Samsung BD

Update: Our full Samsung BD-C6900 review is now live on the site. Our original article appears below

Forget that the Samsung BD-C6900 Blu-ray player does 3D — it’s hardly the most important thing about it. Especially not when you consider the speed it loads discs, its Internet functionality and its dashing size and style. If 3D is your thing though, its ability to play Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in extra-special pokeypokeyvision will tickle your fancy.

Samsung BD-C6900Samsung BD-C6900

Starting with the funky looks, we have to say we rather like the retro VHS top-loader style window on top. Through this, you can see your Blu-ray movie spinning around, which enables the pixies of the laserbeam to deliver HD entertainments to your TV in both 2D and 3D. Hooray for laser pixies!

The rest of the machine is finished in a glossy black plastic, the home-entertainment uniform of recent years. The player is also incredibly slim — one of Samsung’s most compact players yet.

Samsung BD-C6900Samsung BD-C6900

HDMI 1.4 output means the player can trigger your TV to turn itself into 3D mode. Aside from that, you’ll notice no particular advantage to the new standard. If you have an older AV receiver with HDMI 1.3, however, it can prevent the TV detecting 3D, so you have to switch it into 3D mode manually. It’s hardly the end of the world, but still a problem that shouldn’t exist.

Samsung BD-C6900Samsung BD-C6900

Where this player really made us grin was in its startup time. It can load our test Blu-ray in just 31.4 seconds. This might sound like a long time, especially compared to most DVD players, but trust us when we say it’s as much of a revolution as the iPad. The machine is also very fast to respond to user input, which adds to the feeling of happiness we’ve felt using it.

Samsung BD-C6900Samsung BD-C6900

Samsung offers a full array of audio outputs on this premium model. You get 7.1-channel analogue audio outputs, which enable you to send uncompressed audio to an AV receiver, without using HDMI — smashing news for those with older receivers. You also get an optical audio output, which can send Dolby Digital and DTS sound to your home-cinema system, but it won’t be able to handle DTS HD and Dolby TrueHD, so using it for Blu-ray movies is less than ideal.

Samsung BD-C6900Samsung BD-C6900

You won’t find any 3D glasses in the box with this player, but it’s worth pointing out that there’s currently a voucher included that enables you to get a free pair, worth about £70. Samsung told us it hopes to put glasses in the box later this year, once costs are reduced. That’s fine, but we think the whole glasses fiasco is beyond a joke. These ones will only work with Samsung 3D TVs too, so don’t get excited if you’re using a Sony or Panasonic TV.

A full assessment of Samsung’s £300 player will appear in our reviews section in the very near future, so stay tuned.

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Samsung BD

If you’re an AV pacifist then the whole next-generation DVD format war will no doubt be as distasteful to you as kicking kittens. Luckily Samsung wants you to preserve your moral code by finding a peaceful compromise. Its new BS-UP5000 will play both HD DVD and Blu-ray without so much as a cross word or angry gesture.

Even more exciting is the news that it will have full interactive support for both formats. This is one better than LG’s Super Multi Blue player, which has full support for the Blu-ray Java platform, but isn’t capable of the HD DVD interactive system, called HDi.

So, what does this mean for the formats? Well, the bad news for peace lovers is that one of the formats is going to have to die sooner or later. Which one kicks the bucket will depend on a number of complex factors. Dual-format players are good for HD DVD, because movie studios will be more likely to press their discs in the format that’s cheapest to produce. At this point, it only costs around £50,000 to convert a DVD plant to an HD DVD-capable one, whereas Blu-ray facilities cost as much as ten times that.

Of course, Blu-ray does still have a slight advantage in the range of movie studios who support the format — only Universal is boycotting Blu-ray. Sony won’t be in a hurry to support HD DVD and it does have an enormous back catalogue of moves to entice people to spend money on Blu-ray discs. There’s also the PlayStation 3 effect — millions of Blu-ray players out there already, although not necessarily owned by hi-def movie enthusiasts.

There has been no official word on the BS-UP5000’s price yet, but we suspect having both technologies in one box is going to make this an expensive player. At this point, Blu-ray hardware is still slightly more expensive, so that will no doubt push the price of a combo player up.

So is the war over with minimal bloodshed, or will we wading through the spilt entrails for some time to come? Hopefully this will be the first of many combo players and eventually we’ll see a DVD+R vs. DVD-R style truce where both formats are generally well supported. Fingers crossed, anyway… -Ian Morris

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Samsung BD

Samsung can’t claim to have produced the first multi-format player — that award goes to LG for its Super Multi Blue player — but it can claim to have the first one that is certified by both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the DVD Forum. The BD-UP5000 offers playback of both formats, but it also offers full HD DVD HDi functionality, which provides the ability to interact with the format, for example in games and with animated menus. The LG machine doesn’t support this functionality on HD DVD.

The BD-UP5000 includes all the features of the Samsung BD-P2400, meaning lucky punters will get full 1080p support, including the ability to upscale DVDs to 1080p. There is also 24p movie playback, which is the buzz-word of the year.

You’ll also find full support for the major audio formats: Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD and Dolby Digital Plus. This means you’ll be able to get the best out of the HDMI 1.3 interface, which allows true, uncompressed digital sound.

Connectivity is impressive, with HDMI, component, S-Video and even composite video outputs, although we’re struggling to understand why anyone would pay for a premium player like this and use composite out. 

Early indications are that the player will cost around £600 and will be
on sale in time for Christmas. If you want to step up to HD, we have to
say, this is the way to do it. Full support for both formats at a
realistic price is a dream come true for us. -Ian Morris

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Samsung BD

Samsung was the first to release a Blu-ray disc player in the US, and has said it will also be the first to release one in Europe and the UK. The BD-P1000 will hit Blighty at around the same time as the Panasonic DMP-BD10, which is two months before Toshiba’s HD-E1 and HD-XE1 HD DVD players.

We saw the BD-P1000 while hanging out at Samsung’s stand at IFA 2006 and were told it was compatible with the vast majority of digital disc formats. It can read BD-RE, BD-R, BD-ROM, DVD ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD ROM, CD-R and CD-RW. It can output Blu-ray movies in Full HD 1080p, and can upscale your standard DVD movies so they look more like hi-def content.

There’s plenty of connectors too. You get HDMI, composite, component and S-Video, plus there’s a 10-in-2 memory card interface and a fully animated menu system with pretty dolphins and stuff. Usefully, there’s a universal remote control that lets you control your telly as well as the BD-P1000.

It all sounds sweet, but there are a couple of issues: firstly, there won’t be any Blu-ray movies released in the UK until November at the earliest. Secondly, it’ll cost an arm and a leg: £1,000 in the UK. That’s annoying as it’ll cost €1,000 (£675) on the continent and $1,000 (£525) in the US. Apparently, we have to pay more because of taxes — not because we’re stupid.

We’ll have more on the BD-P1000 shortly. -RR

Update: A full review of the Samsung BD-P1000 is now live.

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