Product Review
 

Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-Ray DVD Player

Part III

October, 2006

Kris Deering

 

Taking a Look

Since Blu-Ray's launch, I've had the opportunity to watch the majority of the software titles that are available. This includes titles from Columbia-Tristar, Lions Gate, Disney, and Warner Brothers. During the course of my viewing, I had access to a variety of different displays. I did observations using the Sony "Ruby" 1080p SXRD projector, the Marantz VP11S1 1080p DLP projector, the Marantz VP12S4 720p DLP projector, and the Samsung SP-H710 720p DLP projector.

Things didn't start off very well. In the beginning, the only titles really available were from Sony's Columbia and Tristar studios. Most of these titles had obvious MPEG artifacts, including macroblocking, banding, and haloing. Resolution overall seemed lacking, with most titles appearing only slightly better than their SD counterparts. I would compare the quality to that of an average to below-average HD cable broadcast minus the horrendous macroblocking issues typically associated with those broadcasts.

In some cases, the cable broadcasts that I have archived on D-VHS outperformed their BD counterpart. One example was The Fifth Element. Comparing the BD release to the original aspect ratio broadcast from HBO showed a HUGE difference in overall resolution and depth. The HBO broadcast was cleaner, crisper, and far more detailed. The BD software just lacked that clean detailed look that is commonly associated with a good high definition presentation and was more in line with a great up-converted DVD presentation. Not a good sign.

Just recently, this changed. Warner's initial slate of BD titles boasted improved video quality despite using MPEG-2 instead of VC1 (as they use exclusively on HD DVD). Their next round included titles mastered in VC1 that were every bit as good as what I've seen from the same presentations on HD DVD. Sony also just released Tears of the Sun, a film that has one of the best transfers I've seen in HD to date. Disney's initial Blu-Ray offerings have been pretty good, with one minor exception, Dinosaur. Of the four titles launched by Disney, it is one of two mastered in MPEG-2, and it appeared extremely soft. In fact, we compared it directly to the standard DVD release playing through my reference Denon DVD-5910, and the standard DVD presentation actually looked better in regards to detail. The other two titles were a big step up though. While there is a rather large inconsistency in software, things are starting to look a lot better for the future of BD software.

On the audio side, I was rarely unsatisfied. My surround sound processor (the Anthem Statement D2) supports the HDMI 1.1 specification, so I could take full advantage of the uncompressed 5.1 PCM soundtracks. Sony's use of uncompressed PCM has paid off, and the majority of the titles so far have sounded far better than their DVD counterparts. Even the high bit rate Dolby Digital tracks outperform their DVD counterparts in terms of spatial resolution, imaging, and dynamic range. But in the end, I highly recommend taking advantage of the uncompressed soundtracks if possible.

As the format progresses, you can be sure we'll be on top of it. We will be providing extensive coverage of Blu-ray software in our Movie Renter's Guide.

The Future of Pre-Recorded Media?

While the future of this format war is still very unclear, strides need to be made on both sides before an obvious leader emerges. Right now, HD DVD is providing stellar presentations as the norm, and they remain the leader in value and content quality. Blu-ray has shown that it can bring high quality software to the table, but they have yet to deliver hardware that is as capable. Most of the announced players coming to the market lack the ability to truly take full advantage of what the format has to offer, which means future hardware repurchases are assured. Blu-ray does have a big chip still in its pocket though, the Sony Playstation 3. Sony has already announced that this console will fully support Blu-ray, and since the previous Playstation consoles are in millions of homes, this new console has the potential of putting a massive amount of Blu-ray players into those homes as well. Microsoft is countering with its release of a HD DVD add-on for its XBox 360 platform. But whether the gaming world will truly have any bearing on where these formats go is a guessing game. Only time will tell.

While I think we all would have preferred a one format solution, this war does provide competition, so hopefully that will benefit the consumers in the end. Both formats have to deliver high quality content and hardware if they expect to survive, so we reap that benefit. If there was only one format on the market, we would be forced to just deal with whatever they threw at us, so content quality could suffer. If what we saw from the early Sony titles is any indication, we could have been left with a single format that wasn't worth owning. HD DVD's quality has probably put pressure on the Blu-ray format to provide quality as good, if not better than HD DVD if it wants to become the next generation software format of choice.

Conclusions

The Samsung BD-P1000 player has lots of issues that need to be addressed, and in my opinion does not represent a wise investment. It is not recommend as a standard DVD player at all, and is only passable as a Blu-ray player for the time being. At $1,000, there is no way I can recommend a player that I know would only serve the end user for a very limited time before it is outdated and incapable of supporting what the format is capable of delivering. I really hope that the upcoming firmware addresses some of their issues, but even then, this is not a player that will suffice in the long run for this format.


- Kris Deering -

© Copyright 2006 Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity

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