Customer Reviews

Samsung DVD-1080P7 Up-Converting 1080p DVD Player

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Fastidious as I am, I've checked out all the local consumer brands. (A $300 DVD player that doesn't play HD or Blu-Ray seems pointless, and I'm waiting for either of those brands to become THE standard. right now, bet on Blu-ray... but I digress.)

Many local electronics stores probably don't like me right now, but as a consumer who works hard for his money, I'm going to scope things out.

Many low-end brands (sub-$100) have pitiful quality. Even more pitiful up-converting quality that is actually worse than standard component video.

I've read enough to stay with "the two S's" - meaning Sony or Samsung. The brands starting with M, L, or P seem to be problematic with picture quality (PQ), and I looked at those models too.

I ultimately returned the Sony model because it wouldn't play some of my DVD+R DL discs. Plus, I wasn't entirely happy with the upconverting PQ despite it being much better than average.

So I tried the Samsung 1080p7. Its upconverting PQ, of all available brands, is clean and crisp - it shows as much detail as cleanly as possible. While it won't perform miracles for poorly compressed discs (think "those tv show sets where they cram 9 episodes on a disc meant for 7"), it edges out in overall quality.

Now it is true that HDMI offers little compared to other video inputs (chiefly the 'component video' input). But there IS an appreciable difference to make the upgrade worthwhile; the output video isn't grainy and no color adjustments need to be made in either the player or TV set. They look accurate, properly saturated, with no appreciable bias of one color above any another. (my TV set being a high-end 32" Sony, but that's a separate review...)

Also, this player seems to work better with film sources (movies) than TV (video) shows. As I typically prefer movies to TV, the difference was negligible in my ultimate decision to purchase this player. Again, such differences are more likely to be seen on a LCD or plasma set; the anomaly can be seen when it turns the interlaced video image into a progressive one.

The Samsung 1080p7 also plays many of my DVD+R DL discs, though it has had trouble with some of them. (I did exchange the model at the store and the replacement, so far, has fared better with the same discs that wouldn't work before. It also has a newer firmware, dating 5.10.07 (compared to 4.26.07 if I recall the old date correctly), so I'm hoping Samsung has fixed the DL problem. If not, I can live with it. Though I'm hoping they have fixed it for good. :) )

As with the crisp and detailed video of solid gamut, audio - in Dolby 5.1, DTS, et al, is also excellent. One problem does exist in that it won't channel MPEG PCM audio through the fiber or coaxial out; requiring a second link to the audio receiver. MPEG PCM audio usually applies only to homemade discs of weddings, birthdays, street riots, births, divorce proceedings, conceptions, funerals, and so on, and never (so far) with store-bought discs. It's somewhat annoying, but I can live with it.

Oh, at least for North American units (R1), they nixed the ability to make the unit region-free. Disheartening, but as they say, "applesauce happens". Maybe I'll give that Oppo a try one day down the road...

All things considered, the pros heavily outweigh the cons. Samsung is definitely going to be a major brand in the consumer DVD arena. Though for LCD TV sets, Sony still has the edge and doesn't cost that much more...

After the purchase of my HDTV, I found the quality of my old DVD player to be abysmal and started shopping around for a DVD player that upconverts. I ended up torn between the Pioneer DV-400V and the Samsung DVD-1080P. Because of limited reviews on the Pioneer (I could only find one (albeit glowing) review about this product at the time), I chose the Samsung (which is my TV brand) as there were more reviews of it (although some of them were bad). The first time I used the Samsung product, it froze completely and had to be unplugged for an extremely disruptive period of time. Over the next few days the Samsung player froze several more times. Then after a few days break, I tried again to watch a movie with it. The Samsung player had lovely, pristine picture but halfway through the movie it started skipping and showing the movie frame by frame - tried to pause it (no go) and then shut it off when, yet again, it froze and wouldn't do anything. The stupid Samsung DVD player wouldn't shut off for two days, and I wasn't about to go behind my entertainment center and unplug it yet again. Also a few days into ownership of the product it stopped playing 1080i and would give a green screen so you couldn't even see the menus for the dvd player, let alone any picture. We had to use the manual to figure out how to get back through the menus and switch it from 1080i to 720p (my TV doesn't do 1080p) seeing as we couldn't see the menus at all because the screen was green. To me, making a screen go green and not being able to see the menu says wretched design. (Unlike this product, the Pioneer DV-400V automatically sets the DVD player to the right setting)

note:
x the discs were NOT the problem. Some were burned and some factory, but they all worked fine with at least five or six other players they had been previously tested on
x I did check Samsung's website and there were no firmware updates

Fed up with the fact that the Samsung player could barely make it through one lousy movie without either freezing or screwing up, after about 3 weeks I gave up and returned it to the retailer where I purchased it where by lucky coincidence, the Pioneer player which I had originally been considering was on sale 30 bucks off so that it now cost the same amount that the Samsung ($99 at best buy). I was on the fence on whether to trade this in for another one as maybe I had just purchased a defective unit, but as the Pioneer was on sale and I was able to do an even exchange on it, I swapped it for the Pioneer (though after my nasty experience with my first foray into the world of upconverting DVD players I did spend 20 bucks on a service plan this time, just in case I had more problems).

I've had my Pioneer for over two months and it works wonderfully.

Cons about the Samsung:
x slow disc loading and menus - player is not very responsive
x froze four times in the first two days I had it
x If a player is having problems playing a disc at a setting that it should work at and previously worked at but that for reasons only known to the people who put this product untested out onto the market randomly stopped working at, then you should at least be able to SEE the stupid menu to change the setting to something else, not be forced to fumble blindly with the remote and guess from the manual's pictures of the menus until you manage to change the setting.

NOTE: (I only reiterated the product name so many times so that somebody skimming the review will know which player I am referring to)

- Normally I look down upon people who get a product and don't bother to troubleshoot or swap out the product (I am open to the possibility that I received a defective unit... but that's an awful lot of defects to have...) but my motto is this... If you buy something that freezes or becomes unresponsive several times when it has not even been out of the box for 24 hours, get rid of it as soon as possible. I learned that one (which is kinda common knowledge but I always hope it's just a one time thing...) after an excruciating year with a $350 Samsung A920 after which I finally broke down and got a Sanyo SCP-8400 (that works fabulously).
I'm not saying they make bad products because my HDTV is Samsung and has better picture than any other TV that I've seen within 700 bucks of its price, but I think sometimes that Samsung, like many other companies, often prematurely rushes products to the market.

This produces great image quality at 1080p over HDMI into my 1080p display.

But there are a lot of minor ways in which this player is worse than my 9 year old panasonic which it replaced.

It does not have any way to display the amount of time remaining on a disc. This is such an obvious and useful feature that I can't believe they left it out. As many have mentioned the display does not show track numbers on the LED. The LED display is extremely small and difficult to read... you have to be less than about 5 feet away to read it, and given that most folks use this player with big screens that's not reasonable.

Another bizarre issue is that fast forward and reverse only work at 2x (useless), 4x, (very slow) and 64x (so fast you will miss your scene). The 4x speed, the only useful speed, feels about as slow as fast forwarding an SP VCR tape back in the day.

It was definitely an oversight not to have included some intermediate speeds like 8x or 16x. The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that the TV industry made them remove the intermediate speeds to avoid skipping commercials on burned DVDs of TV recordings, but I suppose a more likely explanation is that it doesn't have enough processor horsepower or read speed for the useful speeds of 8x or 16x.

It's very slow at responding when you insert a disc or try to navigate. Even scrolling through onscreen menus somehow takes 2-3 times as long as on my previous DVD player.

The HDMI Anynet integration with Samsung TVs is cool in that you can insert a disc and press play and it will ensure the TV gets switched on and to the right input. But anything Anynet related takes a ridiculously long time. For instance I just timed that it took 29 seconds from the time I pressed play and when the TV had been switched on, switched to the right source, and the disc began actually playing.

I will also note that like most players, there are no discrete on/off buttons which would be helpful to those of us who like to set up universal remote codes to turn everything on and/or off.

I read the reviews of this machine and decided to buy it because of the upconversion capabilities and that it was the same brand as my new tv. When I got the player to upscale to 1080p after much adjustment, the picture quality was very good. The audio was also excellent when set to Bitstream instead of PCM.

BUT...

I found the user interface for this device to be subpar. I set the digital video output of the DVD player (output through HDMI) to Manual and to 1080p. But every time I put in a new disc, it reset to 480p. I then had to toggle through each video setting to get to 1080p. This toggling process wasn't quick, which is what made this a real issue. It would take at least 45 seconds to get all the way up (that's 45 seconds just to touch one button 3 times!). This may not sound too bad but I felt it was a major inconvenience since I would ONLY be using this unit with my new 1080p 52" TV and bought it for its upscaling feature.

Another quirk that may have been just a faulty unit issue is that it would not allow me to switch DVDs after having played one. I was watching one DVD, then stopped it, ejected the disc, inserted a new one, and pressed play. It would load for about 2 minutes, finally saying that it could not read the new disc. I then put back in the original disc that had been working, and it did the same thing... showed it loading for 2 minutes, then said the disc could not be played. The only way to reset it was to turn the power off, then turn it on again. If I were watching tv shows back to back on multiple DVDs, you can see how this could get annoying.

If you can live with these issues, the output (when you get it where you want it) was very good. However, because my settings were not saved and had to go through a tedious and iterative process every time I put in a DVD, I returned my unit and will be buying the Sony DVP-NS77HB 1080p Upconverting DVD Player.

I back up all of my DVDs to +R dual layer disks. Amazingly, this player does not support dual-layer disks, and you can't load or play such disks. If you ever plan to play anything other than store-bought dvds, don't buy this player.

I just bought a brand new 52" LCD capable of 1080P and grabbed this DVD player to go with it, man am I sorry... The picture quality on this is horrible.

I've tried to tweak every possible setting on the DVD player but it is very noisy/grainy. I'm not impressed at all and plan on bringing the DVD player back to Fry's tomorrow.

I read a review on bestbuy's website from someone who reviewed all 1080P DVD players and said this was the worse and Philips or Panasonic had an amazing 1080P upconverting DVD player. Don't waste your time with this one.

I gave it 2 stars because it looks nice, it's easy to use and the menu options are simple to use and not confusing at all.

I bought the Samsung 720p digital HDTV first and the picture was so great I decided to buy an "upconverting" DVD player to go with it. This one is great and they make a great combo. Samsung does recommend an HDMI cable but does not include one, the box contains only a basic Video/Audio Cable.

One whine, Amazon says "better together" with the HDMI cable they sell but that is only true if Amazon ships them together. My DVD player arrived days ago but the cable was "shipped separately" later. If I could subtract one star from Amazon, not Samsung, I would.

But all the pieces are here now and the picture and sound of my old SD DVD's on my new digital HDTV is brilliant and I am very pleased.