Samsung LN40B650

Motion Smoothness (7.0)

The Samsung LN40B650 features 120Hz refresh rate, which is a method used by LCD manufacturers to try and reduce motion blurring. The Samsung LN40B650 does a decent job, producing only a small amount of blurring in complex patterns like faces. When we looked at solid objects, however, we noticed significantly more blurring. The performance was about the same when dealing with both 1080p and 1080i content.

The LN40B650 offers users very detailed control over the effects of it's refresh rate, with independant blurring and judder controls and several different presets. Unfortunately we didn't notice any improvement to the Samsung LN40B650's performance as we adjusted those controls, which is ok as the LN40B650's performance is already above average in this area.

Motion Artifacting (3.5)

Artifacting refers to things that appear on the screen that shouldn't be there. They usually appear due to problems with processing. Unfortunately the Samsung LN40B650 displayed several different artifacts related to motion. There was a very noticeable shutter effect that we saw in both moving still images and with test patterns. We also saw content on the screen tilt noticeably as it moved. Finally there were definite areas of brightness leading and trailing certain objects on the display. We were very dissapointed with the extensive artifacting we saw on the Samsung LN40B650.

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps (8.0)

3:2 pulldown refers to the process by which an HDTV will take a broadcast signal that comes in at 60 frames per second (fps) and converts it to 24 frames per second. This occurs with films that should be displayed at 24fps as this framerate gives content a film-like feel. The Samsung LN40B650 did a decent job with this process, we noticed only minor glitches in test patterns and saw very little evidence of the 'jaggies' that can occur when this process is done poorly.

The Samsung LN40B650 can also natively handle 24fps content, which you'll get from DVDs or Blu-ray discs. When you do watch content at 24fps, however, we strongly recommend turning off the HDTVs 120Hz refresh rate as the LN40B650 doesn't seem to do a very good job of interpolating the 24fps content for a screen that refreshes 120 times a second.