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Well, considering I only found out what 'black crush' really was yesterday (was wondering what all you were talking about...), I went out and bought the Samsung 841 on the 30-day no questions asked best buy policy (was kind of cool - the worker bees there hadn't even noticed that it was .
I've had really bad timing on DVD players lately - I JUST got my Bravo D1 in the mail a couple of weeks ago - I had planned on cancelling it and waiting for the Samsung, Bravo D2, etc. dust to settle but I didn't hit the cancel in time. That's OK though, because it gave me the chance to at least try the D1 before having to wait for the 841/941 or D2 - turns out I'm glad I did.
Hooked up the 841 and watched about 15 minutes of only two movies before deciding that yep, this puppy's going back. Really, that black crush deal is a HUGE problem. I'm on a gateway 56" DLP so I've obviously never been satisfied with blacks any it anyway (DLP tradeoff, right?), but man, just watching a couple of really dark scenes against the D1, it's incredible the difference on this black crush thing...
The one killer scene was in Babe (sheep pig) Special Edition - there's a scene about halfway through where they focus in on the black cat in the house and then zoom in on it's face/eyes and then they do a circle fade out. On the Samsung, as they zoom in on the cat it just becomes a big black spot on the screen - aside from the eyes you eventually can't even tell it's a cat. Yep, it was THAT noticeable.
Immediately tossed the scene in the D1 and the same scene, while not absolutely perfect due to the blacks issue with DLP's, was still MUCH better as far as being able to tell the details of the cat's face, etc.
Not only the black crush, but the picture itself seemed to be much more... I dunnow, alive (?) on the D1 compared to the 841. I couldn't really put my finger on it since I didn't have a setup to do a great A-B comparison - but I could tell the 841 wasn't going to be good enough for me. Some of the scenes of Attack of the Clones (while still not perfect on the D1) are much less vibrant on the 841.
Also, the tradeoff of losing Divx capability with the D1 (whole season of Sopranos on one disc!) as opposed to getting the SACD/DVD-A (which I REALLY wanted) with the 841 was kind of a push.
I'm still wowed by my new D1 - I don't think they should be allowed to sell a DLP (or any fixed-pixel display) without at least SOME upconverted DVI player. I tossed in a few minutes of Taxi Driver after I boxed up the 841 and yep, could be the best 200 bucks I've spent in a while.
Of course, I haven't had enough time with the D1 to watch enough movies all the way through to see if I'm going to get any loader problems (fingers crossed - my D1 is a really late-model one so hopefully it's true that they've fixed a lot of those problems) so ask me again in a few months if I'm cussing out Bravo...
Now to lose some more sleep on whether I should consider an upgrade to the D2 while I still have a couple more weeks left on my 30-day window of the D1....
Just a few thoughts from a non-expert...
Sped
I've had really bad timing on DVD players lately - I JUST got my Bravo D1 in the mail a couple of weeks ago - I had planned on cancelling it and waiting for the Samsung, Bravo D2, etc. dust to settle but I didn't hit the cancel in time. That's OK though, because it gave me the chance to at least try the D1 before having to wait for the 841/941 or D2 - turns out I'm glad I did.
Hooked up the 841 and watched about 15 minutes of only two movies before deciding that yep, this puppy's going back. Really, that black crush deal is a HUGE problem. I'm on a gateway 56" DLP so I've obviously never been satisfied with blacks any it anyway (DLP tradeoff, right?), but man, just watching a couple of really dark scenes against the D1, it's incredible the difference on this black crush thing...
The one killer scene was in Babe (sheep pig) Special Edition - there's a scene about halfway through where they focus in on the black cat in the house and then zoom in on it's face/eyes and then they do a circle fade out. On the Samsung, as they zoom in on the cat it just becomes a big black spot on the screen - aside from the eyes you eventually can't even tell it's a cat. Yep, it was THAT noticeable.
Immediately tossed the scene in the D1 and the same scene, while not absolutely perfect due to the blacks issue with DLP's, was still MUCH better as far as being able to tell the details of the cat's face, etc.
Not only the black crush, but the picture itself seemed to be much more... I dunnow, alive (?) on the D1 compared to the 841. I couldn't really put my finger on it since I didn't have a setup to do a great A-B comparison - but I could tell the 841 wasn't going to be good enough for me. Some of the scenes of Attack of the Clones (while still not perfect on the D1) are much less vibrant on the 841.
Also, the tradeoff of losing Divx capability with the D1 (whole season of Sopranos on one disc!) as opposed to getting the SACD/DVD-A (which I REALLY wanted) with the 841 was kind of a push.
I'm still wowed by my new D1 - I don't think they should be allowed to sell a DLP (or any fixed-pixel display) without at least SOME upconverted DVI player. I tossed in a few minutes of Taxi Driver after I boxed up the 841 and yep, could be the best 200 bucks I've spent in a while.
Of course, I haven't had enough time with the D1 to watch enough movies all the way through to see if I'm going to get any loader problems (fingers crossed - my D1 is a really late-model one so hopefully it's true that they've fixed a lot of those problems) so ask me again in a few months if I'm cussing out Bravo...
Now to lose some more sleep on whether I should consider an upgrade to the D2 while I still have a couple more weeks left on my 30-day window of the D1....
Just a few thoughts from a non-expert...
Sped
