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When it comes to flat panel HDTV sets, Samsung is almost certainly the Industry leader. It has been the top sales manufacturer of flat screen TVs for some years. As of early 2011, Samsung had sold 30% more flat panel TVs than its closest rival. Anyone who has seen a Samsung HDTV set in operation will not be terribly surprised at that fact.

The pictures their sets produce are very stunning in their clarity and sharpness. Add to that the high level of technical sophistication and the wide range of features that Samsung packs into its sets, and you have a very compelling package for anyone contemplating the purchase of one of these sets….and that’s before you even consider the Active 3D aspect! The Samsung UN40D6400 is another in their broad lineup of excellent HDTV sets.

Samsung has adopted what is termed “Active 3D” for their line of HDTV sets. This is one of two approaches to creating 3D television images that are currently on the market. The other approach to the 3D problem is termed “Passive 3D”. There is a significant difference between the two, and it shows up in the perceived quality of the images that are displayed.

The ability to create an image on a screen that has the appearance of depth – what is commonly called 3D – relies on the stereoscopic visual effect that results from viewing a different image with each eye. To understand how this works, try this simple experiment. Hold up an object (or just your finger) at arm’s length, and observe it with just the right eye, and then with only your left eye. As you do this, take note of the apparent position of that object when compared to objects that are further away.

You will notice that when looking through your right eye, the object will appear to be to the left of certain objects in the background, but when looking through your left eye, the apparent position of the object will seem to have shifted to the right, relative to that same background object. This illusion is referred to as “parallax”, and it is the basic principle of the two systems used to create the 3D effect on a television or movie screen.

The key difference between the two systems, the Active system and the Passive system, is in the way the two stereoscopic images are presented to the appropriate eyes. A three-dimensional effect will only occur if each eye sees only the correct image. (Think back to your old View-Master). As you may have experienced, if you look at a 3D movie or TV image without the proper glasses, all you see is a double image. The 3D effect requires that your brain sees a distinctly different image from each eye, and that the images have the proper parallax.

The Passive system for creating 3D images uses glasses with polarizing filters that are set at 90 degrees relative to each other. The image on the screen is also passed through polarizing filters, with alternating scan lines being polarized in the two different directions. This means that for an HDTV picture, with 1080 horizontal lines per frame, that 540 lines are polarized in one direction to create the image seen by the right eye, and the other 540 alternating lines are polarized in the 90 degree direction, for the left eye. The result of this is that you see an image which has an effective resolution of 540 lines, just half of what is required for true HDTV, which is 1080 lines.

With an Active system, the image for each eye is presented on the screen alternately, first for the right eye, and then for the left eye. These alternating frames appear at a rate of at least 120 frames per second. Obviously, if these alternating images were observed without some kind of filtration to insure that the proper image was seen only by the correct eye, the result would again be a double image. To make sure that each eye sees only the correct image, an Active system employs glasses with LCD filters. These filters can be made clear, or opaque, by switching the LCD filters on, or off.

These glasses use a Bluetooth signal from the TV set to coordinate the switching of the lens filters with the display of the images on the screen. Because the image for each eye uses all the lines on the screen, there is no loss of resolution in the image – each eye sees the full 1080 line image, just half the time.

The Samsung UN40D6400, like all Samsung 3D HDTV sets, uses the Active system. In addition to great 3D TV, this set has a wide array of other great features that will make it your complete media center. It’s screen uses LED edge lighting to provide the illumination for the picture (since LCD’s do not produce any light). This system replaces the fluorescent tubes (yes, really!) that were used in previous generations of LCD flat screen TV sets.

Samsung has a complete array of Smart Apps that run on their TVs. These Apps are small programs (much like iPhone Apps) that run on the TV set. Although some of them must be purchased for what amounts to pocket change, there are quite a few free Apps. These cover a wide range of subject areas such as Lifestyle, Videos, Sports, Education, Games, and Information. There are also Apps that enable you to access the Internet, and to use services like Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora, and many others.

The Samsung UN40D6400 set also has a feature called the “ConnectShare” Movie feature. This makes it possible for you to listen to music, run videos, or browse pictures from your USB Thumb Drive. Just insert the drive in the USB port that’s provided on the TV, and you are ready to enjoy your media files.

Aside from all the electronic features, Samsung has also taken into consideration minimizing the impact of the room environment around the TV screen. They feature the “Ultra Clear Panel” on the front of their screens. This panel has a specially treated surface that absorbs light from the room. This greatly eliminates those annoying reflections that might otherwise be present on the screen, and that would interfere with your enjoyment of those incredibly sharp pictures.