Samsung The Frame 32” 2020 Art Mode

[Alix]

Hi everyone,

Hoping somebody can help...

last year I bought a 32” Samsung “The Frame”TV from John Lewis store, I did this because we want to use the Art feature and make it look as though we have art on the wall.

In my opinion when I’m in the art store choosing a new piece of art from the thumbnails of different paintings things look bright, realistic and vibrant but...  when I select a chosen artwork and display it, the TV software chooses to dull the brightness and colours down completely making the image look frankly unimpressive! 

The white point is anything but white and is more of a cream colour and the whole image looks flat and lifeless!!

So my question is, I know the TV can achieve impressive visual output so why do I only get a poor representation of famous paintings when in Art mode? 
Has anyone else experienced this, as I’m currently feeling a little bit shortchanged over what I was expecting?

thanks in advance

[Ciderezzy]

Your TV does have several picture settings, usually Movie, Sports, Dynamic and Standard. If you're not happy with these go into expert settings and adjust the colour and contrast to suit. Be mindful that it will also translate into your tv viewing.

[hellogeri]

Did you ever figure out how to solve this problem? I also have the 32" Frame from John Lewis and I have the exact same problem. It looks fine at night and the white point is very white, but in daylight it's yellow and looks especially awful if I try to take a photo of my room with the Frame in view. It's extremely disappointing and my other friends tell me their TVs aren't like this. I don't want to go through the trouble to return it to John Lewis if all the TVs will do the same thing!

Just to note, I've done everything I can possibly think of to fix it: turn off ambient light, turn off night mode, fix white balance, turn off eco mode, check dynamic mode, and so on. The TV picture itself is perfect, but the Art Mode is extremely disappointing. Even more disappointing because my husband and I are both artists and we'd love to display our own work, too.

If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it.

[Alix]

Hellogeri, 

I wish I had good news for you, but as far as I could ascertain the 32" is the entry model and as a result it seems to have been given a restricted options menu compared to the bigger models.

It was a while ago,  but I went into John Lewis to ask there TV sales staff and they said "that's just how it is", so to make sure I asked to look at the menu options on the bigger screens which confirmed my thoughts.

Also I read the larger screens have motion sensor built in so the art comes on when you enter the room, to help maintain the illusion of there just being a piece of art on the wall.

I'm am more than happy to be proven wrong by another member of this community or dare I say an actual technician @Samsung but since we are 3 months on since my first post I'm not holding out much hope for the latter.

Sorry to disappoint, good luck and let me know if you have better success.

Thanks.

[Alix]

Found a link explaining more differences between models...

The 32″ version differs from the other Frame models in several respects: First, the screen resolution is limited to Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) where the larger models have Ultra HD (3840 x 2160). It also has to do without the extra high-contrast Dual LED panel that the big brothers are equipped with.

7 Feb 2021. Review from IBTechreviews.com

[hellogeri]

Alix,

This is extremely helpful—thank you. I just spent an hour on customer support chat with Samsung and after running through all the expected things like factory resetting, changing settings, etc. they've concluded it's a manufacturer error and that I should return it to John Lewis for an exchange.

However I'm like you—I suspect it's just going to be the same if I pick up another 32" model and it will be an utter waste of time packing it up and sending it back. I can live with the problem (it looks worse in photographs than in real life—if I share nice house pics I guess I'll just need to photoshop the white balance) but something still doesn't sit right with me that it's being advertised in one way and looks completely different in real life. If Samsung themselves said it was a limitation of the 32" model then I'd be more willing to accept it and live with it, it's just annoying that perhaps there *could* be a firmware fix for this but our complaints aren't being taken seriously.

The way I see it is: if the regular TV picture looks perfect and white balance is perfect, there should, in theory, be no reason that the Art Mode has a colour cast. And the art mode doesn't have a colour cast at night, so it proves that there's something fishy going on that could be fixed.

Ah well. I hope someone will listen someday and make a fix for this. It would be lovely. Until then, I'll live with it and I suppose it can't possibly be as bad as our old TV. 

[Mescalamba]

2021 Frame (43" at least) definitely has sensor that adjusts WB and brightness in Art mode.

I actually had 2020 Frame 32" like you and returned it for similar reason. 

You can push WB of Art mode to the cooler side of spectrum, but it doesnt help much.

[Mr_squiggle]

Hi there!

A week ago I purchased 2021 55" model and we have exactly the same problem. I'm a video editor by day and I think even a novice can see that when entering Art Mode that the whole experience is tinted with a 'warm' filter that colour-casts the whole experience - pics, menus and all.

We can only assume that it's some weak attempt to make the uninitiated think that it's some sort of special 'arty' look like an instagram filter or something. When in fact it looks like garbage and none of the photos or mats look like they do in the preview when applied. We just want a true white point that we can tint a little to adjust when neccassry. The built-in tint adjust is useless and only goes from a subtle yellow tint to a crazy yellow tint.

It's awful and my wife and I spent 3 hours online with support trying to make sure our software wasn't bugging out. It's not. It's just bad. As others have confirmed, all other modes on the televison look great, have crisp whites and vibrant colours. But Art Mode definitely has a built-in colour cast that makes the whole experience nasty and I'm ashamed to display anything using it. And that's a MEGA shame becasue that's the whole reason we bought this TV.

[Mr_squiggle]

Hi Hellogeri, what you've just described mirrors every feeling I went through when turning on my brand new 55" Frame on the weekend.

[Jeff W]

Only just purchased a Samsung Frame 2021 55" and exactly the same experience. Clearly it's the app that's causing the issue. The preview of paintings looks vibrant and perfect, selecting it puts a filter over it that sucks all the life out of it for no reason at all. Unable to fix this with the ambient mode specific brightness and colour settings. @samsung doesn't seem to watch along with this forum and its users as they don't respond to any of the complaints, and this isn't the only topic with this subject. Big flaw which Samsung should be able to fix easily as it's a software issue, not a panel defect.