Samsung Blu-ray BD-P1000 DVD player Review
| Design |
| There’s no denying the Samsung BD-P1000 is a good looking piece of kit. The 16.94 x 3.11 x 12.8 inch casing comes in a lovely glossy black finish with a split front that has a black top and silver stripped bottom. The top half has the disc tray, a small open/close button as well as a LED display which is invisible until you turn the machine on. On the bottom silver half you’ll find the power on button on the far left hand side and a large, round four-way wheel on the right that operates the play, pause, stop and skip functions. When the Samsung Blu-ray player is turned on this wheel, the display and the disc tray are illuminated in that lovely blue colour you find on the Samsung NV digital camera range. There’s also a hidden panel in this section that hinds the memory card reader and a button that skips between HDMI, component video and standard definition outputs. All the sockets are around the back. There’s also a remote control which is pretty plain and boring. |
| Features |
| Toshiba bought out the Toshiba HD-A1 which is the HD DVD player. While Samsung have gone the Blu-ray route with the Samsung BD-P1000 the problem is at the moment they are not compatible and one disc won’t play on the other player. So straight away there’s an issue with discs, you have to have Blu-ray DVDs to play on your BD-P1000. Obviously the reason why you’d spend so much on your Samsung BD-P1000 would be to get high definition footage on your large plasma or LCD and you do this because the BD-P1000 up-converts DVDs. Using the HDMI output you can output 1080p video, however it’s a bit more limited with the component video. The Samsung Blu-ray player comes with both optical and coaxial digital outputs and a set of 5.1 channel analog audio outputs. The Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player comes with two card readers which will accept any of the10 flash media cards: Compact Flash; Micro Drive; Memory Stick; Memory Stick PRO, Duo, and Pro Duo; SD; MMC; Mini SD; and RS MMC and will either play high definition digital photos or your MP3 files. We liked the menu feature on the Samsung BD-P1000. You could use it without stopping the movie you were watching, allowing you to browse different scenes and check out the special features which have been raved about as part of the allure of Blu-ray. So when you’re watching a movie through the menu system you can do a search for a particular scene, character or actor and you can also bookmark your favourite scenes. |
| Performance |
| There’s no doubts that the Samsung BD-P1000 is a bit like the England cricket team, it misses on a fair few rounds and hits pure sixes on others. When using a Blu-ray disc through HDMI or component video output the picture quality was fantastic and much, much better than normal DVD – but that’s no surprise really. On some DVDs the picture quality was really sharp and lifelike and the colours were unreal – giving an almost 3D affect where you felt things were leaping out of the screen. However on others it was a softer image with a bit of noise. We also tried out normal DVDs as well. The up-converting of these at 1080p HDMI was very smooth and manage to retain a lot of detail. However it was the loading time and the actual mechanics of the Samsung DB-P1000 that let it down. Opening the door was akin to watching paint dry – it just took an age for the door to open or close from the time you pressed the button. And then once you’d inserted the disc it took almost a whole minute to get to the main menu, perfect for boiling an egg, not so good when you’re getting ready for an evening of HD entertainment. Also sometimes when you put the Blu-ray disc in the machine would eject it saying it can’t be played even though moments beforehand it had played it perfectly and also it the P1000 seemed to get heated and needed to be rested for half an hour before it would play discs. Sound quality was pretty good though and when plugged in to some speakers you got good surround sound. |
| Overall Opinion |
| On the whole if you’re looking for the whole HD experience in your living-room and can afford it, then be one of the first in the UK and get yourself the Samsung BD-P1000 first generation Blu-ray player. But you really do need a good high definition plasma or LCD with good resolution to do it complete justice. Also the fact that there is only a limited library of Blu-ray discs means your viewing will be restricted. |
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Pros + Great menu + Good image + True High Definition + Nice design |
Cons - Slow start up - Takes a long time to load - Random disc rejection |
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Overall Rating 
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By Babita Wakelin
27/10/2006 at 10:36:10am
27/10/2006 at 10:36:10am
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