Customer Reviews

Samsung DVD-1080P8 1080p Upconverting DVD Player

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

I had bought a Samsung 32" 1080p TV and decided to get the Samsung upscaling 1080p dvd player, thinking they would talk nice to each other. Boy, was I wrong! Every time I played a dvd, every few minutes the video and audio would cut out, saying that it lost the signal and was searching for it. This happened continually.

First thing I tried switching HDMI cables. I tried 3 different cables, no luck. Next, I sent the dvd player back to Amazon for a different model, same behavior. Finally, since I had a 30-day return, no questions asked, from Best Buy, I had them come get my Samsung TV and exchange it for another of the same model. Still the same behavior.

A sales person at Video Only told me he had a customer who experienced the same abnormality that I did -- Samsung dvd player cutting out when playing through a Samsung TV. He brought back the Samsung and bought a Sony dvd player instead. Perfect picture and no signal problems.

I finally did the same. Bought a Sony DVP-NS700H/S and hooked it up. Worked perfectly with my original HDMI cable. Now I have a Samsung dvd that I may give to my daughter to see if she can get it to work. I love my Samsung TV but I will never buy another Samsung dvd or other component again.

Despite some viewer's claims, this player definitely will not provide an HD-quality, Blu-Ray image, though if you plan to use it with a screen smaller than 40", it should be close enough to satisfy most viewers' requirements (including this one). Adding to the potential confusion is Amazon's current listing of this as the most popular "upconverting DVD player." I was ready to purchase the Samsung (my 2nd) until I entered "upscaling DVD player" into Amazon's search box, and discovered that the favorite player in this price range was the Sony DVP-NS700, which didn't even appear among the "upconverting" players. (Or simply try entering "DVD player.") The Sony is a slightly newer model with marginally shallower dimensions than the Samsung. If you have a Samsung TV set, you may wish to go with the Samsung player for the sake of compatibility; if your set is a Sony, the Sony player's remote will control most new Sony television sets' significant functions without the requirement of entering code numbers.

As for "upconverting" vs. "upscaling," I have yet to discover any difference other than a semantic one. If "upconversion" is as much a function of your HD set's processor as of the DVD player's engineering, "upscaling" may be a more accurate even if less "techno-dazzling" term. Of primary importance is an HDMI connection on the player to assure optimal scanning of the disc by your HD set.

However, the Samsung does offer a feature that, while increasingly rare, is important to some computer users: the capability of playing DivX-encoded discs--which is lacking on the Sony player. If you have such discs or prefer to download and record video files with DivX encoding and then screen them on monitors other than your computer's, then the Samsung is definitely the better bet, whether you call it an upconverter or an upscaler.

Bought this DVD player to go with a new Sammy 58" Plasma and take advantage of the "Anynet" feature. Almost from the beginning the player made more noise than my garage door opener.
Without exception at some point in every DVD I put in it the player would stop. I would have to wait for it to begin playing again. There were some DVD's that it would not even load. Not the DVD's as I would put them in another player and they would load and play without problems. I have returned it to Amazon and now await my refund.

In addition to the mechanical failures I found the player to be extremely slow not only with loading but in responding to commands sent from the remote. In some instances the delay was so lengthly that I thought the command had not been recieved by the player but finally it would react.

The Sammy "Anynet" is not as effective as I thought it would be and required that you keep the DVD remote handy for certain commands.

Have since I sent it back, I purchased another DVD upconverting player. It is much faster to load and react to remote commands. It has not failed to load any DVD's nor has it stopped during play back even once. The remote on the new player gives me as many options as the "Anynet" feature on the Sammy so I lost nothing there.

I would not recommend this player however must note that it may just have been a lemon.

Disappointed for sure,

Hooked this up to a Samsung HL61A750 using HDMI and the 1080p resolution setting. Ran fiber optic to the amp.----The video and sound are fabulous, looks as good to me as Blu-Ray that I have seen in the stores. It appears to me that the problems that have been encountered are due to not taking the time to set up the player correctly. Have played several of my older DVDs, the picture never looked this good. I'm not sure how much the HDMI and the up-conversion contribute to this big improvement to picture quality, but it certainly is big over my older player. Was considering Blu-Ray, but I have a large collection of DVDs and just did not want to start all over again. The Anynet feature will turn on the TV and select the correct input for playing a disc, making an easy switch from TV to dvd or cd. So much for my experience.

Got this DVD player through the deal along with my 56" DLP. Hooked up the player with component cable first and it'll allow you to force output up to 1080i. After switching back and forth between 480p, 720, and 1080i, I can only tell the difference between 480p and 720p, but not 720p and 1080i. Then I replaced the component cable with HDMI, forced the output to 1080p, color seems to have more depth but resolution looks the same as using component cable. Remote control reaction is pretty slow compares to the other 7 year old Toshiba DVD player I have. Load time is a little bit longer I guess it's because the player supports more format than just regular DVD.

Overall it does ok job on "upscaling" but don't expect magic.

Picked up this DVD player when I purchased a Samsung LCD, which I connected via HDMI cable. There were problems instantly, in the form of a "Searching for Signal" message. I'd lose signal on the menu screen, the title screen, and roughly once every couple of minutes while watching a movie.

I switched the HDMI cable between three different ports on the television, and had the same problem. I switched to a different HDMI cable, and still had the same problem. Even watching DVDs at 480p produced the same problem. I exchanged this DVD player for another Samsung (same model), and was still cursed.

Finally switched to a Sony 1080 DVD player (same cost), and have had no problems at all. Strange that Samsung would apparently produce a DVD player that was not completely compatible with their own HDTV, but that was definitely my experience, with two of them.

i bought this item to go with my samsung 37" 550 series hd flat panel tv. after i bought it i thought that maybe i should read the reviews! that's when i became concerned.
areas of concern were audible noise and losing signal. thankfully i don't have these problems withg this unit. when i first hooked it up i attached the hmni cable in the "hmni/dvi" socket. i got no signal. then i plugged the cable into a dedicated hmni socket and have had no problem since.
i must say that i'm amazed with the picture quality with this dvd/tv combo. my favorite movie of all time was made in 1966( the blue max) and i have it on dvd. when i played it on this dvd/tv combo the picture looked equal to when this movie was released in the theaters all those years ago. on my computer and my old tv the dvd looked very dark. now i'm seeing many shades of colore that i forgot were in the movie. i'm seeing stained glass windows in the background of a room and seeing the colors that i've not seen before. i just can't say how impressed i am with this dvd player and also the tv.
forget about blu-ray. it's not necessary!

Overall: don't stress if you bought it, but if you haven't bought it yet, if you can find something different in the same price range, you might want to try it.

Positives:
1. works.
2. I love the feature when you turn the power off, it remembers where you were in the movie. When you power it back on, it takes you right back there!

Negatives:

1. Reacts very sluggishly to the remote control. Not sure what the problem is. Not only do I need to be pointing exactly at the device to get it to register, I really have to jam the buttons down and hold them to get the action to take. As a result I will frequently hit the pause button and have nothing happen. Then I have to back up and try again.


2. Takes a long time to load the first time. Thankfully if I power down the dVD while watching it, it remembers exactly where I was, and takes me straight to that, so it's less painful when you are continuing.

I was surprised on the way this DVD player improved the quality of the picture. I can truly compare the quality to the blu-ray quality. The same DVDs looked so much different. i don't remember being that excited about a piece of electronics for a long time. This is the best way to hang on there till the prices on blu-ray players drop to the point of being reasonable ( though i would pay the today's price on them again).
Since i have the player for less than a week, i can't tell anything about reliability, but i'd better give it 5 stars now and decrease the number is something ugly happens.
Another feature i loved - it turns out together with TV. This is very important since quite a few ( around 5 ) DVD players died on us because we forget to turn them off and this is great to find that when you put the TV on timer, the player will turn off as well. This is pretty much the reason i'm getting the 2nd one though i have an XBox to play DVDs on.

The DVD-1080P8 was provided free with the purchase of my Samsung LNT2653H HDTV, as part of an Amazon promotion.

After playing a total of three or four DVDs over a period of a few months, it now refuses to load any DVD. When I attempt to load a disk, the drawer closes and the player struggles mightily for several minutes (I can hear the motor spooling up and down, thumping noises and other interesting mechanical effects) before finally admitting defeat and displaying "No Disk" on the front panel.

I did not experience the HDMI interface problems others have reported, and appreciate the simplification provided by replacing separate audio and component cables with a single HDMI cable. Aside from that convenience, I really saw little picture improvement over the ten year old Toshiba progressive scan player it replaced (which has now resumed it's place in my entertainment center) which still functions perfectly.

Samsung's standard warranty only covers labor for the first thirty days, and requires that I ship the player to their New Jersey repair facility at my expense. Since the combined cost of shipping and labor will undoubtedly exceed the current price of a new unit ($65.00 on Amazon), the DVD-1080P8 is an essentially disposable device. As an engineer, it would not surprise me to find that the same unreliable disk mechanism is used in their other products, such as Blu-ray disk players, since such commonality is a common cost-saving design strategy.