By Marsha
It seems that a lot has been said already.
Since I purchased my HD ready set 5yrs ago, I have been consistantly disappointed with the quality of HD that I’ve been able to get at home on it. You know how it is, it just never looks as good as it does on the showroom floor… Well, this is what my HD Ready set has been waiting for. Iam fairly certain that an HD-DVD player would look just as good, but have no home experience with one to say.
If you have a sense for new technology that would most likely be the wave of the future, then you’ll love this. I was considering waiting till the release of the Sony model which is continually being pushed back. When Samsung released a firmware upgrade for this player that was easily applied by the consumer, well it made a huge plus for me. Add to that, that dispite what it says in the manual, it will play the DVD+R format. Add additionally the suport for popular memory card media even if it’s unnecessary, how can you beat it.
Ok, so Iam an early adopter… Technologically speaking, if the HD-DVD camp wins the format war, a BluRay player could probably be modified firmwarewise to play HD-DVDs. It wouldn’t shock me if they do it anyway sometime in the future, just because they can. HD-DVD players on the other could not be modified anywise to play a BluRay if the trend goes that way.
The only downside to BluRay is the price IMO… The BluRay camp needs to figure this out soon and start dropping the prices down comparable to HD-DVD and get more product out on the store shelves before this superior format goes the way of the DiVX player.
By Theodore
So much has been said and written about Blu-ray. So it was with much excitement that I unwrapped my brand new Samsung BD-P1000 on launch day.
Yet, after a weekend during which I tested four Blu-ray movies, as well as several standard DVDs, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. In short, one expects this next-generation format to provide spectacular improvements over regular DVD. But, in truth, the differences are so slight that it makes me doubt the format’s worth as a movie medium in its early stages.
I’ll discuss several things in this review: Aesthetics, ease-of-use, picture and sound quality. (Just so you know, my equipment: A Panasonic plasma television with a resolution of 1024-by-768, as well as an Onkyo 5.1 surround audio system. I connected the player to my television using its HDMI output and optical audio input. I toggled between resolutions of both 1080i and 720p.)
First, aesthetics. Photos don’t convey just how pretty this thing is. Its front side has a glassy appearance and looks every bit the high end machine it is. The remote is standard black plastic, fine. When the player is on, its front power button, disc door and circle of manual controls glow a bright neon blue — lights that could prove a distraction for some.
Second, ease-of-use. Yes, the rumors are true. The player takes about 20 seconds to power up. Blu-ray movies take an additional 20 seconds to boot up. A little annoying, sure. But the wait times are hardly cataclysmic and should not be considered a deal breaker. Standard DVDs, by the way, load quicker.
In the back are all the expected inputs: HDMI, component, S-Video and composite video inputs; coaxial and optical outputs. The machine also has analog 5.1 outputs for those of you who can take advantage of such connections (and the sterling uncompressed audio quality those links provide.)
Third, picture quality. I tested four movies on my machine — XXX, 50 First Dates, Underworld: Evolution and House of Flying Daggers. To hear boosters tell it, Blu-ray’s ace in the hole is its picture quality. After all, the player can deliver a full 1080p picture, a resolution up to five times as good as standard DVDs.
Indeed, the picture does look sharp. But, as we all know, so do standard DVDs, especially on a good DVD player with upconversion capabilities. My eyes saw this: With the exception of a few scenes here and there, each film looked about the same as a regular DVD might look played on a good system.
Perhaps the problem is the source material itself, as some early professional reviews have indicated. A few scenes appeared downright grainy. Of the four movies I watched, 50 First Dates looked the best, with its sunny-day colors and clarity. The first few minutes of Underworld also offer promise as to what Blu-ray might deliver down the road (The movie’s first scene is a close-up of a vampire’s face — the detail of which is truly stunning.)
Standard DVDs, meantime, look very sharp, displaying images equivalent to what a good DVD player might provide. Yet, switching between the Blu-ray movies and standard DVDs drove home the point: The difference in quality just isn’t that spectacular, at least with the initial roster of Blu-ray titles.
Finally, sound. Each Blu-ray disc is encoded with both traditional Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, an uncompressed PCM 5.1 track and other assorted language tracks. Alas, my older surround system is unable to take advantage of the uncompressed sound. Early reviews laud that track for its quality. For my part, the regular Dolby 5.1 sounded like, well, regular Dolby 5.1 — good but about the same as on a standard DVD.
In conclusion, as much as I hate to say it, the BD-P1000 experience was underwhelming. Really. Maybe my humble home theater system is simply incapable of unleashing the full power of Blu-ray. I haven’t seen Blu-ray movies displayed on a 1080p television, nor have I heard the uncompressed audio quality.
More likely, most of you out there are like me: A home theater amateur intrigued by Blu-ray, yet hesitant about making the investment because of the lukewarm early reviews. My advice: Given its price tag, the lack of content out there and the negligible differences in quality compared with standard DVDs, I’d advise waiting. My hope is that Blu-ray will, indeed, show its true colors one day. Today is not that day.
