Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-Ray Disc Player
Solid First-Generation Box for Blu-Ray
I picked up this player the day it became available because I am a big fan of High-Definition movies and watch as much as I can via Comcast, but I was anxious to have the freedom to ultimately watch what I want when I want to.  Other than a high-definition VHS-style format that came and went over the last couple years, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are the first real attempts at a mass-market consumer HD format. <br /> <br />First, it must be said that at current prices and the current number of movies available, and the generally unpolished \\"first generation\\" feel of some of the movie discs released, there is no way to make a persuasive \\"value\\" case for a $1000 Blu Ray player from any manufacturer.  But, if you are less price sensitive and are buying more for the future potential than the 10 movies you can take home and play tonight, read on. <br /> <br />Aesthetically and physically, the player is great.  Samsung is (in my eyes) an up-and-coming manufacturer and are quickly learning the style lessons that have put Sony and (to some degree) Apple on the forefront of consumer electronics.  The packaging makes a great first-impression, and the aesthetics of the unit are consistent and high-tech (glossy black finish, solid chassis, blue lighting). <br /> <br />Ergonomically the player is also very easy to live with.  With a first-generation box, sometimes its enough to just FUNCTION consistently.  This player feels not only functional but actually somewhat refined.  The on-screen displays are clean and clear (rendered fully in HD of course!).  The remote control is solid and functional, not flashy or weird as it could have gone.  Remote is also stylish.  The newer \\"pop-up\\" high-definition menus that overlay your film in progress are a great advance and very slickly produced even in these first generation titles. <br /> <br />The player setup screens are pretty simple - the player pretty much detects & sets up everything for you based on what media you insert.  It does a solid job up-converting existing DVDs, and you can play all the typical CD/DVD formats you have lying around.  It even has a 8-in-1 memory card slot to view photos.  If you have never seen your digital photos displayed in high-definition on a large TV, its a pretty neat treat.   <br /> <br />Blu-Ray HD discs, on my setup, looked great with some exceptions due to sub-par title releases (The Fifth Element being notably soft and low-def feeling).  The releases that were well-mastered and sharp really do produce an image that is significantly better than watching movies on HBO-HD, Showtime-HD, and so on, due to a higher \\"bandwidth\\" throughput possible on the Blu-Ray disc compared to the maximum bandwidth of an HD cable channel.   <br /> <br />Watching HD movies on Comcast often exposes sections of blockiness or pixelization during fast-moving scenes--these moments either do not occur or are greatly reduced on Blu-Ray movies, to the point of not being noticable during normal viewing.  The thing that really jumps out at you watching these movies on disc is how the original film-grain is actually being displayed by the unit - normally this tiny detail information, which we're used to seeing on the big-screen, is flattened out or non-existent on DVD.  On Blu-Ray you do see film grain more accurately, which, depending on your tolerance for it, may be disconcerting.  But it is a more realstic rendering of the original film than we've had access to in the past. <br /> <br />The downside right now is the spotty quality of the Blu-Ray software titles.  Several titles are just badly mastered, the most common and annoying problem is the movies being mastered too soft, possibly to improve the compressibility of the movie to save space, or possibly just laziness.  In HD, resolution is king and I don't want to watch a movie with anything less than the maximum resolution on the original film prints, not all titles rise to that level yet.  I hope this will improve. <br /> <br />I am using thisplayer on a Samsung Plasma TV.  I have also seen the player on an LCD-TV.  I would definitely recommend, due to the great color & contrast this unit produces, you'll get a more optimum experience when mated to a plasma or CRT than a lower-contrast LCD.  I did not experience how it looks on a DLP or front-projection unit, however.  But I did find LCD to be underwhelming.   <br /> <br />Another tip - even if your display seems to have closer to 720 lines of native resolution (as does mine), set the player to 1080i output - the 720 output clearly drops detail & resolution even on TVs that later down-res to 1280x768 pixels.   <br /> <br />So if price is not a big concern and you'd like to start seeing HD content in a purer form than what you can get off Cable or Satellite, its worth checking out this player or a similar HD-DVD player.   <br />