Review:Samsung BDP1000 Blu-ray player

Samsung BDP1000 Blu-ray player

Propaganda

Around a decade ago I witnessed my first demo of a DVD player. I stupidly then proceeded to tell a room of fellow journos that it would never take off as a format until it was recordable. Well as you can imagine certain people have never let me forget that indiscretion. So when faced with the first sample of Blu-ray – the next generation DVD/high definition DVD (you decide) chances are I am going to play it safe. Well, alas no. In my opinion optical disk systems really are on their last legs and the future is hard disk and flash based storage and beyond.

So while there is a lot to like about Blu-ray and Samsung’s player in particular, I am not entirely sold on the format becoming anywhere near as ubiquitous as say DVD. But for the time being if you want a high definition movie player under your TV set it is going to be Blu-ray or Toshiba's HD DVD. Although there is huge number of Blu-ray supporters Samsung has done the smart thing by getting its models to the UK first. Sony, Philips, LG et al will deliver their players shortly but it is likely that this is the model that will grab all the early headlines. So what do you get for your money?

* Video preview of the BDP1000 here.

Good stuff

The main, and in fact possibly only reason to invest in Blu-ray player is picture quality - watching Hollywood movies in the highest resolution possible. While I personally have been sold on HD from day one (I love sports and documentaries in HD) I have been less impressed with the HD movie offerings from both Sky and Virgin Media (nee Telewest). Maybe that’s because the difference between the output of a decent DVD player and a HD satellite signal is much less than that of say a standard definition satellite signal and a HD one. The films in HD look fine, but to be honest they don’t blow you away.

What though of Blu-ray’s pictures? Samsung supplied us with two discs, SWAT and Legends of Jazz, both of which have excerpts which highlighted just why Blu-ray has massive potential. For SWAT it was more of an overall feel. There is obviously a huge difference in terms of resolution between the Blu-ray discs and standard DVDs, and yes there is greater detail when compared with Sky’s HD movie transmissions. However the clincher for me were the colours which were rich and striking without ever being saturated.

For the jazz the big issue was the resolution of the picture which once again was way superior to DVD and had the edge over Sky HD. Filmed in a fairly bland looking studio the camera focuses on the faces and the instruments of the musicians revealing incredible levels of detail from pock marked skin through to specks on jackets. One rather clever feature is that the player automatically works out the maximum resolution of the TV and then tailors its performance to suit it. We tested the player using Samsung’s 1080p 46inch LCD LE46F71B 46, so it was straight 1080p output to 1080p monitor. If however the TV only has a resolution of up to 1080i as is the maximum for many HD sets, it works to output at that level. To be honest I am not entirely sure what level of difference it makes. There is a frothy debate online at the moment about the merits of 1080p sets over 1080i ones with some reviewers claiming you can’t see the difference between the two sets.

As for sound quality, I didn’t get the chance to hook up the player to a surround sound system to test out its Dolby Digital capabilities, but its stereo performance admittedly through the TV’s set’s speakers was reasonable. The Samsung will also playback a variety of discs and most usefully it will upscale your existing DVDs to the 1080p format. Of course they don’t rival Blu-ray discs in terms of image quality and resolution but as a standalone DVD player this delivers very high quality performance. Also good is the menu system which is not only simple to use but also has a 3D feel. Finally the BDP1000 is very smart looking player. The player is finished in a very strokable black piano (watch out for smudges!) with a front mounted control that has a tasteful blue backlight.

The bad

Well you’d expect a £900 player to be rammed with features but sadly not. You get a smart card reader for playing your JPEGS, MPEG and MP3s, but that’s about it. Also Samsung doesn’t seem to have spent too much time on the remote control. It works reasonably well, but isn’t especially comfortable and the menu control buttons are oddly sited.

Overview

The worst part though is that there is only a very limited range of Blu-ray titles on sale at the moment. So this player is very much for early adopters who are going to commit to the format. So unless you have to be first on the block with Blu-ray it surely is far better to see what happens over the next twelve months and see if one of the two competing formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray) establishes itself as a winner.

Choosing which to back is a tricky business too. Blu-ray clearly has the support of a larger section of the consumer electronics industry, but HD DVD is cheaper – the UK players could sell for as little as £600 - and some critics claims it has better picture quality. One thing is for sure though. With Toshiba now not launching its HD DVD players in the UK until mid-December and this player only available in fairly limited quantities, the new optical disk formats are not going to make much impact in the UK this Christmas.