Samsung HT

Here are some facts that you may not know about kelp, unless you’ve been to the Wikipedia page too: per 100g, kelp has 0.6g of fat, 1.7g of protein and 40kcal of energy. Kelp is also used to make the speakers found in the Samsung HT-BD8200 Blu-ray speaker bar.

Apparently, kelp is a good material with which to construct speakers because its density is quite high, which means less sound distortion and better clarity. Unless you read the box, which makes a moderate fuss about the speakers’ ocean-based origins, you wouldn’t know the HT-BD8200 feature a healthy dose of seaweed though.

Samsung also proudly declares that this system has a ‘Crystal Surround AirTrack’. We have no earthly clue what that could possibly mean, but Samsung does claim that the system’s built-in amplifier is ‘crystal clear’, which is fair enough, although the company’s hardly like to declare that it’s ‘rather muddy’.

The labelling on the box aside, there’s plenty to get excited about here. The HT-BD8200 features a Blu-ray player, speakers and a wireless subwoofer. It’s designed to be mounted onto your wall, beneath what Samsung hopes is one of its TVs. Of course, if you’re in the market for one of these devices and you have a Samsung TV, you’ll get the benefit of matching styles and a harmonious AV lifestyle.

We’re big fans of Samsung Blu-ray players — they’re generally among the fastest-loading and most highly specified devices of their type. Having one built into a speaker bar makes plenty of sense if you’re short of space and want to have far better sound than a TV can ever offer. The bonus of the wireless subwoofer is that it can be placed anywhere in your room, as long as there’s a power socket nearby. As with most of Samsung’s recent Blu-ray players, this one can accept a wireless dongle for BD-Live functionality, and, if you aren’t living the wireless lifestyle, there’s an Ethernet socket too.

Samsung also includes an iPhone-compatible iPod dock, which means you can easily access your music library via your home cinema — something that’s likely to appeal to a great many people. Don’t expect a huge number of inputs though — only a single optical digital input is provided, which means you can’t connect a Sky+ box and an Xbox 360 or your TV at the same time.

We’ll be reviewing this salty sea dog in the coming days, so keep an eye on our reviews channel or subscribe to our Twitter feed, which proudly announces all of our latest content with convenient hyperlinks included.

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Samsung HT

Building your own home cinema is never going to be the cheapest decision you make. Once you factor in the cost of a Blu-ray player, an HD TV and a surround-sound system you’re going to be getting some very cross phone calls from your bank manager. One way to reduce the cost is to buy an all-in-one Blu-ray and surround-sound system, such as the Samsung HT-BD2R.

What you get in the pack is a Blu-ray player, which also acts as the amplifier for the speaker system. There are four tall-boy speakers, a centre-channel speaker, a subwoofer and a pair of mini-satellite speakers — for the extra channel that 7.1 provides over 5.1. The system claims an output of 1,100W, with each channel offering 135W — the sub can crank out 155W.

The system supports Dolby Digital Plus and DTS Master audio on Dolby True HD for making the most of those lossless movie soundtracks Blu-ray boasts. In terms of video, you also get DivX support, and the player can handle video on CD or DVD too.

Samsung does lose some points for only including support for Blu-ray profile 1.0, instead of 1.1 or 2.0. This means you won’t get the best interactive experience or any online enhancements. The good news is the player will lob a lovely ‘Full HD’ 1080p picture in the direction of your TV. It also upscales DVDs to 1080p too, in as much as anything can upscale a standard DVD to 1080p.

We won’t pretend it’s a solution will suit the audiophile among you, but if you want a simple home cinema that comes in one box, you can setup this one without hours of tweaking or the need to carefully select every component for maximum compatibility. The HT-BD2R costs about £799 online, but if you wait a few months the price is sure to drop. –Ian Morris

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Samsung HT

Samsung’s HT-XQ100, which we saw at CeBIT 2006, may look like a standard home cinema system, but further investigation by Crave’s gadget monkeys reveals something rather revolutionary.

It’s not only one of the first ‘in-a-box’ systems to feature an HDMI output for high-quality digital video, but it’s also capable of video upscaling. This means it will turn your standard-definition DVDs into high-res 720p or 1080i images, which is perfect for flat-screen owners needing a quality boost from their old movies.

But while this is certainly the first upscaling home cinema package we’ve seen, it’s not the most interesting part of the HT-XQ100. When you remove a small panel on the side of the DVD unit, you can connect a USB device directly to the system. Acting as a USB host, you can play MP3 music from your portable player, DivX video from a PVR like the Archos AV500, or JPEG pictures from a digital camera. We’ve seen products like the Buffalo LinkTheater offering this functionality, but Samsung is the first major manufacturer to offer support.

The system also has all the usual Dolby Digital and DTS audio formats, and you’ll be able to buy a separate wireless kit for around €100 (£70) that will remove the wires needed to connect the rear speakers. To match the different colours of Samsung’s new LCD range, the HT-XQ100 will be available in black and white from May, priced at €549 (£380). A 2.1 system with the same functionality will also be available. -GC

See our CeBIT 2006 Special Report for all the latest news, product announcements, photos and videos from CeBIT.

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