Customer Reviews

Samsung DVD-HD850 Up-Converting DVD Player

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First, let me say that I actually have a DVD-HD850 connected to a Sharp LC-32D5U (which I also reviewed). My brother has the same DVD player plugged into his Samsung HLN507W (50 inch DLP). I've noticed many reviews (in general) are from people who haven't bought or even seen what they're reviewing. Rest assured; I've been playing with my DVD payer for four days and I've tried everything there is to try.

The Good... HDMI looks great. I played The Matrix simultaneously on my old DVD player and the HD850. All five people who watched thought the HDMI picture looked better. The digital signal gives a noticeably clearer picture. I changed the display when people weren't looking and everyone was able to identify analog vs. digital.

The Bad... All the upconversion stuff is hype. First, I was annoyed by the false advertising of 768p. It turns out to be 1024x768 for using a 4:3 computer monitor, not a 1366x768 16:9 TV like my Sharp. I played The Matrix and toggled all three modes: 480p, 720p and 1080i. They all looked exactly the same. All the gains come from the digital signal, not the upconversion.

As for all the other complaints about the remote and other issues listed in the other reviews... I haven't noticed any of them. I hooked the HDMI cable from the HD850 to my Sharp TV and everything worked from the start. One of the other guys said there were problems with dark scenes. That is probably his TV, not the HD850. My Sharp has the same problem. I ran a THX Optimizer and I can only see 7 of the 10 shades of black. The darkest shades all blend into one color regardless of the color settings on the TV. The Samsung's manual talks about RGB color pallet. It has a selection for full range (0-255), so if you don't see it all on the TV, it's not the DVD player's fault. You could use the analog component video output and get all 10 shades of black (but you'll lose the advantage of the digital output).

A minor problem is that you have to stop the DVD player in order to change modes (component vs. HDMI or different color settings for HDMI). It would be nice to do it on the fly so you can directly compare different modes back to back.

The case does look nice, but I'd prefer black (not enough to pay an extra $50 for the DVD HD950) and I hate the bright blue light that surrounds the power button when the DVD player is turned off.

I probably can't add much to what others have said about the HD850, but I will throw in my two-cents worth anyway.
I'm not one who picks a component apart trying to find its shortcomings. I go purely by how a particular unit serves my needs and what I see for myself. Comparing the HD850 connected through the HDMI connection to my 50 inch Sony Grand Wega, this player just blows away any progressive scan unit I have ever had utilizing component video hook ups!! That's all there is to it...No comparison!! But I will agree that the newer DVD's available now have a much better digital transfer, which makes this player shine that much better. However, I did notice older DVD's in my collection looked much better with this unit than before, So I know there is something to be said about the up-conversion even though it may not have achieved true HD yet...But believe me, it's getting mighty close!! This unit will require a separate audio connection since the HDMI with this unit DOES NOT support audio...the operating manual makes this quite clear.

We had company drop by one night while watching the second Star Wars...Attack of the clones. These folks were totally blown away at the quality of the video. One person even asked if the TV was a plasma on a HD channel. When I showed them it was a DVD, all I heard was "WOW!!"

For the money, most people will not go wrong with this unit....No, it's not perfect, and will not be the correct choice for everyone...Only YOU can make that decision. But in my opinion, at this point in time, compared with brands who DO NOT provide the HDMI cable with the player, the value provided in the HD850 was a no-brainer for me! Until the new generation HD players hit the market with the new HD DVD's, this unit will serve me just fine!!
Then we can start buying all our favorites all over again in HD!!

Video via the HDMI is excellent. Audio using the coaxial out is also crisp and clear. Definately an above average player. That said though, I do not see any noticable improvement using either 720p or 1080i settings and HDMI output compared to my other player (Denon DVD-3800) which is using component outs. Television used was a Sony HDTV KD-34XS955 34" WEGA. This player was purchased primarily for the HDMI capability and the DivX playback support I had read about in reviews. However, the version of the DVD-HD850 available in the United States does NOT support DivX/XVID playback. I verified this myself with many file types/settings and double checked with Samsung support.

It takes a little while to make sure all the connections are right, and I had to add audio L and R cables to the HDMI to get the sound. Overall I am very pleased. Good stong picture, easy to use controls, easy to read manual. It is true that you will not get actual HD but at 480dpi it looks good, 720 it looks a little better, 1080 doesn't change much over 720. The more updated and digital the movie though the better you will notice the upconversion. Recently released animated flicks look nearly 3D. Yes the blue light showing that the unit is plugged in is too bright. In a bedroom or if the box is set where you can see the face even when it is off it may get annoying. In my entertainment center filled with many lights I don't really notice it.

When using this DVD player, some HDMI "hand shaking" problems were discovered. The player has trouble authenticating with the TV if the TV is powered on after the player (when the splash screen should be visible). Block noise has very little filtering; although for an HDMI player of this price range, this is somewhat expected.

After reading various reviews of up-converting DVD players, I opted for the Samsung DVD-HD850 for a few reasons:

1) It came with an HDMI cable included (a $60-$100 value that I did not find available with any close competitors)

2) I have a Samsung Slimfit 30" TV, and I thought that Samsung would probably work hard to ensure compatibility across their products

3) It was at the low end of the price range, but still received decent reviews

4) It seemed like an attractive unit, with a wide range of output formats (480p through 1080i)

I purchased the player and have had it about a month and a half. Just as a warning, beware the Samsung DVD-HD845 version sold at a big box competitor which is exactly the same, only minus the HDMI cable. Although a little cheaper, you will lose out financially unless you feel it important to buy a top quality HDMI cable. I found the included cable perfectly adequate.

Now that I have used it fairly regularly, I will list my main observations:

1) The blue light that everyone comments on was annoying to me to (to my surprise!). Sure it is cosmetic, but the eye definitely gravitates to it even though our living room is large. Rather than looking at the paintings on the way, you find yourself noticing the blue light with annoyance.

2) The picture quality did not seem to be improved at first. I took two DVDs: Return of the King, and Blade Runner, and watched snippets of my favorite parts, and I could not really tell a difference. For example, I went to the lighting of the beacons in Return of the King. This really disappointed me, but I thought I would watch an hour of Return of the King on our old (non-progressive scan) player and then watch the same hour on the DVD-HD850. Much to my surprise, the HD850 was much superior! It was not even close. It was strange, although hard to see when just comparing snippets, the cumulative effect was impressive. I then reversed my resolve to send the player back and decided to keep it. I am not sure how it would compare with a progressive scan machine (since we leap-frogged that technology).

3) I find that the player will go to the part of the movie at which I left off when restarted (unlike other reviewers).

4) It seems as if the computer and TV communicate through the HDMI cable, which I find disconcerting. Turning the TV off and back on when the DVD player is running will cause the DVD player to want to reload the movie (at the spot at which you left off). Also, when switching from cable to the HDMI input on my TV, I find a strangely garbled screen is displayed (seemingly while the DVD player and TV are communicating on startup) which is then quickly replaced with the welcome screen. I have noticed that at times the audio does not work. However, turning the TV off and on solves this, and it only happens sporadically. All of this seems cumbersome, but not so much that I found I had to return the DVD player.

5) There are jagged lines on occasion, most notably when watching my son's Dora the Exlorer DVDs. The introduction has an orange figure jumping against a blue sky, and there is a wierd jaggedness to the diagonal edge of this figure. On movies that I like, however, I have not come across this problem. This is true even for anime, specifically the Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex series, which looks perfectly good on the HD850.

Overall, I think that the player has fit the bill for me. It was a good buy for the price. However, there have definitely been a few things that have caused concern or mild irritation. For that reason, I have given it four out of five stars.

Today I took delivery of my HD-850 player. At $110 including delivery it seemed like a good option for a HDMI/progressive scan player and includes an HDMI cable which is a nice bonus.

Connecting the player to my Viewsonic N3250W 32" HDTV was a breeze using the supplied HDMI cable. After running the THX optimizer tests from a DVD, the unit was calibrated quickly and all my test movies played with a much greater picture quality than the units I've used before. I've noticed a little color banding during certain scenes in The Incredibles but an otherwise fantastic picture. Other movies with hard to render colors like the water scenes in U-571 seem to play with improved color rendition over the other players I've tried. Movies with wide and easy to render color palettes render exceptionally.

Like everyone else here, I find the blue light obnoxious, and I've found some articles on how to disconnect it online. It really does draw your eye from across the room. The remote as previously observed needs to be pointed directly at the player in order to work, which is also somewhat annoying as it's quite unforgiving. And finally, with some movies the player will display subtitles by default which is frustrating - this seems to be disc specific, but not a problem I've noticed with the same discs on other players.

Now for the 768p mode (which is deceptive). The ViewSonic monitor supports a 768p mode natively (1366 x 768), however the HD-850 only supports a full screen 1024 x 768p mode. The Viewsonic TV will not recognize this mode. So if you have a 1366x768 HDTV, you might find that you can still only support 480p, 720p and 1080i modes using the HDMI output, all of which look indistinguishable as observed by other reviewers (the 720p mode might be better - I'm undecided at this point).

Running the Viewsonic HDTV in 1:1 mode (which does no rescaling) with the HD-850 set to 720p results in black bars around the image as you'd expect, but a noticeably sharper image. Presumably this is becuase the movie isn't being rescaled a second time from 720p to 768p by the TV after already being rescaled from 480i to 720p by the DVD player. So you might end up with a better picture using a HDTV that's natively 1280 x 720 instead of 1366 x 768. Still, even with the TV rescaling from 720p to 1366 x 768, the picture is outstanding.

NOTE: I'm sending the unit back tomorrow as it appears to be faulty. Whenever I place my XBOX on top of the unit, it loses power and the blue light refuses to come on (you'd think this would be a bonus). Applying pressure with my hand is sufficient to make the unit lose power and lose all its settings, even when a disc is inserted. I'm assuming this isn't normal and the unit will be resplaced. I'm satisfied with the performance otherwise so will just take an exchange.

I bought this player because I have had two previous Samsung models, and liked them very much. Also, I believe Samsung is the only non high end brand to offer a full one year warranty, may be wrong there but the Sonys for example offer 1 year parts and 90 days labor.

I tried out several competing products and the picture on this one beat all on my TV (Panasonic TH-50PX50U). The picture was brighter, sharper, and the colors better in both standard and upconversion mode. The upconversion feature does somewhat improve the picture quality, but HDTV it is not. I can't really judge sound because I use my receiver to decode the digital signal, therefore there was no detectable difference. It has no issues with some badly scratched dvds that were beyond my old player, and so far plays all of my own recorded dvds without a hiccup. I have not noticed the lag with the remote some users have complained about.

I do have two complaints though. First is that fast forwards jumps from 4X to 64X. I find 4X too slow for more than a few seconds, and 64 is pretty fast to hit the spot you want closer than within 3-4 minutes. Second is that there seems to be no way to set the subtitles to "none" by default. You can turn them off once they start, but the setup gives you a only a choice of languages for the default. I tried choosing something that should be obscure here like Finnish with the hope that nothing would come up, but still I get subtitles appearing on about 25% of my movies. Kind of annoying, a simple "none" option in the setup would fix this. I tried talking to Samsung about it, they had no good suggestion.

good player for the money. great match for any Samsung TV with HDMI input. I found the blue light from the power button overpowering in my bedroom. The light is off when the player is on so it should not be a problem in any other room. Anyway, it is no longer a problem for me as I removed the 3 philips screws holding the cover on and snipped one of the 2 wires feeding the diode. I would now rate my player 5 stars without the light :)

I got a new LG 26 inch LCD and decided to buy a upconversion unit. Went to Fry's to get this Samsung one, within minutes I was able to hook it up. Picture quality is amazing!!
Best part is that all the formats of DVD's that can not be run in my Sony DVD player, can be seen in this. I never bought anything but Sony but both LG LCD and this unit turned out to be pretty good.