Returning My Samsung BDP1000 BluRay Player Tomorrow

OK guys - I've spent the last 72 hours agonizing over this but I finally decided to pack this thing up and return this monster tomorrow.

Comparing my Toshiba HD-DVD player and this Samsung BluRay on my Sony 60 inch SXRD I must say that the Toshiba wins hands down. I am totally disappointed with BluRays's picture quality and I'm beginning to think that the upconverted DVD picture even looks better. The BluRay movies I tried were XXX, Underworld, and House of Flying Daggers.

I think Ced's last post about BluRay using MPEG2 makes a lot of sense. I don't know if upgrading to HDMI 1.3 or using a more efficient codec will make a difference but I will hold off on any BluRay purchases for now and enjoy my HD-DVD player instead.

 

Your not in the minority... Did you see the poll results I posted yet?


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If not....

Some intresting poll results:

HD-DVD:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/show...&highlight=Poll

Blu-ray:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=690621

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I can verify that the Samsung's abiltiy to upconvert from SD DVD to 720p or 1080i is inferior to the Toshiba players abilities. This is surprising since the Samsung incorporates name-brand deinterlacing; The Faroudja [bold]Directional Correlational Deinterlacing[/bold] (DCDi) technology. I guess having Faroudja on the box is just a gimick in this case.

Ced

 

Wow it's great you could afford both...and so soon after they released...I'm surprised Your posting here with such funds lol.

 

Sorry - I was under the impression that you can post to afterdawn no matter what your income was. If you look at Ced's link to the AVS forums above you will see a lot of early adopters like me who have both players.

Ced:
Those are really surprising poll numbers - only 22% are keeping their BluRay player and 78% are returning theirs. Do you think Sony will make improvements to their player (better codec, HDMI 1.3, multi-layer support) before its October release?

 

oh.. I wasn't getting on you.I just know there so expensive that's all.When I said "I'm surprised your posting here with such funds" I just meant if I had em both I wouldn't be here I would be playin with my new toys lol.Sorry bout that ,carry on.

 

Ced and dblbogey7: Thanks for the input.

It's gotten so bad that someone at AVS forums said that instead of "BluRay" they should call it "BluRRY."

It would be interesting to see if this is a harware issue, a software/encoding issue, or a combination of both. Will the initial releases look as bad on future machines? I'm still keeping my fingers crossed and my eye out for the Sony player promised this October.

 

The only thing that is almost for sure is that the next gen Blu-ray players will have HDMI 1.3 support. HDMI 1.3 won't directly affect picture quality although sound quality will improve. The connecting receiver will have to support HDMI 1.3 aswell to reap the benifets of a digital Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD audio stream.

Multi-Layer support looks like it won't make it to the table to this time next year or later.

For some reason Sony isn't allowing the movie studios to use VC-1 or AVC (H.264) at the moment but that could change at any time. Someone said that Sony still holds licenses that pertain to MPEG-2 and that is why it is being used but I can confirm that for a fact. I think that it has to do more with Sony's use of out-dated software (thier out-dated software).

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I have mixed feelings about Blu-ray. I have seen it look good and very bad while I have seen HD-DVD look good and very good. It seems that with movies that BD has had trouble with alot of their 1080p transfers. Apparently "50 first dates" looks really good to most while "xXx" and "House of flying daggers" look horrible. I can confirm that our store tailer of "50 first dates" looks ok. I have noticed that on the BB demo disc that the 1080p Video sources look better than any type of 1080p film transfer.

It is my honest opinion that Blu-ray will eventually preform as well as HD-DVD in the future and that both formats will look better as time goes on since all the movie studios are being faced with a learning curve do to there new MPEG-4 tools. Sound should improve too as the new audio formats are finalised and utillized.

Ced

 

not trying to be funny but i apreciate guys like you posting this information so guys like me can make the right choice! thanx and keep ,up the good work!

 

hmmm...i've seen this coming for a long time. there's so many people to say "i told you so" to, but i must be mature

 

Pardon me Auslander but I didn't get your post. What did you see coming for a long time?

Ced:
I just need a clarification:

Does this mean that the PS3 BD drive will not support multi-layer BD's?

 

I ment that there won't be any Multi-layer BDs available till this time next year since they are expensive and difficult to produce. But that statment isn't a fact its just my conjecture.

I'm not sure about support in hardware although it would be foolish to come out with BD-roms that can't play the new discs. I'm intrested in how the 1st gen players will support 50+ GB BD disc in the far future. Firmware upgrade I guess?

The PS3 spec sheet doesn't say anything about Multi-layer support but maybe its implied since its supported by everything classified as a BD-ROM. If someone could get to the bottom of this question it would be greatly appreciated!

I think Auslander is talking about Sony dropping the ball... right?

Ced

 

So I've got my full refund and I'm left wondering what went wrong with the BluRay launch. As usual we've got some very good points from Ced and also eatsushi.

Most of the stuff I've read seems to point to a software issue. Here's a sample:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_initialreport.htm

On the other hand, this review from digitalbits points out a hardware issue with regards to HMDI:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

The bottom line is that the picture quality of the inital BD releases was disappointing. The solution may come from a combination of improved software/encoding and hardware. Suffice it to say that this is just round 1 (as Ced put it in his post). Stay tuned for round 2.

Ced: Do you think the reason that Sony refuses to use VC-1 is because this codec was developed by Microsoft?

 

Excellent posting dblbogey7,

I don't think that is the case at all since the licensing for VC-1 is handled by SMPTE and not Micro$oft. If they didn't want to use VC-1 it shouldn't have been apart of the format at all. In case that is the reason though, AVC (the MPEG-4 alternative to VC-1, A.K.A. H.264) is also an option. But they have not use that codec either.

Are they saying that the same issues didn't show up with component video? If the problems extend to the Component Video connection too it would mean that nothing is wrong with HDMI connection, its just somthing in the player.

That artical makes alot of since now that I think about it. I think the Blu-ray camp know the Samsung player is crappy and only looks good at 720p. Why? because all the CC stores have it connected to a 720p Samsung DLP playing one of the worst review transfers, "House Of Flying Daggers." BB has it hooked up to the Samsung 1080p LCD but it doesn't look very good except for the video (non-telecine) footage.

Ced

 

right you are, diabolos.

 

LOL HD DVD all the way.

 

I wouldn't call it BluRRY - just inferior in picture quality compared to HD-DVD. (At least the initial releases.)

 

Okay we are in the first gen era Far as Blu-Ray & HD-DVD its a litte to early to be judgeing.

 

Ok i have been wondering this for a while, i have a 360 and I've read and herd alot about the new HD-DVD external drive that is supposed to be coming out later. I am pretty sure im supporting HD-DVD so I was planning on purchasing the drive when it came out (I don't remember reading a specific release date so if someone could give me an estimate on when they come out it would be nice). But since the 360's purpose isnt specificly to play HD-DVDs does that mean that the quality won't be near as good as the Toshiba Player. Also I know that as of now the 360 only uses component and VGA for a HD connection, so i know the quality wont be quite as good as if it used HDMI. I herd that they might come out with a HDMI cable for 360 but I know nothing more about it, so if someone could give me some more information on this it would be appreciated, thanks.

 

It seems that you have all the info right now. They said they are releaseing it about same time as ps3 and it a RUMOR that they are going to put HDMI on 360 later on. Other rumor is that it's going to be inter HD-DVD out EXTER

 

Samsung admits a bad chip in their BluRay player has contributed to poor PQ:

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/14236.html

They promise to correct the error in future machines and release a firmware upgrade.