Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray Disc Player Review

BD-P1000 Overview and Build Quality

Not a day goes by that I don't get inundated with emails or news reports of something going on in the new high resolution DVD "format war". I am determined to avoid the tendency to break into loquacious bouts of opinion regarding the formats and simply stick to reviewing this rather fine looking piece of machinery. Believe me, it's easier and it makes my job a whole lot more pleasant if we keep the comparisons to their own articles where they belong. With that being said, Samsung is the first product to market for Blu-ray Disc and, as such, carries the burden of taking heat for anything not yet performing up to snuff with respect to the player's capabilities. As we go through the various functions and utilities of the BD player, you'll get to experience what I did and perhaps get a glimpse inside what makes this $1000 high resolution player tick.

First Impressions and Build Quality

The Samsung player looks slick. Its piano gloss finish is quite attractive and the player feels substantial, despite the fact that it only weighs in at just over 9 pounds. Access to the player's innards was granted through three rear Philips screws and two very industrial looking allen-head screws on each side of the player.

BD-P1000 Set-Up, Remote Control, and Standard DVDs

Player Set-Up & General Use

Samsung isn't exactly known for its creative and ergonomic remote controls. With so many layouts to choose from and the fact that this player represents a major technology step and entirely new format, the choice to only slightly modify its existing display remote was puzzling at best. The remote is billed on the Samsung site as being a "universal remote". It isn't and I can't see why it should be since this is a transport and hardly the brains of anyone's AV system.

Four color buttons (red/A, green/B, yellow/C, and blue/D) are positioned near the bottom of the remote and are provided to "allow access to common functions of the Blu-ray disc player." Initially, the only function I found that used even one of the buttons was in the Player menu where red/A could switch between Memory Card and Disc options. Later, additional buttons became useful when playing audio CDs or Memory Cards.

Remote Functions

Popup Menu System
One of the coolest aspects of the Blu-ray format is the ability to overlay menus (complete with their own sound effects) onto the movie and select options. The scene will play out in the background while the menu system allows you to select various audio and/or subtitle options. This came in handy later as we compared the uncompressed PCM audio to the Dolby Digital track.

One odd thing we noticed while watching the BD release of Memento was that the Popup menu sound effects were disabled when not selecting the uncompressed PCM audio - and this while using the S/PDIF coax output (which isn't typically spec'd to support uncompressed PCM audio). This held true in other Blu-ray titles as well and seemed to be a limitation either of the software titles or the implementation of Popup menu audio and high resolution output from the player. It could simply be that you cannot overlay the second layer of audio sound effects with Dolby Digital output, however what it was doing via S/PDIF remains a mystery (in The Fifth Element we also noticed some audio artifacts during S/PDIF playback when selecting the Uncompressed PCM track. The Popup menu has an automatic timeout function and disappears after 15 seconds if not used.

New Blu-ray Disc software menus

Most of the Popup menus I've seen so far are nicely designed, though I have yet to see one with integrated video motion menus - which may be a thing of the past given the new overlay system. That is unfortunate since motion menus were a cool way to preview a scene before selecting it. In either case, being able to instantly call up a menu without losing your place in (or even interrupting) a movie is something to write home about.

Subtitle
The 'Subtitle' button on the remote allows cycling or direct selection of subtitles for the current movie.

Audio
When selecting foreign languages, English subtitles are "automagically" enabled. In addition, you can bring up commentary tracks through this method of cycling tracks.

Marker & Repeat
The 'Marker' button allows users to store and recall up to 10 points throughout a disc. The Bookmark OSD will stay up forever until you disengage it by again pressing the 'Marker' button.

'Repeat' can replay the current title or Chapter, and the 'Repeat A-B' function works as expected so you can endlessly loop a contiguous passage.

Info
The 'Info' button allows access to title and chapter navigation as well as audio, subtitle and angle selection. The 'Info' screen will disappear from the display after ~30 seconds if not used.

The '(Player) Menu' and 'Disc Menu' buttons are inverted in our opinion, meaning that you are more apt to want to use the disc menu than the '(Player) Menu' button - though if you constantly bounce between disc and memory card this may not be the case. In case you haven-t yet figured it out, we-ve renamed the regular 'Menu' button to the '(Player) Menu' button as it controls the essential browsing and configuration of the player and media within.

Playing or Displaying Non-BD Formats and Media

CD Audio
The CD mode of the Samsung player displays the tracks on the disc in sequential order. You can repeat a song or album and there is a random feature as well. These are all accessed by cycling through modes using the Yellow/C button on the remote control. A playlist can be made using the function made accessible by the Blue/D button on the remote (the interface gives you all the visible cues you'll need). While in Playlist mode you can arrange the tracks anyway you want (including duplicate entries). Exiting or entering the Playlist mode stops the current song, unless you depart by pressing the Red/A button. At this point playback proceeds sequentially. Tracks can be skipped and paused and you can fast forward or rewind in 2X, 4X, or 8X speeds.

Memory Cards

The BD-P1000 cannot continue playback of a CD while displaying images from the Memory Card reader. To access photos from a card (we used an SD card) select the '(Player) Menu' and choose the Memory Card reader with the Red/A button. Navigate to the 'Photo' menu and hit the right arrow to see sub-folders and images on the card. You can select one image at a time or run a slideshow in Fast, Medium, or Slow speeds. Between the player speed and a slower memory card your pictures are likely to have a small hourglass in the middle of them for a majority of the time as the player loads up the next picture. In our opinion this is a major dropped ball and makes the player almost worthless for displaying photos in high resolution.

The pictures were shown in their proper aspect ratio and the clarity was impressive. On a 42" LCD screen the results were very pleasing. Bringing up the 'Info' menu during photo playback (or hitting the 'Zoom' button) allows you to zoom in on an area of the picture, achieving what appeared to be a pixel-to-pixel representation of the source resolution of the photo. Once zoomed, you could use the navigation buttons to, well, navigate around the photo. The 'Info' button also allows you to initiate a slideshow and lets you rotate images 90, 180, or 270 degrees (always clockwise to eliminate confusion). When rotated, an image can no longer be zoomed and slideshow mode must first be disengaged. Rotating is apparently a RAM-buffered event and no photos are actually rotated on the memory card. Weak support.

DVDs
OK, here's where I really think the Samsung needs to be evaluated. Let's do the math - Buy a $1000 (or more) high-end DVD player or get a next-generation format player for the same price? This is one of the markets that Blu-ray and HD DVD should really dominate. In my opinion, the video scaling and upconversion in this player are fantastic. The video output looked phenomenal and was quite comparable to my Denon DVD-3910 reference DVD player (which retails for $1499 by the way). So, when you take this angle, Samsung's BD-P1000 may actually be a bargain for high-end users. I took this into full consideration when delivering the final value rating to the player at the end of the review. While the hardware issues (EDID and 1080i/p) caused me to somewhat lower the overall rating, we can't forget that this is a pretty darn good quality upconverting DVD player.

BD-P1000 Measurements and Viewing Evaluation

Compatibility

Video and Audio Measurements & Testing

Since the Samsung BD player is certain to be used for upconverting standard DVDs to 1080p via HDMI, it was imperative that we explore how well the player handled the source interlaced signals coming off of standard definition DVDs. In particular, we were looking for solid deinterlacing and jaggie reduction performance, noise reduction and the ability to easily navigate unflagged 2:3 cadences. With an on-board FLI8638-LF chip, we were optimistic about the BD-P1000's abilities to perform with legacy media.

Audioholics/HQV Bench Testing Summary of Test Results

All tests were done with the HDMI outputs at 1080p. Any failed tests were checked in 720p as well.

Comments on Audioholics DVD Torture Tests

For the full list of features and testing, please see our DVD Player Benchmark Testing article. While we would have loved to see this $1000 player score better than anything costing less than that on the standard definition DVD market, this was not the case. The player did well, but lacked real noise reduction implementation and the ability to handle unflagged cadences other than 2:3. As we mentioned earlier, player response was very poor and remote functions while in the disc menu systems seemed to lag.

Viewing Evaluation

While the 1080p deinterlacing tests were done on a Samsung HL-S5688W 56" DLP rear projection television, viewing evaluations were done using a Westinghouse LVM-42w2 monitor. What we didn't expect was the fact that the BD-P1000 absolutely refused to send 1080p to the Westinghouse display. Apparently the strict implementation of EDID for setting display resolutions prevented the Samsung from allowing the fully-compliant 1080p monitor to mate with it at the maximum resolution. To say this is disappointing is an understatement, especially since the player already has a mechanism in place to deal with incompatible monitors (you can eject the disc and hold the fast forward button on the front panel.) Based on Samsung feedback (or lack of it) this does not seem to be something that will be fixed with a firmware update.

BD-P1000 Viewing, Listening Evaluations and Conclusion

BD: Memento
This is one of my favorite thriller/suspense movies. It keeps you on your toes and has some incredibly well-shot footage, especially with lots of outdoor scenes, vehicle lines and facial close-ups with plenty of skin detail. Taking a look at the close-ups you could really see that this DVD as a better quality transfer, lending itself to an impressive presentation.

The picture could stand to be a bit sharper overall, but the image varied from scene to scene - making it difficult to know the root cause for any picture quality issues.

Helios HVD2085 (left) vs. Samsung BD-P1000 (right)

Overall, detail abounded in various scenes. In particular the hair, skin detail and tattoo textures were clearly visible as was the dirt on the hood of the car in the bottom comparison. When comparing real 1080i/p vs. scaled 1080p it's all about detail, so if I sound like a broken record it's simply because items like hair, skin and various textures are where you most clearly see the differences. This is one of the better masters I had see in a Blu-ray Disc title and it was nice to see that not every disc suffered from the bad mastering that plagued many titles. Blu-ray won the comparison on resolution grounds, but I have to note that we did see a slightly bluish color cast in comparison to our other players.

BD: House of Flying Daggers
Again, this title seemed promising and then we received it only to become disappointed in the overall graininess of the picture. And I DO mean the picture was grainy. The graininess seemed to become a major problem as it interacted with the noise reduction settings of the player - producing a crawling grainy pattern that seemed to dominate each scene.

The film was also noticeably jumpy, having a persistent up-and-down motion as it played. We shot some photos below to try and capture the noise phenomenon, but obviously without providing motion it's hard to get the full effect.

A grainy picture dominated this movie, rendering it as one of the worst BD transfers yet in my opinion.

During some key scenes there were optimal points to discern fine edge detail and resolution, but this was not the choice movie with which to test out the benefits of the Samsung BD-P1000 player versus standard definition DVDs.

Listening Evaluation

We fired up the 5.1 analogue outputs and took a listen to the Samsung BD-P1000 in both Dolby Digital and PCM-uncompressed modes. There is no real music-only titles available so we focused mostly on credit music where some of the best tracks of any movie are kept (as any industry insider knows, this is where the composer can let it rip without having to tone it down for the Director.) We were pleased to find that we really liked the increased quality present in the uncompressed PCM tracks. I think this is a case of "never had it, never missed it". Once the uncompressed tracks were compared with the Dolby Digital tracks, high-end clarity and the perceived low frequency extension increased audibly.

As mentioned above, some titles had a different volume level for the uncompressed PCM tracks when compared to their Dolby Digital counterparts. Memento , for example, had about a 5dB difference in level, making it hard to compare tracks (we got good at quickly adjusting volume during the pause of reacquiring the stream). Other titles like House of Flying Daggers had level matched tracks that were easy to compare. Overall, I'd have to say that I wish standard DVDs had more advanced audio for films - until you hear some uncompressed tracks in close comparison, you may not realize what you are missing. That's a home run for high definition DVDs and I am now looking forward to the new lossless Dolby and DTS formats which we imagine will start arriving sometime in 2007 (with hardware support that is).

Conclusion

Let's understand something. The $999 Samsung BD-P1000 is for those consumers who want, and can afford, the latest and greatest. This is an early-adopter product. With these products come several factors: Buy it, and you will 1) have the greatest level of quality available in DVD (compared to standard definition, this is not a statement on comparing formats), 2) be subject to the occasional bug or issue associated with a first-generation product, and 3) pay more than what these products will eventually cost once early adopters allow manufacturers to recoup R & D and bring down prices.

What can we say overall about the BD-P1000? It's a decent product - worth every penny to those who have the funds and demand the latest and greatest gadgets. It is also, however, an immature product. For those looking to work on a budget, you can afford to wait a bit and settle for standard DVD upconversion to 720p/1080i which is now available in decent form for less than $150. For those looking at high end DVD players with upconversion capability, the Blu-ray player now looks very tempting indeed and might actually save you some money.

We are very disappointed with the software available for Blu-ray. It seems very unpredictable and adds one more level of "buyer beware" to an already uncertain marketplace. When it's all said and done, my vote is for everyone to rush out and buy these players - once you do the prices will come down and "mere mortals" can then enjoy high definition without having to empty their wallets of quite so much cash. So, support those of us who can't afford the latest gadgets - buy these players up!

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
High Definition Video Performance
Standard Definition Video Performance
High Definition Audio Performance
Analogue Audio Performance
Bass Management
Build Quality
Ergonomics & Usability
Ease of Setup
Features
Remote Control
Performance
Value