Samsung DVD-HD960 Up-Converting DVD Player

• Upconverting, mult-format progressive scan DVD player; measures 16.9 x 1.77 x 9.8 inches (WxHxD)
• Transforms standard DVD to near 1080p HD-quality video (as well as 720p, 1080i formats)
• Compatible with DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-R/RW, VCD, SVCD, MP3, WMA, JPEG
• Outputs: 1 HDMI, 1 component, 1 S-Video, 1 composite, 1 coaxial audio, 1 optical audio
• Supports both Dolby Digital and DTS encoded DVDs

I am continually amazed at how often people blame new technology rather than their own shortcomings of knowledge regarding HD television. To the reviewer with the JVC 61" 1080P television who is "unsure about the upconverting technology" on this player...your JVC tv is a 1080P upscaler and does not have a direct 1080P input. Many people fail to realize that there is a difference between the two when buying their 1080P tv. They see 1080P and assume it's all the same. Most Sony & Samsung 1080P televisions have DIRECT 1080P signal capability built in through the HDMI inputs. Most 1080P sets by JVC and Toshiba, while "compatible" with 1080P, must perform a separate upconversion to achieve 1080P format imaging. I guarantee if you connect this 1080P upscaling player to a Samsung or Sony tv with 1080P direct connectivity, you WILL no longer question the value of the upconverting technology. Right now 1080P upscaling players for regular DVD discs is the way to go. Think of this Samsung player as a bridge to the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD players. You can get a significantly improved picture from this player that takes advantage of your 1080P display unit. This will allow consumers to bide their time until prices drop on the Blu-ray/HD-DVD players, more HD DVD titles become available for purchase, and allow one format or the other to win out.

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Let me be the first one to admit that I am no video expert, but I do have a decent untrained eye. Prior to this player, I was using the Phillips DVP642 (a great little player and a bargain at $60) via it's componenet output on my Samsung LN-S4092D. I was pretty pleased with the output (minus a couple of minor annoyances including a persistent blue band of pixels at the top of the image) but when I saw Samsung announce this new player with the much-hyped Faroudja de-interlacer I couldn't resist.

First the good -this player supports virtually anything you can put in it including DivX (unlike the HD950). The menus are also nice although the player cannot adjust color, brightness, sharpness, saturations settings without first stopping the disk -making it hard to compare differences. Also the player supports a good variety of output formats via its HDMI port and pre-packaged cable including 1080P (despite indications to the contrary on Amazon's site). The DVD also includes Samsung's handy EZ View button that allows you to dynamically adjust the aspect-ratio of the image (widescreen, full-screen, and various stretches). Finally the remote has been redesigned bringing it in line with Samsung's new design used on Samsung's new TVs.

Now onto the negatives: Despite hype to the contrary, HDMI offers little-to-no image improvement over standard progressive scan players outputting via a component cable. I had hoped that Faroudja's chip would give an edge to this player (having heard hype about Oppo's drive) but I just can't honestly confirm this in my informal tests. I have no doubt that during controlled lab tests this drive performs great an de-interlace tests but whether this translates into real-world improvement is unclear. A second downside is this drive its slowwww to load times. Disks take a full 20 seconds to spin up before being recongized.

Overall this is a nice player that makes DVD's look about as good as standard definition source material can. If you are in the market for a DVD player this is a good choice although I can't entirely justify its price over the much less expensive Phillips DVP642 given their near identical image quality. One final thought -this drive offers a rock-solid screen-saver mode for those affraid of inadvertant "burn-in." A minor, but important feature.

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I upgraded from the Samsung HD860 which upconverts to 720p and 1080i. I was fairly happy with the 860 since it was a huge improvement over my progressive scan player. Since I have a new Samsung HL-S5087 1080p HDTV, I thought the 960 should be the perfect match. Ten minutes out of the box with the included HDMI cable plugged in and the Revenge of the Sith loaded and I could tell a definite improvement. Breathtaking from the start, the blackest black and clearest details. Must be the DCDi Faroudja chip I have read about and expected to do just this. No need to buy blue ray yet. Wow, a great DVD player and handles so many other formats as well. I have not seen anything to complain about and I am a keen observer. I am very happy with this purchase.

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Upconversion works much better than I expected. The pictures are superb on my new Samsung DLP HDTV, and yes, the provided HDMI cable works great.

However, the player's control software is frustratingly slow.

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Item How many seconds should it take for the system to boot up?

To get ready to display the DVD contents?

My Sony DVD player is much faster than this player.

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Item How many seconds should I wait until I can get back to the DVD menu, and change scenes? or run a special feature? or select a different setup option? Or enable commentary?

This player responds to the user inputs way too slowly.

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Another issue:

The Samsung TV came with a feature called AnyNet, and an AnyNet cable. When I selected the player, I had expected to be able to control the DVD player using the TV's remote control through this AnyNet interface. I am disappointed that the DVD player does not have the AnyNet feature.

Yes, the DVD player's remote can run most of the features of the TV. It can not, unfortunately, run some of the TV features that I was already accustomed to. Now I must either do without those features, or have both remotes on hand.

I was drawn to this unit by its high-tech specs, particularly the upconversion to 1080p format, being one of very few which do this. In normal operation, the unit works well, upscales very nicely. I use it with a top model Sony 46" LCD, and it still looks good. I do not see much [any?] difference in upscaling between 1080i and 1080p. The unit has some operational qwerks which are minor negatives.

When starting up both TV and DVD player, the unit sometimes fails to sych with the TV, resulting in sound but not picture, or image scrabbled. The correction is to restart the player or cycle the player back to 480i>720p>1080i>1080p. Either technique is a minor hassle which is required [by me] several times a week.

A reviewer commented on an image processing flaw: a near white spot in a near black field will generate [he says] a ring or "doughnut" image flaw at the image contract boundry. I noticed this effecty once in a very minor way in the 300+ hours of use to date. I judge not an issue.

The tray open/close botton is micro-small w/o an color contrast from the front panel. It's a bit of a nuisance, and I wonder "what were they thinking"

On less than full width image DVDs, it's default starting image is "normal wide", which distorts the image horizonatly and requires you to cycle through the options manually to find the correct image setting. The starting image format is user set in a menu, but if you set for wide image format DVDs, you get this issue on less than wide image starts [older movies].

Good Points:

Imaging is just fine; overall, as good as it gets.

The remote is uncommonly well organized and functional [but no backlight].

Menu system for setup is user friendly and the manual is sufficient.

-Its a pretty good deal, particularly since its the only HDMI compatible DVD player I know which packs the requisite HMDI cable in the box a $35+ value added.

Will remember your break point in a DVD, even if you shut off the unit and [in some cases] pull the disk. Restart that DVD and it automatically returns to where you left off without noticable delay. Nice touch.

Final comment: some reviewers comment on "slow loading". My experience is that it is slower that my 6 year old 480i DVD player, but does not seem slower than other upscaling units.