Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric05
Does anyone own or have any opinion on the Samsung DVD-HD950 player? |
Yes, I currently own an HD950. It's paired to my new Sammy HL-R5078. I've had the tv and the player for only two weeks now, but here's the rundown of my impressions of the player:
The Bad:
1) Tray Lock
I unfortunately have a bum unit, as confirmed by Samsung tech support. My player locks upon power-up at least 5 out of 6 times, regardless of what the player was doing before it was powered down. The front panel display reads "LOAD" or "OPEN" whenever this happens, depending upon what I did (hit power or open).
2) Doesn't Pass BTB Over HDMI
Several individuals have confirmed along with me that this player won't pass Blacker-Than-Black when outputting a progressive signal. To pass BTB, you must switch to 480i output over component or composite.
3) "HDMI Audio Not Supported" Message
If the tv you have won't accept a DD/DTS signal (such as 5.1 DD) via HDMI, then the 950 will display this message at the top of your screen for a couple of seconds every single time you start a dvd, go back and forth between the menu and a chapter, etc. You can disable all on-screen messages in the 950's setup menu, but the player will not remember your settings after you power down.
4) Bright But Illegible Front Panel Display
The 950 has a white-background display for showing chapter info and such. Looks cool until you dim the lights, which is when you learn that the display is almost twice as bright as your tv. I'm
not exaggerating, it's bright. Trust me. There are no settings I'm aware of for dimming or turning the front panel display off, but I haven't made a mission of looking for that, either (I've had bigger problems). Also, the white-background display is very difficult to read even from a few feet away (dark grey characters on a bright white background).
The Good:
1) No Macroblocking
The HD950 has the Zoran chip in it, which gives it the advantage of not the exhibiting macroblocking enhancement typical of players with the 23xx series of Faroudja chip. I'd guess the Zoran isn't as strong as the Faroudja for pure scaling/deinterlacing quality, but you don't get the MB.
2) Great Picture Quality
Despite its inability to pass BTB over HDMI, I've been quite happy with the picture quality on most films. There were a few times where blacks seemed to just flatten out into solid pools with little shadow detail (eg, Harry Potter: POA), but with most material it delivers the goods for the price. It has a nice sharp picture (at least when paired with my tv), and I saw very few scaling/deinterlacing artifacts when having the player upscale to 1080i over HDMI. It stumbled a bit with some banding in Finding Nemo, but from what I hear that's a nasty DVD for that artifact.
Overall, I'm not sure what I'm going to replace my 950 with yet: Another 950, or possibly the Sony S975V (and take my chances with more tray lock issues) or the Oppo (and take my chances with MB). The not passing BTB thing keeps nagging at me, but the decision's tough since the tradeoffs at this price point are substantial: Although there's no perfect player out there, at the $200-300 level faults seem to be a bit more dramatic.
Good luck!
I'll double-check tonight to make absolutely sure ... if I don't post here again tonight on this it means that I've discovered nothing new. Hope that helps.
