Monday, June 19, 2006
General | Hardware | Innovation | Media,
Well now that we're starting to get reviews about the HD-A1 and Samsungs BD-P1000 i figured it's time i make a post concerning the two. Welcome to the NextGen Video Player war, who knows who's gonna win at this point it's far to early but then again the sony camp is 0 for 3 (BetaMax, SACD, UMD all failed). But in the media wars theres no telling. So here's our first impressions on the first 2 NextGen Video players, the Samsung BD-P1000 vs the Toshiba HD-XA1... Click Read More for our Full Review
Source: Inhouse / HDDVD Forum / AVS Forum
From first impressions it would appear that like all first gen formats both of the boxes seem to be quite large with the A1 slightly larger. While this may upset some people that are space conscious, there is an upside. Several people have said that while slightly larger the construction on the A1 seems alot more solid and not quite as ... cheap as the Samsung.
Here's the fact guys, we're not talking about 2 $500 devices, there is litterally a 500$ gap between the 2 devices and such a gap had better mean that the Samsung BD-P1000 has alot of a$$ kicking features over the A1. The sad truth is it appears that it doesn't in fact it appears it's lacking alot of features. While video quality seems to be pretty solid between the 2 boxes with quite a few reviewers noticing that the HD-DVD's VC-1 codec is surpassing the quality they are seeing on the BD counterpart... and so begins the disappointments. The HD movies so far just seem to have that "POP" that makes the scenes look crystal clear on the big screens, while the Bluray movies at time look that good but are generally inconsisent in maintaining the picture Pop we expect from a next gen format.
One of the big features people were looking at especially the homebrew crowd, surrounds putting your own HighDef video on a DVD-R and rocking it in it's full glory. Unfortunately the Samsung appears to lack this support while it's cheaper HDDVD counterpart plays it back without a hiccup. It would appear that the boys on the Bluray camp have decided to require AACS on the DVD-R to use it. Which basically squashes all the home movie enthusiasts. Yes probably BD-RE discs (god forbid they just call them RW's) will work but that's not the concern. DVD-R's are what 50 cents... BD-RE's are what 30$? Give me a break!
A big complaint about the A1 was the load time to start up and shut down the unit (around 20-30 seconds nothing too horrendous) and alot of people were waiting to see if the Bluray player would suffer a same faite, and the result? Not exactly, while load and shutdown times are shorter (about 10 seconds shorter) there seems to be a different performance issue on the samsung. While playing videos there appears to be a noticible delay in keypresses. From my point of view this is a HUGE deal. While bootup and shutdown delays are explainable because the A1 runs linux the fact that the BD-P1000 is laggy control wise negates a lack of processing power in the unit itself, on top of that a slow bootup and slowdown doesn't effect actual usage while controls definitly effect usage.
Two of the most beautiful features of the BD-P1000 seem to also be a slight downfall. The samsung has the piano finish we have come to see in sony products like the PSP, the issue with this is the same as it is with the PSP but on a larger object, it grabs fingerprints like there is no tommarrow. As i said there are 2 beautiful downfalls. The second are those sexy blue lights on the front of the player. They aren't exactly dim and there are quite a few of them. The issue is they are not adjustable or able to be disabled and while they might look good in a store as an eye catcher the fact is in a Home Entertainment Unit those lights are just da*n near impossible to ignore and quite distracting.
Another feature that's gonna get alot of use that might get overlooked too easily comes down to those 100's of DVDs we have sitting on our shelves, the question of Standard Def DVD output, here again the BD-P1000 is taking some hard hits. Which really we kind of saw coming with the HD-DVD camp ... well... come on it's the DVD camp. The Toshiba seem's to play back DVD's at 480p about the same or slightly better than the Samsung, but when we talk about upscaling it to 1080i the difference is pretty easy to see the toshiba just wins hands down on the upscaling. This isn't just me either quite a few of consumer reviews i have read have also stated this as being pretty obvious.
While I can't test it there is word going around that Analog Audio output seems to be a little lacking on the Samsung while the digital outputs on both are pretty much a wash.
A final topic i'd like to touch on is 1080p, while i don't have a 1080p display (i'm not rich sorry) a few people i know and a few consumer reviews have pointed out an issue with the Samsungs... well intelligence or lack there of... The bluray player seems to analyse the outputs and what it's outputting to and if it doesn't like it (even if the display does support 1080p) it just won't give it to you. Yes it's true the Toshiba does 1080i not 1080p the fact is if 1080p is that difficult to get working and decides to switch by itself then it's not ready for mainstream. Yes you heard that right there have been a few reports of for no apparent reason the BD-P1000 switching resolutions without user input or request. I guess this is just a case of the player trying to be too smart for it's own good. There appears to be some weird stuff going on inside the bluray player apparently there is a 1080p -> 1080i -> 1080p conversions, don't ask me why though. So yes for really great HD-DVD you need a display or device in front of the A1 that can deinterlace properly ... but either way we've already seen that quality on the current HD-DVD's is surpassing the blurays that are out right now, don't know if this will hold true a year from now but it does right now, and now is what matters, especially to consumers!
While it may not be a big deal or the players themselves faults, one must remember the hybrid issue. As of yet we haven't seen BD/DVD hybrids while we have HD/DVD hybrids on the market and already recieving price cuts. Backwards compatability is a huge deal and one which i feel will end up hurting the sony Bluray in the longterm. A few technical forums have said while it is extremely easy to layer the dvd on the back of the HD-DVD ... the same is not true for the bluray and would require alot of retooling the manufacturing to handle something like a BD/DVD hybrid. (Then again theirs the sheer fact of naming, which we all know plays a huge part in decision making. Compair the names openly without even a thinking of the technical implecations HD-DVD (High Def DVD) or Bluray, i've asked around and the simple choice for whats next after DVD and people always respond HighDef DVD's no one wants a name that sounds like it belongs in startrek).
In the end it's gonna come down to price, with the HDDVD discs already lowering there prices and the XA1 for 500$ compared to the bluray from Samsung at 1000$ and with similar features between the two (and as i've said even some missing features) the end just doesn't justify the means. Why pay the extra 500$ for a player that doesn't do anything better or special in compared to it's cheaper competitor? Alot of people are saying "ya but the ps3 will counter that cost problem" perhaps but then again how many people really use there ps2 as a dvd player, did my old ps2 do it... yes, did i use it as a dvd player NO! The fact is there is a reason the ps3 is a cheap bluray player, they want to get it in homes, but in the end it is still that a CHEAP bluray player. Don't expect to compair the bluray ps3 components against a highend bluray player. What's scary about this price war is while HD-DVD are lowering prices there seems to be the opposite trend on the bluray camp, with the announcement of an upcoming 1500$ bluray player, i believe from panasonic. But WHY!?! Why do I want to spend all that cash to see a movie that already looks great? And if i'm that desperate for hi-def why would I ignore the cheaper alternative with some better features?
Edit: A little last minute addition something that was discussed on the AVS forum and a guy posted something that actually reigns true in terms of movies... "1080p means absolutely NOTHING on film based content(1080p 24 fps) if you have a decent 1080i display that de-interlaces correctly.This has been covered on numerous threads and has been beaten to death. 1080p is for video based content and gaming. "
Edit 2: This isn't really a bash on either group HD or BD... but someone said that the bluray is inherintly better because of size, while size is great it doesn't really lock in a win. Primarily because there's only so much space needed for movies and other things like backwards compatability outweight that need. If the need was just space there are already 1TB disc's in development that put both Bluray and HDDVD to shame.