Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good value, good picture, but slightly frustrating, August 8, 2007
I have this unit plugged into a 55" Sony projection TV with an HDMI cable.
The up-converted picture is great; episodes of House are much sharper than with a progressive scan DVD player, Star Wars looks terrific, etc. No complaints on the picture quality at all. The unit is small and looks attractive. Some people have complained about a buggy firmware in these reviews, but I haven't noticed any bugs.
The best feature, besides the picture quality, is that you can turn off the unit while a DVD is playing, turn it back on later, and the player remembers where it was--no more pausing for hours or days (or dealing with the frustration of trying to "rewind" or "fast-forward" to where you were).
There are some drawbacks though. The number one issue is that the player is slow to respond to the remote commands. Pressing "power" on the remote takes a few seconds to turn off, and so I often press it again--which eventually turns the player back on. Menu, play, pause, etc. also lag just enough to make me wonder if the player got the command or not.
This wouldn't be so bad, except the remote/player combination is finicky about the angle of the remote to send a command successfully. I find I have to hold the remote at just the right angle (not directly pointing at the player!) for it to work. I guess the idea is that users want to hold the remote so that they can read the buttons, not aiming it at the player--neat, but I am using to aiming. This is extremely aggravating, so I am docking 2 stars for this.
Another annoyance is that when the player switches between layers on the DVD, there is a huge and obvious glitch in the video playback. My ancient JVC player didn't do this, nor have I seen this on el cheapo Zenith players.
But this player is cheap, small, and is a good value for passing the time until the HD-DVD/BluRay thing is resolved.
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48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a player I can live with!, May 11, 2007
I've been looking for a new, inexpensive DVD player for many months now, but everything I tried had problems I couldn't live with. This one seems to be a winner. Picture quality is excellent (HDMI) and sound quality is noticeably better than the other players I've tried (Oppo 981, Toshiba SD-5000, Panasonic DMR-EZ27K).
Just as important, it has some key features that many players do not have, such as multiple "screen fitting" options (there are 4), disc resume after power off, and quick on/off and disc loading.
The only negative I can think of so far is that the display only shows the time, not the chapter. This is only an annoyance when playing audio CDs, but the superb sound quality makes up for it. You just couldn't make it perfect, could you Samsung? Damn you!
The other player I was considering was the Sony NS75H. I'm sure it's fantastic (based on reviews), maybe even better than this one, but it only comes in silver, and I need black. This player looks pretty good for the price. It doesn't feel/look cheap like some other budget upconverting players.
I've been so tempted to go with HD-DVD, however, I think the lack of disc resume and the 30 second startup would drive me crazy. Also, I don't think the improvement in quality on a 42" screen is worth paying 3 times as much. I think the benefit of HD movies really shows on much larger screens. I'm going to wait until the 3rd of 4th generation of players is out next year.
UPDATE:
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I returned this unit due to an incompatability with my Westinghouse LCD. I had the same problem with the Samsung HD tuner box (scan line at the bottom of screen). I got the HD-A2 at a ridiculously low price on Amazon and I absolutely love it. I wouldn't even consider getting a DVD player now that I've seen HD. The 30 startup and lack of disc resume don't bother me one bit.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pefect mate to my Samsung HDTV, January 18, 2008
I read the critical comments in the earlier reviews, and was a little hesitant at getting this unit. But I was attracted by its match-up to my new big screen Samsung TV. The prospect of being able to run both with the TV's remote was a big plus, so I decided to give it a try. I could always return it within 30 days if it turned out to be troublesome.
It didn't. I don't know about anyone else's installation, but this thing mates with my new Samsung TV like it was built into it. The operation could not be easier: power it on, and it turns on the TV and switches the source to the proper HDMI input automatically. All I have to do is insert the disc and press the Play button on the TV remote.
The picture quality is really excellent. The up-conversion process doesn't give the same video quality as a true 1080p program source, but it's far better than that produced by my pair of older, standard mode players.
There are probably better upconverting DVD players out there, but for connecting to a modern Samsung TV, this one is a very worthy choice in all respects.
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