Samsung LN52A850 52” 120Hz, 1080P LCD TV: The Living Review

Menus & Options

Picture Menu

The Samsung LN52A850 has an amazingly complete set of options which are all accessible through the menu system. In this section, I will run you through the basics but this is only scratching the tip of a very large iceberg. If you are someone who loves tweaking their HDTV to the max, this is the product for you but for those of you who are new to the HDTV world, all these options will quickly become a maze of dead-end settings and frustration. So, I am going to recommend that you novices out there hire a professional (no, not Geek Squad) ISF-certified technician or grab a copy of the Avia or Digital Video Essentials calibration DVDs and do it yourself. That being said, the settings you see here are anything but final so please do not use them on your own TV.

Before we go on I think it is important to mention that each source is set up independently. Therefore, your HDMI1 image settings for your Blu Ray player can be adjusted completely separately from the other inputs and vice versa. This eliminates the “one image setting fits all” approach some manufacturers take with their HDTVs.


When you first enter the menu, the first selectable category is the Picture options. This area is where you can make all of the adjustments to the color, brightness, tint, etc. along with a few other settings. Some of the additional settings are hidden within some sub-categories so bare with us while we go through a bit of this section.

The uppermost box contains the Mode option which is one of the most important settings Samsung has in the picture options. There are three options: Standard, Dynamic or Movie. Movie mode gives you access to additional options in the other menus and (supposedly) offers the best settings for watching TV in a dark room. Meanwhile, the Dynamic setting is typically used for watching TV in a brighter room since it enhances the definition and contrast of the image while Standard gives you the best of both worlds.

The only other option here which may be confusing to those of you who are coming from a tube TV is probably the Backlight setting. This adjusts the brightness of the of the LCD backlight which in turn will enhance or decrease the overall brightness of the picture without loosing contrast. This is typically set quite high from the factory since customers love seeing bright displays when looking in a store but trust me: you will want to turn this setting down. As we will see later, backlight also has a huge impact on power consumption.

Since the other options in the Picture menu are pretty much self explanatory, let’s skip down to the Detailed Settings and Picture Options sections.


The Detailed Settings have a number of different options which we won’t go through here. However, I strongly recommend you play around with these settings since they can have a significant impact on your viewing experience. Just remember to change one setting at a time and then continue viewing your movie / show so you can get a handle on what is being adjusted. Both the Color Space and White Balance are completely customizable and have their own separate menu panels which are perfectly explained in the manual.

In the right photo you will notice an option called xvYCC which is greyed out since it is only available in Movie mode. When set to “on” it is used to enhance the color space and depth of video by widening the color gamut when the signal transmitted through either a HDMI or Component video cable.


The Picture Options add yet more selection to the already-dizzying array of adjustments which can be made (novices heads are probably already spinning). Since some of these options are a bit exoteric, we will touch on a few of them. Let’s start at the top.

Color Tone allows you to choose the overall color space of the image and gives you five options: Cool1, Cool2, Normal, Warm1 and Warm2. The Warm settings are only available when the Movie Mode is selected. These settings make massive changes to the overall color reproduction of this Samsung TV so I would recommend you experiment as much as possible before applying any.

Digital NR is used to clear up static, ghosting and other image imperfections that come with a weak signal. However, I have found that anything other than Off or Auto introduces minor artifacts into some broadcasts so watch out how much you adjust this.

DNIe stands for Digital Natural Image Engine which is a technology developed by Samsung to improve the overall quality of the image and give it a more lifelike feel. It is only available when you have the TV set to Dynamic mode and when selected will allow you additional contrast options.

The final thing we will touch on here is the Auto Motion Plus setting. This is the something many people have been talking about since the introduction of 120Hz TVs and would be one of the main selling points a sales person will likely press on you. Basically, this faster refresh rate (versus the standard 60Hz seen on other HDTVs) supposedly allows for less motion blur in fast-moving scenes and removes judder in slower-moving ones. We will touch on this a bit later but for now you should know that there are a number of options available (from Off to High) so experiment as best you can.


Sound Menu


The Sound menu has everything you would expect and then some. The first setting you have is the usual “Mode” where you can select Standard, Movie, Speech, Music or Custom depending on what you are watching. There is also an equalizer (pictured above) where you can set up a custom profile for each of the modes (Movie, Speech, etc.). Other than these areas, the rest of this menu is pretty straightforward.