When you are ranking the Manufacturers of flat panel LED HDTV sets, Samsung is clearly the Industry leader. It has had the highest sales volume of all the manufacturers of flat screen TVs for quite a few years. For the first quarter of 2011, Samsung’s lat panel TV set sales were 30% more than its closest competitor. If you ever had the chance to see a Samsung HDTV in operation set you will not find that at all surprising.
The pictures their sets produce are very stunning in their clarity and sharpness. Add to that the high level of technical sophistication and the wide range of features that Samsung packs into its sets, and you have a very compelling package for anyone contemplating the purchase of one of these sets….and that’s before you even consider the Active 3D aspect! The Samsung UN40D6400 is another in their broad lineup of excellent HDTV sets.
Samsung’s 3D sets employ an “Active” 3D approach. This employs glasses with LCD lenses which serve like shutters. These lenses alternately lighten and darken for one eye or the other as the picture frame for the particular eye is being shown on the screen.. The other way of approaching the 3D problem is called “Passive 3D”. There is a very big difference between the two methods, and it becomes apparent in the perceived quality of the images that are you see on the sets.
Creating a 3D image requires that your left eye and your right eye must see an image which is slightly different, ones in which objects which are at various distances from you appear in a different place. To observe this effect, hold up one finger at arm’s length, and observe it with only your right eye, and then with just your left eye. As you do this, notice the position of the object when compared to other objects that are at a greater distance.
You will note that when using your right eye, your finger is to the left of certain objects, but when using your left eye, the apparent location of your finger will appear to move to the right, relative to the same object. This effect is called “parallax”, and it is the basis of the method used to produce the 3D effect on a television or movie screen.
The key distinction between the different systems, the Active system and the Passive system, is in the method used to present the different stereoscopic images to the appropriate eye. A three-dimensional perception will only be seen if each eye can see only the proper image. As you may have already observed, if you look at a 3D image without 3D glasses, you will see a double image. In order to observe the 3D effect, your brain must receive a different image from each eye, and those images must the proper parallax.
The Passive 3D system uses glasses that have polarized lenses. These work together with polarizing filters that are built right into the TV screen. These filters polarize alternating sets of horizontal lines on the screen in two different polarization patterns. Each of your eyes can only see one of the two sets of lines on the screen while you are wearing the polarized glasses. The lines that will be seen are those that match the polarization of the left lens or right lens in the glasses, that matches the screen polarization for those lines. (So, as a result, each eye will see an image with only one-half of the resolution of the full-screen!)
With an Active system, the glasses “actively” become opaque, then transparent, by controlling the LCDs that are used in the lenses. Each eye is blocked in sequence, as the stereo frame for the left or right eye is being displayed on the screen. The coordination is accomplished by synchronizing the glasses with a signal transmitted from the TV set. These frames are shown at the rate of 120 HZ, so that each eye sees 60 images per second. Because each eye perceives a full-screen, 1080i image, there is no downgrading of resolution in the 3D image.
Samsung uses the Active 3D system in all its 3D TVs, including the UN40D6400. In addition to offering great 3D TV, this set has a many other great features that will make it your media center. Samsung employs LED edge lighting to furnish the back-lighting for the screen (LCD’s do not create any light – they only function as “shutters” to regulate the transmission of light through the screen). The edge mounted LEDs do away with the small diameter fluorescent lamps that were previously used in earlier LCD HDTV sets.
Samsung has a complete array of Smart Apps that run on their TVs. These Apps are small programs (much like iPhone Apps) that run on the TV set. Although some of them must be purchased for what amounts to pocket change, there are quite a few free Apps. These cover a wide range of subject areas such as Lifestyle, Videos, Sports, Education, Games, and Information. There are also Apps that enable you to access the Internet, and to use services like Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora, and many others.
The Samsung UN40D6400 set also has a feature called “ConnectShare” Movie feature. This will allow you to view videos, listen to music, and browse pictures straight from a USB flash drive. You simply plug the drive into the set’s USB port, and you are ready to watch or listen to all of your entertainment media files.
Aside from all the electronic features, Samsung has also taken into consideration minimizing the impact of the room environment around the TV screen. They feature the “Ultra Clear Panel” on the front of their screens. This panel has a specially treated surface that absorbs light from the room. This greatly eliminates those annoying reflections that might otherwise be present on the screen, and that would interfere with your enjoyment of those incredibly sharp pictures.
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