Yes, I have noticed this effect. I first noticed it during the World Cup and I believe it is getting worse. It now does it on all channels and dvd's. Shadow areas posterize heavily with green and brown banding once they drop below a certain brightness level. It only happens in movie mode, but this is the only mode with decent black levels and skin tones. I will be returning my TV for exchange.

As far as calibration settings: there is a mistake with the Plasmatvbuyingguide settings published. These are the settings for the old 50B550 model.

I found these settings from the spanish Forodvd site to be the most accurate to my eyes:
Samsung PS50C550 calibration film 18 46 76 10 43 V53R47 calido2 color white colors auto gamma +1 20 25 23 36 28 30

I changed to cell light 15 and warm white1 for tv viewing. Other than that I feel the blacks and skintones are really good (apart from posterization in shadow areas).

I get the posterization now on all 576p, 720P and 1080i channels. Also 576P PAL DVD. I will check again with 1080P mkv file (Planet Earth) and report back.

As Anfielddude stated, posterization should not be excessive. If the problem is severe enough to impact the enjoyment of your TV viewing, then in my opinion it is excessive and a fault. It has got that bad for me that skintones in even light shadow look like shrek.

I have organised to exchange my panel at the end of the month when more are available. If it happens with the new panel again I will be ditching Samsung.

I am in Australia. The dealer I purchased from has a 14 day exchange option if there is a problem (initially it was just severe buzzing). I purchased about 6 weeks ago but they have been unable to get any more sets from Samsung. There seems to be a real shortage of this panel is Australia at the moment.

It's interesting that the sets for the Australian market are made in Malaysia also. I have not heard of the posterization problem being reported from sets made for the European Market (from Hungary) or the US market (I think they are made in Mexico). I have heard of the problem being reported from India and Malaysia only.

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Added on August 3, 2010, 2:54 pmSee here for screen shots:
http://www.hifivision.com/television/11338...50-vs-c550.html

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Added on September 1, 2010, 4:49 pm!!UPDATE ON POSTERISATION IN MOVIE MODE:

Finally got an exchange panel from my supplier.

Since I waited for nearly 3 months for an exchange, I think I can qualify the issues I was having compared to the new panel.

The new panel has absolutely NO posterisation issues from any source. While only having the panel 1 day, not enough time to confirm that it won't recur, it is enough to confirm that the issue is a GENUINE FAULT and if affected I urge you to seek and exchange from either the supplier or Samsung.

The original reason for the exchange, the loud buzzing, also seems to be rectified. The buzzing is there if you mute, but cannot be heard over normal volume. As long as the buzzing doesn't get louder over time, I can live with it.

The color balance seems to be better out of the box as well on the default modes. Perhaps there has been a revision to this model (could explain why there was a 3 month wait for the TV in Australia, also the startup menu seems slightly different from memory), but whatever the reason - I am happy I persevered with this model rather than taking second choice at this stage.

For those that have been annoyed by the reported floating black issue (I was), once the TV is run in and the DIGITAL NOISE REDUCTION is set to AUTO (I worked it out after re-reading the manual), I found the flickering rarely occurs or is noticable enough to annoy.

I will update if any of the issues recur over time.


This post has been edited by plushly: Sep 1 2010, 04:49 PM