- 1080p Up-conversion
- HDMI-CEC compatible
- Super Scan Playback
- BD Wise
- Dolby Digital
a very sleek looking player that loads fast. Compared to the Phillips I bought at a big box store for the same price a year ago, it is greased lightning.
a functional remote that is comfortable and easy to use.
a USB port on the front of the player to play .mpg and picture files or to rip music to a flash drive or MP3 player from a CD or DVD.
easy to navigate controls on the front panel. This is essential for me because my employees, who will not have the instruction manual available, will also be using the machine.
an HDMI output, as well as the regular RCA type jacks.
a ton of other features I will not use in my particular application.
Setup was a snap, even without so much as a glance at the instructions. I was even able to do a picture slide show from a flash drive without instructions, it is that intuitive. The only reason I didn't give 5 stars:
If you want to connect an old school coaxial cable (the one that you screw on with the little wire in the middle of the cable), you are out of luck
I don't see any instructions on how to get it to control the volume on my TV (and it does not do it on it's own) even though the remote indicates it has the capability.
Buy Samsung DVD-1080P9 1080p Upconverting DVD Player Now
I have owned alot of dvd players. I current have a Samsung BDP 1500, Toshiba HDVD, Samsung 1080p7, and LG & Onkyo unconverting players.The P9 is pretty sweet. It does what it should do. I got it to play regular DVDs and audio CDs instead of using the Blu Ray player. With audio and standard DVDs the upconverting player loads and navigates MUCH faster than a Blu Ray player. I really got the Samsung because it matched my Blu Ray player in appearance and the older Samsung 1080p7 in my bedroom works so well.
Everything works as it should. Having said that, the CD ripper to USB port is the easiest way I've found to rip audio CDS. If I had to nit pick, I would ding it for not having an optical output. The P7 and P8 did, but Samsung must have figured the P9 didn't need it. I don't use HDMI video switching on my receiver and I have 2 optical and 1 coax digital input. Luckily my other 2 devices I use have optical audio outputs.
Overall, it looks great and works well and is pretty inexpensive. Highly recommend.
Read Best Reviews of Samsung DVD-1080P9 1080p Upconverting DVD Player Here
If you have a new LCD TV and still are using an old DVD player, and aren't ready to take the Blu-Ray plunge, then this is the product for you.I just bought a new Samsung LN26B460 (26" 720P LCD), and had it hooked up to my old Sony DVD player through the RCA cables. The picture wasn't as good as it used to be on my old CRT. So I bought this upconverting DVD player and I'm not disappointed. The picture quality improved immensely. It is now better than it was on my CRT. I can't say if it is as good as 720P Blu-Ray, and I'm sure it isn't as good as 1080P Blu-Ray, but it is way better than a non-upconverting DVD using RCA cables. It is most likely that the improvement is only because of the HDMI connection instead of using RCA cables. It doesn't matter what I set the player to, the picture seems to be the same, because the TV will also convert the picture to 720P no matter what. So the converter on the TV seems to be the same quality as the converter in the player.
If I were to guess, I'd say it is just a touch below 720P Blu-Ray quality.
As far as the rest of the player goes, it works as expected. It isn't super fast at loading DVD's, probably about normal. It isn't too noisy. I guess my one complaint would be that I seem to have to press the buttons on the remote more than once for them to work. I have the player at an angle to were I sit, and it doesn't seem to have the strongest sensor. If I'm aiming straight on, it works fine.
If your player already has HDMI or DVI connector, then I wouldn't bother getting this one, I don't think you will see a big improvement.
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I recently received this player through Amazon. It arrived ahead of schedule and was securely packaged. Very important when purchasing electronics, as they can be damaged easily.I very much like this player. I ordered a Samsung TV, so was going to get a Samsung DVD player, so that I could use one of the supplied remote controls for both (it does this automatically, without any programing or fuss). I just looked at the 4 players on amazon and picked the one with the highest rating.
First, I will say, this is a good looking player. You can not tell much from its picture, however, this has the piano gloss front and looks quite nice. The front is not cluttered at all. A power switch to the far left and a telescoping tray as well. The large majority of the player is clean and open. On the far right is a circular control button, a-la ipod style and a USB port. The LCD screen sits in the center and is unlit when off, and not intrusive when displaying info, even in the dark. It is a perfect match for the Samsung TVs.
I have the player hooked to my TV with a Monster 1000 HDMI cable (yes this is overkill, however it was fantastically priced here on amazon). You can only upconvert with an HDMI cable, and one is not provided, so you must get one if you want the best picture possible. The HDMI can send a signal of 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. I have a 26" 720p TV (newly purchased and reviewed on amazon as well) and the 720p setting gave the best picture for this TV. This is easy to check for your TV as there is a dedicated button to cycle through each setting.
Setup was incredibly easy. Plug the player into an outlet. Plug the HDMI into the back of the player and into the TV. Switch the TV to the proper input. That's it. 5 seconds and your playing movies.
The quality of the player is quite nice. We rented Bolt, an animated Disney movie. It was very colorful and detailed. An absolute pleasure to watch. The player supports autoplay, so discs automatically start with the previews, and then the movie right after (must also be programed on the disc as well). I can not say enough of how happy we were with the picture quality.
The bonus gem here though, and reason to get this over other players, is the front USB port. If you have your own digital movies from a digital camera or camcorder, or digital pictures, you can put them on a USB flash drive and watch them on your TV through this player. There is a USB button on the remote, however, it autodetected mine when I plugged the flash drive in. This was very nice as it also upconverted the digital movies I played. I could not see a difference in quality with pictures, however they were taken with a 15mp DSLR camera on highest quality, so I can't expect miracles. Other reviews discuss that downloaded movies will also play through the USB, but I do not own any, and can't review this function.
The remote control comes with batteries, and is pretty basic. It is not back lit, so will be a bit hard to see in dark lighting. There is a button to press if you wish to use it for the TV. As this does not stop the DVD controls from working, I leave it on TV setting all the time and use this remote for both. Only thing I do not like is that the chapter foward/reverse buttons for DVD operation and channel up/down buttons for TV operation are shared. If you are set to TV and try to fast foward, the channel changes off of input to cable. A minor annoiance, but this design flaw should be noted, even if not cared about.
Over all, I am extremely pleased with this purchase.
Thank you for reading my review :)
Now, you may be asking yourself; what exactly does an up-conversion DVD player do, and how is it any better than a normal DVD player? Well, to put it simply, an up-conversion DVD player takes the standard 480p(640x480)resolution, which is standard on ALL DVDs, and up-scales(changes) it to a higher resolution; it then sends the up-scaled picture (digitally via HDMI) to the television. The end result is a picture that may appear to be much sharper and clearer than it would on a standard DVD player. On the flip side, unless you are using an HDMI cable, you may not notice much difference between standard 480p and 720p when up-converted, because the "digital" picture has to then be converted into an analog signal which results in a loss of quality. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do with 480p "source material" and an up-conversion can "enhance" the picture quality of standard DVDs, but it will in no way look as crisp and clear as Blu-ray.
Now that I have explained a bit about up conversion, let's get on with the review. The Samsung 1080p9 is a fairly inexpensive up-convert DVD Player that comes with a host of features. In addition to playing standard DVDs the player also has the option to play Divx (and Xvid) movies, as well as Mp3, Wma, and JPEG files from either a disc or a USB thumb drive. The USB port is a nice perk, because it allows users the freedom of not having to burn everything to a disc in order to viewed on the television. The USB port also allows users to rip audio CDs ,via the player, into the MP3 format for storage on a thumb drive. A nice perk, but the ripping speed is only 2x, which is pretty slow. The player also comes with an HDMI output, as well as Component (RBG), S-Video, Composite (yellow), and RCA (red and white) audio outputs. It is unfortunate that this unit does not come with an optical audio output for home theater audio. The unit also does not come with any cables other than an RCA audio cable and the yellow composite video cable.
In terms of up-conversion of DVDs, the quality is pretty mediocre, especially when compared to other up-convert DVD players on the market. In fact, Samsung Blu-ray players actually do a much better up-converting standard DVDs than the Samsung 1080p9. This is because the up-conversion in this player is done via software, rather than using hardware specifically designed for up-scaling to high resolutions. Both Sony and Panasonic offer up-conversion DVD players that do a much better job with up-converting, because those players are hardware-based rather than software-based. The resulting picture quality from the 1080p9 is not bad by any means, the picture still looks better than a standard DVD player, but there are players that do a much better job of up-converting on the market, and they are pretty comparable in price.
The Samsung 1080p9 is very easy to use and set up. Just plug it in, and it automatically adjusts itself to the best resolution for your television. Those with Samsung televisions will also benefit from the Anynet feature that allow the user to control the TV and DVD player with the same remote, as well as some additional features like direct connect. The remote that comes with the DVD player does take some getting used to. The button placements feel a bit awkward at first, and the remote needs to be pointed directly at the player with no obstructions, but otherwise it's a very simple set-up-and-use DVD player.
This player does have a few quirks to keep in mind. First of all, the brightness and counter on the front of the display can not be adjusted. This player is also very sensitive to heat, so if it is not well ventilated, the picture will freeze and skip. The player does have a resume play feature, but it is very finicky; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When the resume feature does work, for some reason the subtitles turn on by default, and need to manually be turned off. Also, when playing DVD-R material, the unit makes a slight constant chirping sound, which doesn't occur when playing retail DVDs, I'm not sure as to why, but the unit appears to play fine.
Overall, the Samsung 1080p9 is a good value for the money. It may not offer the best up-conversion quality on the market, but it does have a host of additional features that make it a bang for the buck. For those who are hesitant to re-invest in a new format, this player will definitely tide you over until your ready to take the plunge into Blu-ray.
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