substantial. 720p images have about a million pixels (1280 x 720), while 1080p images have about two million (1920 x 1080). That doesn't mean that a 1080p set will look twice as good as a 720p set, but 1080p should look more detailed and seamless. And since 1080i is the most common format for HDTV signals, you should be able to see programs at that resolution with no loss of detail, unlike 720p sets, which have to "downconvert" 1080i. Of course, 720p sets still have great-looking pictures, but there is a slight loss in detail. Whew, that's a lot of numbers.

A "dynamic iris" improves contrast and black level

Digital displays like DLP have trouble reproducing the high contrast ratios and deep blacks that tube-based TVs are so good at. DLP does a better job than most other non-tube TVs, but past DLP sets displayed a "black" that was often more of a dark charcoal gray. But Samsung (and other TV makers) have hit on a brilliant solution: the dynamic iris. The iris controls the amount of the lamp's light that passes through to the imaging chip. With a dynamic iris, a circuit samples the brightness level of the video signal and opens and closes the iris on the fly, optimizing contrast and black level scene by scene. It's incredibly effective. Blacks were very deep on the HL-R5078W — to the point where I can't imagine it will still be an issue, even for the most demanding videophiles.

Viewing impressions: standard and high-definition TV

I spent my first few days with the HL-R5078W feeding it a steady diet of digital cable TV (non-HD). Standard TV signals (broadcast or cable) always present a challenge for digital (non-tube) TVs. These displays are designed and built to look great with DVD-quality material or better. On lower-quality signals, they tend to expose and magnify noise and distortion in the picture.

Luckily, it turns out that the video processing circuitry inside the Samsung set is quite good. I actually got a better cable picture by connecting directly from the wall to the TV than by going through the digital cable box (Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3100). Of course, I had to switch back to the cable box to watch digital channels.

The Charlottesville area only has two local stations broadcasting digital signals, and only the NBC affiliate shows a significant amount of high-definition material. The last time I'd checked, the station had been broadcasting its digital signal at only half power, so it felt like I was rolling the dice when I connected Terk's set-top HDTVi antenna and placed it on the equipment rack behind the TV. I aimed it in the general direction of the transmitter cluster on Carter's Mountain, 13 miles from my house.

The NBC analog signal looked good (better than on cable), and I tuned up to the digital channel's location, and … Eureka! — I was watching widescreen crystal-clear HDTV. I've seen lots of HDTV in training sessions here at Crutchfield, at our retail store, and at trade shows, but this was the first time I'd experienced it in my own home. It was a revelatory moment — the clouds parted, sunshine streamed down, and I thought I heard a choir.

ER was on, and although it's not a show I generally watch, my eyes were glued to the screen. The local news followed, and though it's not shot in HD, the digital standard-definition picture was much sharper and cleaner than it's ever looked in analog. The Tonight Show was on next, and I immediately saw why it is often used as HD demo material. I can't imagine how a TV picture could look any sharper or clearer. And every time I saw the little Terk antenna poking out from behind the set, I was reminded that all it took to pull in these gorgeous, free images was an inexpensive set-top antenna.

The HL-R5078's DLP chip not only offers higher resolution than past designs, but also seems less prone to exhibiting "dithering" noise — most often seen as swarming pixels in solid-colored backgrounds like a wall or the sky. The chip also has improved contrast, which is enhanced by the dynamic iris. The overall result is a picture that is naturally sharp, vibrant, and remarkably three-dimensional.

DVDs get the 1080p treatment

Since my options for HDTV viewing were limited to a few primetime hours of NBC programming, I relied on DVDs as my main source for high-quality viewing. And DVDs looked consistently stunning on this set. Like high-end speakers in an audio system, the Samsung HL-R5078W let high-quality material look its best, while also exposing any deficiencies in signal formats, source components, and even cables.

For example, the picture improvements gained by upgrading from S-video to component video cables had never been so obvious. In the opening of The Bourne Identity, a fisherman on the deck of a storm-tossed trawler peers through the drenching rain at Matt Damon's unconscious body floating in the sea. For a few moments, the rain took on an unnatural solarized look that resembled a gauzy curtain, when I used an S-video cable. When I viewed the same scene via component cables, the curtain was gone.

The component video connection also yielded a surprise. In the past, most HD-capable displays I've tried provide their best DVD picture quality when using the player's progressive-scan mode. My Sony DVD changer is a few years old, but it's no slouch when it comes to picture quality. However, its video processing circuitry is a couple of generations behind the powerful circuitry in the HL-R5078W. Feeding the TV an interlaced signal via component video, the picture was always noticeably cleaner and more stable than with the player in progressive-scan mode.

The Sony DVD player worked fine, but I wondered how much better an "upconverting" player might perform, so at this point I substituted the Denon DVD-3910 from my basement audio system. I connected an HDMI cable between the Denon and the Samsung TV and cycled through the player's resolution options: 480p progressive, and upconverted 720p or 1080i. (Although the TV's display resolution is 1080p, the highest-resolution signal it will accept via HDMI is 1080i, which is the case for nearly all 1080p TVs released in 2005.)

I expected 1080i via HDMI to provide the best picture, but it didn't in my setup. Upconverted signals yielded a hyper-detailed picture that looked as if the TV's sharpness control had been turned up. I noticed DVD compression artifacts more, and the TV's "dithering" noise on solid-colored backgrounds became more noticeable. I ended up preferring the picture from the component video output.

I've watched a lot of DVDs since bringing this set home. I dug out Superbit versions of The Fifth Element, Vertical Limit, and Panic Room. Picture quality on the best DVDs approached high definition. One "torture test" DVD I like to use is The Man Who Wasn't There, the black-and-white masterpiece by the Coen brothers. It's useful for revealing "false contouring," an artifact of digital displays that gives different shades of the same color an artificially layered look instead of smooth gradations. It was a problem for last year's Samsung DLPs, but the HL-R5078W showed no trace of it.

The Samsung's set of connections is as future-ready as any TV currently available.

Samsung hit the nail on the head

The HL-R5078W does so many things so well that it's hard to come up with even minor complaints. (OK, it would be nice if the remote control was backlit, but that's about it.) It combines hot technology (1080p resolution, dynamic iris), high-performance HD tuners for over-the-air and cable signals, plus the connections you need to enjoy current (and future) high-definition sources.

You know a product is doing something right when it prompts you to get off your butt and make a change. HDTV material viewed on this big-screen is so compelling I can no longer be satisfied receiving only a single HD channel. My cable company's lack of HDTV programming is simply no longer acceptable. I'm scheduled to have DISH satellite service installed in a couple of weeks. I'll let you know how that goes in my next TV review. In the meantime, the Samsung HL-R5078W gets my strongest recommendation. It's an awesome TV.