Samsung HP-S4253 42-Inch Plasma HDTV

by Samsung

Product Details

• Item Weight: 88.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 99 pounds
• Shipping: This item can only be shipped to the 48 contiguous states. We regret it cannot be shipped to APO/FPO, Hawaii, Alaska, or Puerto Rico.
• ASIN: B000ELOQGE
• Item model number: HPS-4253
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (119 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,688 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Offering an incredible feature set and exceptional quality for its price, Samsung's fifth-generation 42-inch HP-S4253 plasma TV uses the company's proprietary electronic chassis and the latest DNIe enhancement circuitry to deliver outstanding brightness, contrast, and image clarity. Use it for home theater and use it for your PC--it's perfect for both. In addition to a standard-broadcast NTSC tuner, it also features an integrated ATSC tuner that can capture over-the-air digital broadcasts from local network affiliates (the set will still require a set-top tuner for receiving non-terrestrial HD broadcasts from channels like HBO or Discovery).

The Samsung Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe) Video Enhancer refines all analog NTSC and wideband video inputs for an overall improvement in picture quality. DNIe improves contrast, white level, picture detail and incorporates digital noise reduction to improve lower quality video inputs. Thanks to the new 13-bit processing capability of DNIe, the HP-S4253 can produce over 549 billion colors (compared to the one billion colors that TVs with 10-bit processing can produce.

This set features a 1024 x 768-pixel resolution, 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, 175-degree viewing angle, brightness rating of 1300 cd/m2 (candela per square meter), and an amazing 10000:1 contrast ratio. (The higher the contrast ratio, the greater a TV's ability to display subtle color details and not get washed out by ambient room light.) The 3D Y/C digital comb filter constantly analyzes the three dimensions of picture height, picture width, and picture changes-over-time to dramatically reduce edge image artifacts while improving transition detail.

The anti-glare plasma panel offers several protective features to resist burn-in, including auto pixel shift, signal pattern processing, and white screen function. It's rated for a 60,000-hour panel life (6 hours of usage a day for 27 years). Other features include:

• Picture-in-picture (PIP) enables convenient simultaneous viewing of TV programs and video or PC sources.
• Parental Control (V-Chip) helps parents monitor what their children watch on TV by establishing rating limits.
• Auto volume leveler keeps audio volume consistent during channel changing.
• Multi-lingual on-screen displays in English, Spanish or French.
• Side A/V input

High-quality virtual surround sound can be experienced with just the speakers built into the sides of the TV. SRS TruSurround XT technology delivers an amazing, simulated 3D effect with clear dialog and powerful bass. It produces 10 watts of power per channel (for 20 watts total) and offers the following connection options:

• Composite (RCA audio/video): 2 inputs (1 on the side)
• S-Video: 2 inputs (1 on the side)
• Component (Y/Pb/Pr): 2 inputs
• HDMI: 2 inputs
• PC: 1 D-Sub15 input
• RF: 2 inputs
• Digital audio: 1 coaxial and 1 optical

Tech Talk
HDMI is a lossless, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface to link any audio/video source (such as a set-top box, DVD player, or AV receiver) with your TV--all over a single cable. HDMI supports standard, enhanced or high definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It supports all ATSC formats--standard (SDTV), enhanced (EDTV), and high (HDTV).

TruSurround XT audio adds three new audio enhancement technologies to produce an amazingly immersive sound experience.

• Dialog Clarity brings movie dialog into ÒfocusÓ during the playback of any surround-encoded material to make speech much clearer and crisper.
• TruBass creates incredible deep rich bass allowing a person to perceive significantly deeper, richer low bass tones that are far beyond the physical low frequency capabilities of the speaker itself.
• The SRS WOW feature widens the soundstage by processing standard two-channel stereo material as well as multi-channel encoded material for a dramatic improvement in the playback of any stereo audio over a two-speaker system.

Component video (also called Y/Pb/Pr) features a three-jack video input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. You will need a separate RCA left/right audio cable for sound.

What's in the Box
Plasma TV, remote control (with batteries), power cord, printed operating instructions

Product Description

Samsung HPS4253 42" Plasma HDTV

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

144 of 149 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best plasma at this price right now, June 4, 2006

By 

Robert E. Huebner "early adopter" (Marin County, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung HP-S4253 42-Inch Plasma HDTV (Electronics)

I was an early adopter of Plasma technology and have owned a Pioneer 50" Plasma as my main display for a few years now. I love Plasma in general, so decided, now that prices are coming down from the stratosphere, to get a second plasma set for a bedroom TV. All I can say is things have really come a long way! Early plasmas had problems displaying detail in dark scenes, but new models such as this Samsung have come much closer to solving this problem.

I auditioned dozens of sets at multiple dealerships and did a lot of side-by-side comparisons and adjustments, and determined that these newest Samsung sets represent the best blend of performance, quality, and cost. My requirements were to have at least 2 HDMI slots, since this is the future for high-definition connectivity, be 37" or 42" in size, and have the best quality picture I could afford.

A lot of on-line advice pointed to the Panasonic as the one to get so I went into this fully expecting to end up with a Panny, but after much side-by-side between the Samsung 4253 and the newest Panasonics, there was no contest - the Samsung has more natural looking color gradiations, the Panasonic looked odd and banded in appearance. I verified this at multiple vendors and side-by-side.

Be careful however not to get re-directed to the previous generation Samsung models, many of which are still on the market and sold as new. Samsung seems to be replacing their lined up with these newer sets in a graudal manner. At least two other 42" models ending in "2" instead of "3" can be found at various retailers. To me, these older sets did not measure up to the visual fidelity in the "3" series. Over time I'm sure Samsung will make "3" versions of their other sets, so if you need one with a CableCard tuner or something, I'd wait a while. Also I wish this set had more stretch options for dealing with 4:3 inputs. The only options for HD signals are 16:9 or 4:3 with bars, neither of which helps deal with HD signals that are letterboxed AND 4:3 (common for cable boxes that up-convert letterbox SDTV material). I'm not sure which sets do have these stretch modes, but I beleive some do.

Also, Plasmas are moving very fast right now, with Pioneer due to release new models any day, among others. Waiting a bit longer if you're in no hurry may turn up a set even better than this at the same price. But as of Spring 2006, I am very confident this is the best 42" plasma in the ~$2k range.

77 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice TV but has glitches, June 29, 2006

By 

Kevin Mccarthy Jr. "kmccarthy" (NY,USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung HP-S4253 42-Inch Plasma HDTV (Electronics)

After spending 6 months researching HDTVs I got this Tv over Memorial Day weekend from Amazon for a great deal, $1899.99. No shipping and no tax can't beat the price for one of the better plasmas on the market.
But there are a couple of issues with this tv. Don't buy it over the panasonic because of its PIP option. The PIP can only be used when a HDMI tv feed is on or another hookup besides componenet for television viewing. This leads to the other problem.
There is a glitch with the HDMI. So if you are utilizing the AV ports for a playstation or DVD player the tv can't understand which source to pick. So if you are watching tv, But then want to watch a DVD you can change the source to the DVD player (the AV input) but when the movie is done you can't switch back to the HDMI input. The tv no longer recognizes the connection. This was a great pain for me. I purchased a HDMI/DVI wire for my cable box. And the first time a changed the source to the AV for my playstation and I was able to play it but when I was done the HDMI feed was no longer an option. So I spent the next day and a half going through my connections and calling the cable company which told me to contact my tv manufacturer. Samsung said that the tv has a glitch and the tv must be reset (there is no mention of how to reset the tv in the owner manual). So now everytime a change the source to the av port I must reset the tv whcih consists of unplugging the tv waiting 30 seconds, hitting the power button on the tv itself 10 times, plugging the tv back in, turning the tv on and switching the source.
This problem doesn't occur if your cable is hooked up via component and the picture is basically as good as the HDMI feed(I will proably switch it back to component once a get over that a spent $100 on a Monster DVI to HDMI cable and won't use it.
Other than that te tv is great. It has a much better appearance over the panasonic. HDTV is awesome. SD is ok; comes in better for some some stations than oters. Speakers are above average. Overall this is a very impressive tv if you can get beyond the glitch. Sports are amazing feels like you are there, nature shows are extremely impressive. The TV has great colors and true blacks.

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Samsunt HP-S4253, September 24, 2006

By 

Ricky R. Dearstyne "RD" (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung HP-S4253 42-Inch Plasma HDTV (Electronics)

I purchased this plasma via Amazon after extensive research in store and by reading many reviews on-line. The purchase and delivery process went smooth. That's where my good comments stop and the problems began. The TV had a great picture, awesome in fact, but there was an audible buzzing sound as soon as the TV was hooked up. Time Warner came to my house 2x and gave their equipment a thumbs up. In fact they brought their own plasma, high def TV and hooked it up without a problem. This is when Samsung's "authorized" service people came into the picture. After 2 trips to my house, they took the tv away for service, brought it back 11 days later, and it still buzzed. I refused to accept delivery. The service people are now trying to blame the wiring in my house or the cable equipment(again). Samsung has to this point refused to give me an exchange or refund my money. Seven weeks after purchasing this product in good faith, all that I have to show for it are an increased cable bill (for high def) and a mounting plate on the wall where the tv should be. I make these comments about service, because when you buy a product like this, the service is an important component; just as important as the product itself.