Samsung UN46C8000

Motion Performance

Motion Smoothness (8.5)

The Samsung UN46C8000 was quite good at producing a smooth moving image. When all special processing features were turned off, there was some obvious flickering and a lack of fine detail retention. In addition, the TV is loaded with motion processing ‘enhancement’ features. One should always approach these with caution, because they typically produce more harm than good if not used sparingly. However, the Auto Motion Plus feature, at a low setting, was able to maintain a lot of that fine detail.

These special processing features always have a downside. If the Auto Motion Plus feature is enabled, an object in motion will occasionally glitch out, causing a broken-up, pixelated look for a fraction of a second. And if the feature is turned up to its highest setting, it creates incremental lags that snap back into place a moment later. It also just makes the picture look weird, for lack of a better term: film looks like cheap video, everything looks too sharp, etc. You have to see it for yourself. Next time you’re at Best Buy, ask to see the remote control and play around with it on your own.

Motion Artifacting (7.0)

There is little noticeable motion artifacting when all the special motion processing features are turned off. There was a minor but not invisible tendency for vertical lines to appear slightly diagonal when in motion. We saw a much more blatant version of this problem in the cheaper Samsung LN32C350.

When the Auto Motion Plus feature is engaged, additional artifacts are produced, detailed in the section above. More on how we test motion performance.

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps (8.00)

The Samsung UN46C8000 has no problem displaying video in the 24fps format. However, horizontal motion can produce that annoying judder so often seen with 24fps, unless the TV’s Film Mode is set to ‘Auto 1.’ This all but eliminated judders and other high frequency pattern interference. More on how we test 3:2 pulldown and 24fps.

Resolution Scaling (8.75)

The Samsung UN46C8000 is a native 1080p display, but a typical TV has to handle all different types of NTSC resolutions and process them to fit the screen. That processing can sometimes result in lost information and artifacts.

Overall, the Samsung UN46C8000 did pretty well with resolution scaling. Let’s detail them. More on how we test resolution scaling.

480p

When looking at 480p content, the Samsung UN46C8000 lost a fair amount of the screen due to overscan – 3% on the top and bottom and 2% on the sides. However, saw no other problems.

720p

With a 720p signal, the Samsung UN46C8000 lost nothing to overscan, but we did see a lot of Moire patterns appear when it tried to process high frequency patterns.

1080i

A 1080i signal showed some minor Moire with high frequency patterns, but it was not as noticeable as in the 720p signal. There was no overscan loss.

Other Models in the UNxxC8000 Series
For more information on other models in this series, check our Series Comparison Page.
Samsung UN55C8000 55 in.