Customer Reviews

Samsung HC-R4755W 47-Inch HD-Ready Rear Projection TV

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is my first foray into the world of HDTV. I recently closed on my first house and knew I wanted digital cable and a DVR. We had no TV (at least bigger than 13inches) so why not try HDTV?

Like many people out there I became familiar with the different types of TVs available. I knew Plasma was out of my price range and I considered some of the smaller HDTVs with traditional tubes. I was going to settle for a 30inch or 32inch widescreen of one of those when I decided to go to a local store and see what they had.

I saw this model with a TV stand for a price I was happy with and a screen size I loved. I know there are 60inch screens but this one is plenty big enough for me. I researched it online and found it was a new model and that Samsung had a good track record with rear projection HDTVs.

So I bought it, set it up and tried it with a DVD player (just a portable one) and waited for digital cable to be hooked up in a couple of days. The picture was amazing with the DVD. I then got digital cable hooked up and went straight to the HD stations. WOW. Amazingly clear, incredible depth and definition, vibrant and rich colors and very bright. I thought for years projection TVS had a problem with brightness but this one does not.

The sound is good, not great, but very loud without distortion. A Dell with the same screensize would have cost me 4 or 5K or more. The bottomline for this HDTV is great value for the dollar.

After months of research and learning about HDTV I decided on the Samsung HC-R4755W. I could not bring myself to spend even 1.5K for a TV let alone the 2-4K price range for some of the HDTV's out there.

This TV is a table top version of a crt rear projection TV (much shorter) and comes in at only 87 pounds...WOW! My 32 inch sharp came in at 130 pounds easy. Also you don't have to deal with the highly expensive ($200-300) and sporadic lifespan of DLP's and LCD projection TV's lamps.

After just 4 days of ownership and tweaking (still more to come) I am very happy with my purchase. HDTV looks great (some noise but I attribute that to my faulty cable campany HD receiver which I have to replace) and SD looks OK (again due to my faulty receiver) but overall by looking at what this TV is capable of I can't give it anything less than 4 stars while I wish I could have given it 4.5

I also connected my PC via DVI and while text needs improvement it performs very well at PC gaming and Media Center type applications. While it has an auto focus feature I've found I still have to weak the TV myself with manual convergence (not done or perfected yet).

Remember...for all TV's, your picture quality is only as good as your source.

For the price, this TV hit's a homerun!

I just bought this TV yesterday from Sams Club for $999.77 plus taxes including the stand. The stand that was included is of very nice quality and raises the TV a little less than 2 feet. The TV is a nice 47" widescreen with a built-in HD tuner which is unheard of in this price range. It has an optical output for Dolby Surround. The picture is pretty good when hooked up to an Oppo Digital DVD Player. All my cable channels are somewhat blurry because of how big the tv is. It looks small at Sams Club but it is huge when you get it home and put together. The TV itself looks very nice and would probably fit nicely into any room. There is too much green in dark scenes it seems and anything I do cannot correct this. It isn't noticeable after a day though, it may just be the break in period of the tv. If you are looking for an awesome HDTV with a DTV tuner for the best price you've ever seen, go to Sams Club and buy it with the stand for free!!! Awesome looking TV and great performance.

Bought this TV with some skepticism, but the reviews were good so I figured I'd take a chance. Got the TV, hooked it up, and wasn't all that impressed, but then I ordered digital cable with HD channels, which was key, DVDs also look outstanding. The picture looks great, the sound from the TV is better than expected and so I'm very happy with my new big screen. Admittedly, the TV itself isn't the best looking thing in the world, but I wasn't willing to pay triple the price to impress my friends with a plasma. In a nutshell, I don't think you'll find a better big screen TV for the price, I wouldn't be hesitant to buy this TV, but just make sure you have a good cable or satellite signal.

Great TV with excellent standard features. This TV offers a good screen size in a smaller cabinet. In fact, none of the other TV's would fit in my designated TV area. There aren't many TV's that have this screen size and cabinet dimensions. HD ready and 16.9 aspect ratios are excellent features at this price.

If you are looking for a great HDTV and are on a fixed income this is the set for you. The picture quality is great and hi def looks amazing, be sure to take advantage of the DVI connection and hook Hi Def up using this connection for maximum quality, it's a little pricey but worth it. The only real flaw is the self focus feature is useless to get the picture nice and sharp you must manually converge and there still will be slight over lapping that is almost totally unnoticable if even noticable at all. Movies look great hooking the DVD player up through the component connection and the same goes for video games that are capable of 480P or 1080i and 16x9 (X-Box) with a component connection of course. This TV is the one for you if you have the room and do not feel like spending over 2 grand for the same quality picture.

Like most, I spent many months reading reviews and researching big screens. I only had about $1,500 to spend and was looking to purchase a used or refurbed Samsung DLP in the 50" range. Then I saw this one for $1,000 (including stand) and decided that this was too good an offer to pass up. Thank you, Sam Walton!

After a quick side-trip to Radio Shack for cables to hook-up the HTS and DVD, it was back to the house for the unveiling. It took two people to get it up the stairs to my apartment, but only because of the bulkiness of the box. The TV itself is a featherweight. In fact, the stand weighs almost as much as the TV!

After about 2 hours of assembly and hook up, I stood back to take a look at this thing. My first impression was, "Wow, that's big!" I was initially concerned that it might not be big enough. But on the stand, this TV will dominate a large to medium sized room. My living room is about 300 square feet and this thing is definitely the 800-lb gorilla. The great thing about it is that it's almost all screen. Samsung is well-known for their ability to maximize viewing area. Also, it's not very deep (less than 2 feet), so there is the possiblity that it may one day fit into a standard entertainment cabinet (I can dream, can't I?).

Since I already had a prog scan DVD player and digital cable, I was anxious to see how this hulking beast was going to stand up against my old, standard view CRT. I popped in everyone's favorite TV/DVD/HTS testing movie, Jurassic Park, and flipped ahead to some of the better scenes. It took another 30 minutes of tweeking the color, contrast and brightness, but pretty soon I had an amazingly clear, vibrant image of rampaging dinosaurs on the screen.

The auto-focus feature is a nice feature for your grandmother, but for anyone serious about their movie watching, it's a bit of a joke. Definitely take the time to manually converge the lamps. Although it doesn't say so in the manual, it's best to start in one corner and make your way around the perimeter, spiraling inward as you go. Also, view each crosshair at precicely eye level, and as close to the screen as possible. If you can make the colors line up fairly close when you're a couple inches away, it should be just fine when your sitting 8 feet back.

The Verdict: At just north of $1,100 (which includes the stand and all the additional connecting cables), this HDTV is a tremendous buy. Picture quality on DVD and HDTV is great. The sound output is pretty good (although any decent HTS will put it to shame). Normal television is fair at best, so just know that going in. Picture quality for lo-def channels is somewhat pixelated and small text is blurry. But if you are like me and do not watch much cable or network television, then it really won't matter. Besides, if you're watching HGTV or Oprah, how much definition do you really want!

If you're a die hard must-see-TV person, you may be better off getting a large Sony CRT or spending the extra $2,000 on a higher-end flat panel or DLP. However, if you are a moviephile who occasionally loves to watch Monday Night Football in high-def, you will be very, very pleased. With its 16:9 native viewing ratio and integrated HD tuner, you definitely won't regret this purchase.

As other reviews have indicated, the auto focus does not live up to expectations. You can spend time manually converging the blue and red, but no matter what you do, it will only remain converged while the TV is at its current temperature. If you shut it down, let it cool down, then let it warm up again, most likely the convergence will have shifted. This is why the auto focus runs automatically (unless you disable it) a couple times as the TV warms up. I don't have an HDTV input source, so I can't comment on how that might look. You can get the picture looking really great when playing DVDs once the convergence and colors are set. I recommend using good cables and the component inputs for the DVD player. I have a non-HDTV Dish Network receiver (might to have to see about an upgrade) plugged into the SVHS port, and the picture is quite good (in fact the picture is clear enough that you start to see flaws in the digital compression). I really enjoy watching DVD movies in 16:9 ratio, but when I have to watch anything but widescreen DVDs, all my input sources are 4:3, which on this TV brings me to my biggest gripe. When watching a widescreen TV in 4:3 mode, of course there is dead space to fill to the left and right of the picture. This is expected, but on this TV the dead space is projected in a light grey color. This annoys me. I would give this TV a higher rating if the dead space was black. Once I have the picture adjusted just right, a good DVD action movie with lots of explosions going on and the stereo and subwoofer cranked up, it is quite blissful...

We all know rear CRT projection is not in anymore...it's about microdisplay, plasma, and LCD. I live with my parents, and all I have to say is "Wow! this widescreen tv fits in my room" it's truly not the best...but I'm real happy with it rather it's in SD or HD even sometimes when it's in EDTV. I had a 20" CRT but it was time for the Samsung 43"... In my room 43" of tv is damn sexy. Samsung in know for it's clarity; I play Call of Duty 2 on Xbox360 all the time and I love it.

Mainly based on such positive reviews of this television we purchased it at Sam's Club on 12/31/05 for $999.77. What a terrific value and it includes the stand and a built-in HD Digital Tuner which is unheard of in this price range.

It took approximately 1 hour to assemble the stand. It is a nice looking and well made piece of furniture.

Out of the box the TV was easily setup. It took us approximately 2 hours to tweek and fine-tune all of the color, audio and picture control settings and to familiarize ourselves with all of the available menu options. As stated in other reviews; the self-focus feature is a little weak and you might want to use the manual convergence feature to get a more crisp picture. The multi-function remote control is also very easy to navigate.

The numerous component jacks made it very easy to hookup a DVD player and a VCR. We watched a DVD movie and the picture clarity and sharpness was fabulous. You will have to adjust the screen size ratio when viewing a DVD. We actually used the Zoom 2 setting and enjoyed the movie using that setting. There are various settings to choose from including 16:9 ratio, Panorama, Zoom 1, Zoom 2 as well as a 4:3 ratio.

When viewing regular TV the images seem to be a little stretched and we have found that using the Panorama size is to our liking the most. You can get more of a proportionate viewing ratio by using the 4:3 option, but then you have a gray bar (approximately 5" in width) on each side of the picture.

The set comes with a standard one-year parts and labor warranty and we purchased an additional one year service agreement at Sam's Club for $29.00.

Initially we are very pleased with this purchase and would highly recommend the Samsung HC-R4755W rear projection television.