Customer Reviews

Samsung DVD-HD870 Upconverting DVD Player

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased the DVD player in April of 2007 and within 2 months, the players performance slowly declined until now where it no longer works. When I first received the unit I noticed that it was slow to respond to commands sent from the remote, however the player was already programmed to work with the remote control from my Samsung LCD TV and worked without any configuration setup/changes, which was nice. As time went on, the player eventually became unresponsive to remote control commands and even when interfacing with the buttons on the front of the unit. I had to power the unit off and then back on in order to get it to function again, when eventually it was completely imminent that the DVD player would not play a movie for anymore than 10 minutes at best.

I could not return the unit to Amazon because it was past the 30 day return warranty, but I have a service request in with Samsung. The unit is still under warranty so I'm assuming all will be taken care of and i'll have a working DVD player within the next few weeks.

I would like to assume that I will never receive another defective product from Samsung, but I accept that some electronics go bad..that's what warranty's are for. My intention is not to bash Samsung here as I've recently purchased a Samsung 46" LCD TV and many other products of their's in the past, my intention is rather to share my personal experience with purchasing and using this particular DVD player.


Samsung DVD-HD870 Upconverting DVD Player

The DVD player freezes every few moments while upconverting to 1080i - seems like the processor is not fast enough to process it in real-time. So, now we leave it in the 480p mode - the problem goes away but it's not upconverting anymore.

This was a present for my son to go along with his new HDTV. What a disappointment! It would not read any DVD's, even new ones. I ended up returning it to Amazon.

I bought this baby hoping the upconverting would be impressive on my 52" rear-projection HDTV. Not very. The HD I get from my cable box blows away the upconverted signal that the Samsung fed my TV's DVI port from the Sammy's HDMI. I realize TRUE HD will blow away upconverted any day, but I really couldn't see much difference if any between the picture I was getting before with my old, not-even-progressive-scan, let alone upconverting dvd player through my component jacks and the upconverted signal from this one. Then there are the couple of annoying quirks this player has. One, every time you turn it off, it defaults back to 480p, so if you want 1080i, you'll have to remember to switch it every time you get going, which isn't something my girlfriend really wants to do. Also, the thing doesn't respond to commands from the remote until the 2nd or 3rd try. I tried different fresh batteries and got the same results-- for some reason you have to press everything at least twice. It would also be nice if it had more than one analog audio output, nitpicky, I know, but I utilize an optical out to my audio receiver, an analog audio out to my tv, and one more to pipe the signal out over an a/v distribution amp that goes to other tv's in the kitchen and bedroom. See, the video's covered because I have the HDMI going out to the big screen, the composite video out going to the distribution amp, and no video needed to the audio receiver, but the audio, I need one more output. Anyway, this player is unexciting. If upconverting doesn't get better than this, and I'm betting it does in more expensive players, then it's totally, totally over-hyped. Wait a few months and either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray are gonna be a helluva lot cheaper anyway, and yes, they will upconvert our old dvd's too.

I bought it under the impression of PlayAll DivX kind of Upscaling DVD Player.

It turned to be otherwise. and also makes lot of noise, screaching sound.

Pros
- Upscaling works fine.
- Looks

Cons
- Bad Design
- Sound (while it reads the DivX)
- Only plays 25fps avi files. No mpeg, no wmv, problems playing 320 Kbps mp3 songs.

I was looking for the best possible upconvert DVD player for my new RPHDTV & thought I tried this Samsung 870. Which supposedly had an HQV chipset from Silicon Optix that is supposed to eliminate MacroBlocking. Well it was confirmed over @ AVS forums after some1 opened the case up that it has the old Zoran chip...so I wasn't expecting spectacular performance.

GOOD:

* Animation colours really pop
* Good natural colour setting
* Quiet operation
* Sleek black casing
* HDMI plug & play


BAD:

* Slow user interface with remote & on screen
* DVD don't seem to come alive in any setting
* No better than regular DVD player performance

SUMMARY:

You get what you pay for. Just an average performer. It's not going to out do something that cost $75-$100 more. This is a good 2nd or bedroom DVD player. I shouldn't make it my primary entertainment player.
For the money, it comes in exactly as it should be priced.

Overall, this player provides great screen presence and functionality for the price. The glossy black finish gives the appearance of a higher-end model when you first turn the player on and an unavoidably intense blue status light appears, but the euphoric feeling quickly ends and is promptly negated when out of the corner of your eye you see the 80's era faint blue/green block digital alpha-numeric readout (i.e. OPEN, PLAY, etc.). Mechanical whirring and clacking noises occur when the tray is opened and closed. Redemption takes place when the image finally hits the screen.

Five stars for the picture and ease of remote operation.
Three stars for inconsistencies in appearance and lack of refinement.
Final verdict = 4 stars

I buy one, few month ago and work really fine, the DivX code work fine, but I think that it need some thing for made DivX upgrade.

Ok, first off lets get the reason why I gave it two stars out of the way, it looks good.
Ok.
Now I was at my local electronics store and I was like, cool, this looks like a great product!
But when I put one of the STORES DVD's(transformers) in it to test it out, and it wouldn't read it.
Put it in another DVD player to make sure it wasn't the DVD, and it wasn't, it was the DVD PLAYER!!!
Wow, even the store model was defective, imagine if someone actually bought this, oops, too late.

Earlier this summer I watched one of my FAVORITE movies on an HD Movie Channel. The colors, scene detail and sound track were 10 times better in quality than my conventional DVD of the same movie. As most of you probably know the format war for
High Definition DVD's (Blue Ray Vs. HD DVD) has not been settled. So, for the past year and a half I have been waiting for some resolution. I decided that buying an upconverting DVD player for less than $100 would be an ideal interim solution.

This player produces superb images and improved sounds. On some of of our favorite DVDS we have noticed sounds and new things that were not observable on our old player.
With some movies it is almost like having IMAX in your living room.