Samsung DVD-HD941 Up-Converting DVD Player
might be better with fixed-resolution displays
I have a Sony KP-57WS520 rear projection CRT television. I have heard that with CRT displays, an upconverting dvd player will not make much difference, and I'm going to have to agree with that. Maybe, when used with an LCD or DLP set, this dvd player would shine, but with my tv, I actually prefered using the component outputs to the HDMI output, for two reasons: <br /> <br />1) The HDMI output was super dark, so much so that details would simply be lost in dark backgrounds. It couldn't be cleared up by adjusting the tv's brightest or color levels either. THe dark background would get lighter, but the details would stay hidden.  <br /> <br />2) My television does a much better job of upconverting the 480i dvd signal than the dvd player did. The Sony has a nice DRC circuit that produces a very good picture when fed a 480i signal. When given an upconverted signal from this dvd player, the DRC circuit is disabled. So I'm forced to either choose the component outputs with the tv doing its magic, or the HDMI output with the dvd player doing its magic. The component outputs option was clearly the winner, and when I compared the picture using this dvd player's component outputs and the picture I got with my previous dvd player's component outputs, there was no noticeable difference. So I decided to return the unit.  <br /> <br />Another thing to note, which makes me glad I don't have to stick with this unit - the remote sucks, the menus are terrible, and the settings kept being reset to the defaults. For instance, there is a setting for turning off this annoying message that pops up when the HDMI is connected (even if you're using the component connection), saying that HDMI audio is disabled. It pops up every time you change the chapter or start a title. You can turn it off in the settings menu, but it kept coming back the next time I used the dvd player, and (one other annoying feature) you can't even change the setting unless the dvd player is stopped. So I kept startinga movie, only to find the setting was switched back to ON, and then having to stop the movie, change the setting, and restart the movie (or just live with it). Very lame.