Progressive Scan - MPN: DVDHD931
yikes
- Oct 25, 2004
Strengths: HD upconversion, DVI connection, sleek/slim design, remote can conrol TV, and easy set-up.
Weakness: Bright blue LED dial illumination can be annoying, does not play VCD's, very picky at playing MP3/JPEG CD's, and remote function layout could be better,
1st of all, if you intend to use it for VCD, forget about it. I have called Samsung and was advised that it is not designed to play VCD's, at all.
Other than that, it is fine. After all, I bought it for DVD upconversion, and it does just that. I can actually see the quality difference. Oh, if you do not have an HDTV or compatible TV with DVI connection, do not buy it. DVI connection makes the difference.
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TopStrengths: PICTURE! Wow, the color the quality on HDTV!
Weakness: Remote is a bit complicated
I have bought 6 DVD players in the last 2 years trying to find the right combination of picture quality, ease of use and reliability. Sony - no longer the best, Panasonic - doesn't play all the discs it says it does and JVC - so complicated an engineer gave up on it... But I bought a reconditioned (YES!) Samsung DVD-HD931 4 months ago. I waited and waited and it has not failed me. The picture on my Philips Plasma 42 inch (1000 X 800) and Samsung HDTV 22 inch was beyond what I expected. It is so dependable - never a problem. Easy to use, GREAT sound... I am shopping for a second.. BUY THIS DVD PLAYER - you won't regret it DH; LA, CA
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TopStrengths: Good looks, appearance DCDi technology used for de-interlacing, web site for Samsung/box should give ample info to make a decent decision, right? Buy a Denon 1600 with DCDi instead.
Weakness: The player does just fine when connected DVI to a HD monitor or tv with DVI, otherwise no Sage chip technology, might as well have spent $80 on a Panasonic
My comments are shared by many who either think Samsung didn't say on their box that DCDi is only used with DVI, and in addition the same can be said for the web site by Samsung....no mention of DVI being the only decent picture. By the way, in the review at HW Extreme they used a 27" tv, come on, any picture interlaced, or even a basic of most basic off brand picture looks good on anything small. At least they could have used a 32" HD monitor to test component clarity. Furthermore, call Samsung for tech support, they didn't know the DCDi was only via DVI however when pressed told me to take it back to the dealer...it took two weeks for them to reply to me, in that time I had gotten another as even the repair techs said the picture was poor. After that, I waited on a reply back from Samsung, took so long I forgot about it. I wasn't going to use the player, sell it on eBay because the dealer has a 15% restock fee. Samsung's position which I could name names but in the interest of being a person with good morals am not. Let me just say I spoke with the top person in the facility, the thick Jersey accent combined with the poor remarks and wouldn't even take a call if I have my vendor call even though he agreed there should be more info on the web site and box! Picture is grainy in progressive, failed pluge when tested on software, and I urge you to only buy if you have a plasma HDTV or research to see if your RPTV will work, 02 Mitsu HDTV won't work on the DVI. Samsung techs BAD
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TopStrengths: This player has the best DVD play back. The picture cd vewer is the best I have seen.
Weakness: slow remote response.
I would recomend this player for anyone that enjoys vewing their picture cd's on a big screen TV.
You can even tell a big diffrence in picture quallity in the progressive scan mode (480p)over the competition.
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TopStrengths: Sexy looks
Weakness: Everything else
As an entry-level home theater enthusiast my wife and I own a 55" wide screen Samsung HDTV. Tired of playing movies through the PS2 or Xbox, we decided to get a good player. So we searched for a decent Samsung player to go with our Monitor. After reading some early reviews on the unit, we decided to buy it. Bad move. As stated in some of the other reviews listed here, I had constant problems with it from the moment I opened the box. The picture is God Awful! No matter, which output I used, the picture was grainy, the colors seems off. While watching The last Samurai, (Component output) Tom Cruise and others in the film, looked a slight shade of purple. There were times were the picture seemed to dispixelate when showing fade scenes, or displaying the color black. I checked all of my setting thinking it was the monitor, but it wasn’t. So I switched to S-video output. This did not help. The images were almost blurred at times. The player has checked out to be in solid working order. Is this what I spent $300 on? I cannot comment on its ability to play through the DVI output because or monitor doesn’t support DVI. (Even though the salesman from Samsung ensured me that shouldn’t be a problem, it was.) Now their telling me to buy yet another piece to hook up to their player to convert the DVI signal to component. I was told that should settle the viewing issues I have. So, a $300 purchase now has to become a $700 purchase if I buy the additional unit, to get the picture quality that I was suppose to receive with buying this player in the 1st place. I don’t think so. Samsung needs to throw this player in the scrap yard.
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TopStrengths: Sleek Looking
Weakness: Poor picture quality
I purchased this DVD player last night from Best Buy. I payed $327.74 total for this player. Hooked it up to my 65" Mitsubishi HDTV and did a side by side comparison with my Sony progressive scan DVD player. I hooked it up via Monster Cable DVI 400 and both me and my wife thought the picture quality was horrid. The picture is extremly grainy. I tested this on five different DVDs. Even if I ran the unit at 480p the PQ still looked bad compared to my Sony DVD player. I think it is because of how high definition works. If you take a DVD that is encoded with 480 lines of resolution and try and stretch that image to 1080 there is going to be grainy pixels because there is no information encoded on the DVD for those pixels. I think maybe this DVD player would look good at 720p, but my TV only supports 480i, 480p and 1080i. I am going to return this DVD player today and stick with my Sony running at 480p. I would not recommend this DVD player to anyone, but then again I was not able to test at 720p. Also, I have read many reviews on the internet and the biggest complaint is that Samsung does not include a DVI cable. Well, the one I bought DID come with a DVI cable. So maybe they started adding them? I tested the PQ using the cable that came with it as well, no difference. I only gave this DVD player one star because I really had high hopes that I would be able to view my DVD collection in a new "HD" light. Boy was I mistaken.
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TopStrengths: Excellent reception of HDTV over the air broadcasts. However there are some weaknesses.
Weakness: A good friend of mine did a comparision with his RCA HDTV receiver. Please see summary for weaknesses.
- Defective s-video output when source is DVHS. Color toggles on and off during playback.
- Sometimes unit stops responding to remote control and front panel commands when trying to lock onto a weak digital signal. To break out of the lockups, I had to disconnect the antenna.
- Could only view 720p, 480p, and 480i on my PC monitor. Although my PC monitor can display images up to 1600x1200, it falls short of the 920x1080i HDTV spec. Unlike my RCA receivers, the SIR-T165's vga circuits won't scale 1080i output to my PC monitor's maximum resolution. The SIR-T165's 1080i output looks like an horizontally squeezed picture on my monitor.
- The output resolution must be set to 480i in order to see the menus on s-video output. Otherwise, menu is visible at all other resolution settings as long as you're using an HDTV display. Not really a problem, but annoying nevertheless.
- Cannot view DVD content (copyrighted or home made DVDs) via the VGA port. Output only available via component and DVI connectors. How can I use my computer to edit my OWN home movies?
- DVD content (from component inputs) sent to the T165s component outputs is 480p only.
- No way to turn off gray bars when viewing video in letterbox mode. All wide screen frames(1080i, 720p, and 480p) are displayed in letterbox format on 4:3 displays. It's the only way to see the entire 16:9 picture frame on a 4:3 display
- No QAM modulation support for Comcast cable HDTV reception
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Top
The DVD-HD931 performs great as a standard DVD player, with extensive playback options, great video quality, and the outputs you need to connect to any home theater system. However, this DVD player is different. The HD931 also has the ability to do two things that very few DVD players can: Direct digital video output and resolution upscaling. For more details, check out the following review.
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Samsung DVD-HD931 DVD Player
Strengths: if you have a hdtv with dvi inputs, this looks fantastic. Allows dvi connection to be set to various formats, but on my Hitachi plasma, 1080i looks fantastic.
Weakness: remote (like other samsungs I have) is a bit finicky. Seems actually to be the unit rather than the remote, somewhat unresponsive.
I got this unit to play dvds on a new hitachi plasma tv, it looks fantastic- almost filmlike. Problem with dvi, though, is that most if not all tvs have only one dvi input. Now I want to plug a HD directv box and will have to investigate a switch (expensive) No complaints about the dvd player, works great (a bit picky about dirty discs, though) although the sensitivity to remotes, like another samsung dvd player I own is low. Got this instead of the Vinc one because v had a long wait, and I couldn't try it at home and return w/o penalty if I didn't want it. I got it open box at crutchfield for 269, shipping included.
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