Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am not affiliated with Samsung or CNET. [Side Note: I believe Samsung should provide free 2014 One connect boxes to F9000 owners because of the H265 codec, Google's superior VP9 codec, and HDMI 2.0 as a gesture of good faith toward early adopters.] This review will help you get the most out of your HU8550. I won't waste your time listing all the specs. I am posting here because some people badmouthed and down rated the Samsung F9000 because they did not know how to use it. I do not want the same thing to happen to this excellent TV. I have last year's top-of-the-line F9000 4K model which is virtually the exact same TV as this, released only 5 months earlier. Only the Smart Hub software and HDMI ports changed. I cannot believe how absolutely amazing the picture is. It's colors explode, it's blacks are black, it's whites are white, flesh tones are real, and all of it is super sharp. With newscasts or interviews, people look like they're sitting right in front of you. It's almost scarey. Aerial shots and night shots of cities will blow you away. You cannot ask for a better picture. And that's not just my opinion, read all of the professional reviews. Every single one of them love this TV. NOTICE: Do not worry about 4K content not being available. This TV upscales. It has to because the screen is made of 3840 X 2160 pixels. Go to [....] and check the US news section. I quote it in the comments section. The upscaling of Samsung's Quadmatic Picture Engine works wonders, especially with anything in HD (1080P). It also works fine with SD material but not as well because upscaling works with the material it starts with. That's what it scales up. I can honestly tell you that I do not want a sharper picture than this. You can see every facial feature including eyelashes. Blu Rays and 4K YouTube's will make you cry. Pause the picture anywhere, even get close to it, and be amazed. Any person giving this TV anything less than five stars reveals their own foolishness for not setting it up, or they got a weird factory defect. You have to set it up(calibrate it for your room). If you are a newbie to electronics you have three options. 1. Learn how to set it up and you'll love it. It is very easy.(I will help you in this post). 2. If you're too lazy, don't buy a piece of high-quality electronic equipment like this. You don't deserve it. 3. Pay someone to calibrate it for you. Actually that's a waste of money because in 20 minutes you can easily do it yourself with this post. You can make this TV look anyway you want it to look. Which is why comparisons in stores are superfluous unless you make all settings equal between the TVs. Out of the box the picture looks disappointing , that's Samsung's fault, although most manufacturers do the same thing for the retail store lighting. When I first turned on this TV it looked like a soap opera or documentary. I knew this was not right. Because I researched the F9000 (same internals as Hu8550) I knew what to do. The first thing to do is go to the System menu, scroll to the Eco-Solution Submenu, and turn OFF the accursed eco-saving feature and eco-sensor. CNET has evaluators that are among the best in the industry. A professional named Katzmaier uses $30,000 worth of equipment to calibrate these TVs. Don't know if I can post links here, so search for CNET's HDTV picture settings forum forUN65f9000 or HU8550-a bit early for this as of this date. (The 55 inch versions take the same calibrations.) However, there's one problem with their settings. They calibrate their TVs in a dark room. Therefore their brightness levels are way too low. They acknowledge this, but it is a necessary starting point and equalizer for the different models. No problem, use Samsung's default settings for Movie and set Backlight to their setting(12). It worked great with gamma at +1. The first thing you want to do is set it to Movie mode, which is what CNET uses. Play with other modes later. --------------------- The settings I'm about to list are based on Katzmaier's from CNET(get them and print them out) with some tweaks of my own made by going between his and the Samsung defaults. Do that, that's safe. If you set your TV to these, you will love the picture. If not, tweak it for yourself somewhere between his settings and the defaults. It is very easy, so don't freak out. If you can turn your volume control up and down you can change your settings. The settings have a combined effect, so do not just do one area. HOW TO SET A FANTASTIC PICTURE AND REMOVE MOTION BLURR/Judder: Picture menu - Use all Samsung's defaults for Movie mode with a slight color tweak mode: Movie - the most important change. backlight: 12 - CNET's setting of 7 is way too low unless you are in a really dark room. We use lamps at my house. Backlight is the main brightness control contrast: 95 - pretty standard for most modes brightness: 45 - leave this alone sharpness: 20 - CNET setting of 0 Is WAY too low, especially for a 4K TV color: 52 0r 53 - a slight tweak over 50 that will give you more of a richer plasma TV quality tint: 50/50 - leave this alone I discovered the real trick for getting the correct lighting level for your room is to work with gamma and backlight, not brightness. Samsung's default is 45 for all modes, and it's right. Advanced Settings Click it for the submenu dynamic contrast: off flesh tone: zero RGB only mode: off color space: custom - there is a submenu for this below. White balance: SEE BELOW. Click it to get into it. 10 P white balance: - you don't need to mess with this. Gamma: +1 --this is an important setting and affects the entire picture, not just contrast. Expert pattern: off motion lighting: off black enhancer: off Color Space Submenu I recommend keeping everything at default rather than using the ones from CNET. However, I do not like the cold (bluer)picture of LEDs as compared to plasma or my old Pioneer elite 98 which had the best picture ever in its day and even for today except for sharpness. Therefore I change the blue setting to this: blue: red 2, green 2, blue 45. Not drastic changes over 0, 0, 50 but it's warmer and prettier. Leave yellow at the default, or change the yellow setting to have less blue than the CNET setting yellow: red 50, green 50, blue 6 (Katzmaier had blue at 14, that's too much) WHITE BALANCE - use all of the Katzmaier's settings: 25, 24, 22, 23, 24, 26 EDIT: Thanks to James Goss who says: For the 8550, the white balance numbers range from -25 to +25, with 0 being the defaults. So your figures equate to 0, -1, -3, -2, -1, +1. Explanation -- Goss is saying that the default for the 8550 is zero (0), whereas my F9000 has a default of 25. That means you either leave it at zero where I had 25, or go plus/minus whatever digits are equivalent, i.e. -1 for 24, +1 for 26, or whatever. The total range is 25 changes in either direction, but you won't need that full range. It's NOT complicated. Picture Option Submenu - color tone: warm 2 - important, this also gets rid of the cold blue LED effect digital clean view: off MPEG noise filter: off film mode: auto one auto motion plus: custom. Make sure you change it to custom, click it. Smart LED: high Auto Motion Plus Submenu. Numerous sources recommend these to remove motion blur. blur reduction: 10 judder reduction: 0 yes, zero LED clear motion: - not much visible difference either way. Leave it on if you increased backlight to the default. System Menu. As already mentioned go to the eco-solution submenu and shut off energy-saving and eco-sensors. They will knock your picture into dismal oblivion at will. Sound menu: For a TV, the sound can be good, but the default sound is horribly muddy as are all of the choices except Clear Voice. The high frequencies are weak, and you should never expect good bass from any TV. Go into the Sound menu and set to Clear Voice if you sometimes watch without your stereo system. --------------------------- GREAT INTERFACE FEATURES: This TV works great with Smart Hub and smart phones, tablets, or Blu Ray, especially for Samsung products. Other Android and Apple products should be compatible, but I can't speak for them. I am a Samsung Galaxy XX fan myself. You can wirelessly stream from TV to Phone or tablet with the Samsung Smart View app, and your phone functions as a remote. It works! However, get the app for your phone manufacturer. Don't expect Samsung's app to work on a different phone. You can wirelessly stream from Phone/tablet to TV by setting your TV Source to Mirror, and your device to Mirror in your settings >connections, and allow the connection. You do not need to register the TV and agree to Samsung's invasion of privacy policy. If you go through the YouTube app on the TV it even asks you if you want to mirror. Search for some YouTubes to see how to set these up. It's too long to include here. You can also wirelessly view pics, video.etc, from your phone on the TV by enabling the DLNA device connection on your phone and going into Smart Hub Picture/video section (up top, far right, go to the bottom and select all files, and enable the connection. It's easy. You can also use a hardwire HDMI connection for any of the above but why bother. ______________________ Complaint Section 1. Samsung - Stop defeating your own purpose with the horrible original settings. I want a free 2014 One connect box and it needs VP9 not just H265. 2. People do not want the ridiculous hand controls that only work half the time at best, or the worthless voice controls the get activated by the TV program you're watching. Thanks for the great picture though, stick with what matters. 3. Your privacy policy stinks. I want to be able to interface my devices without doing your lousy Samsung All Share/ now Samsung Link that makes me agree to privacy policies that promise you NO privacy, and sit a Samsung representative in your living room every time you watch the TV. NO Thanks. NOTICE *** 2 WAY WIRELESS STREAMING: In all fairness to Samsung, the Smart View App in the Android Play store does let you wirelessly stream content from the TV to your device without registering with Samsung Link. That's great. EDIT: Samsung changed the Smart View App so do not update it if you have the old one. It is now useless. They are using Watch-on. Although I don't like all the extra junk it does, you can still stream live TV. Unfortunately they foolishly did not include a top tab to easily activate streaming. !?! You have to dig into settings on your tablet or phone, and activate the TV you want to stream from. Streaming to my Galaxy Tab S had about a six second delay, which is OK since it is using Wi-Fi, but it still choked up a lot, pausing for no reason and then picking up despite a good Wi-Fi connection on both the TV and the tablet. So Watch-On, still needs some more work. ______________ Why you should get this TV 1. Best picture of any TV on the market from the largest TV manufacturer on the market. I sometimes pause the program just to look at it. 2. It is future proof. Because it is 4K, the screen is capable of outstanding resolution for a long time to come. There's another great benefit - the Evolution kit. HOWEVER, this TV write up by Samsung and thus Amazon is unclear. It comes with the built in evolution Kit but NOT the One connect box. To get that, you have to get the HU9000 model which costs more money, and has a useless curved screen. However, the write up infers One-connect future upgrades. This TV is One Connect READY according to Samsung. My guess is that they will upgrade this unit and all 4K units with one, One-connect for all, but see below. 3. It really looks elegant. ___________________ What about this new 2014 8550 compared to last years 4K F9000? If you can save a pile of money, then hurry and get the F 9000 before they sell out. Amazon's price and service are both good and you save around $500. The picture, CPU, memory, everything will be the same as the F9000 which is only 5 months older, and clear motion rate is the same. Its true. HDTVvs.com has a comparison and the main difference is the smart hub software. You can save $500.00 and get a 4K blu-Ray with the diff. EDIT AFTER PRICE DROP: On the other hand, if the prices are the same, the decision is tougher, but you should probably go with the newer model even though it is almost the same. Back on the other hand, F9000 has two advantages. The One-connect box is a separate unit that houses the CPU, memory, main board, firmware, and smart TV software. This is better than the evolution kit in the HU8550. A true One connect box is still on the H9000, but it costs more. The One Connect box that separates from the screen itself is better because you get new connection ports, less heat build up for a longer lasting screen, and you have less cable clutter. If you know anything about computers or electronics, you know that the CPU, memory, and motherboard generate the most heat and eventually cause the units to fail. Mine is a few feet under the screen, you can touch it and feel the heat, although it is more of a high warm than hot. The One-connect box is a genius idea that Samsung should employ for all of its TVs, and so should every other manufacturer of high-end TVs. The 8550 is "One connect ready" for future updates but for now its evolution kit is on the TV. So it is not really a big deal either way. The second reason: The 8550 base is nowhere near as stable or as cool looking as the arch base on the F9000. Although the 8550 model does do 4 screens, this is not with 4 channels, but 4 different inputs. Which isn't really needed. Updates to Smart hub are superfluous compared to the F9000. Bottom line: Both TVs are spectacular and as soon as you get new one connect boxes, they will be the same. Be sure to set it up right and anyone you show this TV to will pick up their jaw off the floor. You will love the picture and the features. You will also save big time over the HU9000 with its gimmick curved screen. Hope this helps you enjoy your TV Blessings