Samsung SP-A600 Projector - Image Quality

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Art Feierman

The Samsung SP-A600 images below are all from either Blu-ray or HDTV, with the exception of Lord of the Rings (standard DVD). Note: By the time these Samsung SP-A600 projector images get to you, through digital camera, software, browsers, and monitor, there is definitely some color shifting, saturation differences, etc. The images are to support the commentary, but keep in mind the limitations when trying to compared images from the SP-A600 with other home theater projectors.

SP-A600 Out of the Box Picture Quality

Very good. The SP-A600 does a very nice job out of the box. The original engineering sample we had received of the SP-A600 projector did not look good "out of the box", with way too much reds noticable in skin tones. Still, even with the newer SP-A600s there is a slight overemphasis in the reds, just noticeable in skin tones.

All considered, there is definitely a little room for improvement. A professional calibrator can definitely improve the picture quality. I realize people spending under $2000 for a home theater projector, unfortunately are not likely to spend the few hundred dollars more to have it calibrated. With that in mind, I suggest you try our settings found on the Calibration page of this review.

❮ ❯

In the side by side photos immediately below, the left side is the SP-A600 after calibration, and the image on the right is from an uncalibrated SP-A600 (Samsung sent me two projectors, which with both uncalibrated appeared essentially identical.)

Samsung SP-A600 Projector - Flesh Tones

As I noted above, color accuracy was pretty good even before calibration. Post calibration, skin tones are very impressive!

That said, after Mike calibrated the grayscale, there was still a bit of red emphasis in the skin tones, actually a touch more than appears in these photos, (at least as I ook at them on my MacBook Pro's screen. My digital camera tends to add a touch of green (as I frequently mention), which in this case plays down the red emphasis a bit.

All considered, I was most pleased with the skin tones although there was still room for slight improvement if viewed critically. OK, check out the images:

❮ ❯

Below are the usual three images of Daniel Craig, as Bond, in Casino Royale, under different lighting conditions. As I always point out, Skin tones should look different under different lighting conditions. You can expect significantly different looking skin tones, when switching from bright sunlight, to nighttime, flourescent lighting, incandescent lighting, or even lighting in the shade, or a cloudy day. Consider these three imagfes, the first, in direct sunlight, the second is a scene with flourescent lighting, and the third, a sunny day, but Bond is sitting in the shade - indirect lighting.