Samsung Blu-Ray player on display at my local Best Buy

Brent M · 06-19-2006, 05:12 PM

Went into BB today to pick up a belt clip for my cell phone and much to my surprise the Samsung Blu-Ray player was on display hooked up to a 40" Samsung LCD TV. I was standing there looking at it when the salesman came up and asked if I had any questions. I said, "no I'm just checking out this new player" and he said that it will look even better when they're able to demo an actual Blu-Ray movie on it. Right now they are running a demo disc, but he said they had movies in the back ready to be put on the shelf tomorrow. I didn't ask which ones, but I wasn't aware there were even going to be any Blu-Ray titles released on 6/20. Anyway, I'll probably stop back in there later in the week to see how it looks. Interestingly enough, the Blu-Ray setup took the place of the HD-DVD display which was nowhere to be found in the store now.

Ed St. Clair · 06-19-2006, 06:06 PM

Lucky you, Brent!
I'll have to check my local BB, tomorrow.
Thanks for the heads up!

David_Rivshin · 06-19-2006, 07:15 PM

I happened to stop in to a local CircuitCity on Sunday, and was approached by a salesman. He mentioned that they had the Samsung BRD player hooked up to a 50" Sony SXRD playing 5th Element (I assume the BRD version, or perhaps it was the demo disk). Sorry, I can't tell you how it looked, as I'm trying to maintain my self control for at least another 6-12 months, so I stayed as far away from that setup as possible.
I did get the impression that that salesman, if not CC in general, was excited about Blu-Ray. He offered up that information without any provocation, other than having me standing around the large-screen TV section. Of course it could have just been the thought of getting a big fat commission from selling someone a 50" SXRD and a BRD player that got him excited.

-- Dave

John Stell · 06-20-2006, 12:51 PM

Well, my Best Buy still had their Toshiba set up. Beneath the Toshiba were only Blu Ray titles. There were no HD DVD titles to be found. So, they have hardware on display for software they aren't selling, and software on sale for hardware they aren't displaying. Color me confused.

RobertR · 06-20-2006, 02:08 PM

Stopped by my local Best Buy today. The Samsung display is back to back with the Toshiba display, each with a rack of titles. Neither is displayed more prominently. The bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) thing about the BD display is that they weren't running any BD titles.

**HTF Ads**

Brent M · 06-20-2006, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Stell

Well, my Best Buy still had their Toshiba set up. Beneath the Toshiba were only Blu Ray titles. There were no HD DVD titles to be found. So, they have hardware on display for software they aren't selling, and software on sale for hardware they aren't displaying. Color me confused.

At this point, I think even the major retailers are befuddled by the rollout of both these formats. It really has been a huge mess IMHO and I'm glad I decided months ago to sit on the sidelines and wait out this stupid format war for a while. I've certainly got enough unwatched DVDs to keep me busy until either one format wins or a universal player is brought to market.

John Wielgosz · 06-20-2006, 09:14 PM

The local Best Buy (Wilkes-Barre, PA) has the Samsung up in the HD-A1's former space, but the display (Westinghouse 42' 1080p LCD) was set up horribly. I'm aware of reports of macroblocking on "House of Flying Daggers", but this was ridiculous.

Faces showed a terrible "solarized" look for the lack of a better adjective. The image was noticably soft and filtered. I was on my way to work, so I didn't have the time to get a look at the display settings.

Fair amount of titles out, but I can't see them moving any units with this setup.

Matt-Z · 06-20-2006, 10:37 PM

I just got back from CircutCity (wife was in Old Navy) I was just burning some time not really looking at anything in particular. I saw a small display of Blu-ray titles and thought maybe they'd have one set up. At that point my kid took off and I had to chase him (2.5 year old) down an aisle towards the tvs. I saw the Samsung player hooked up to a Samsung 1080p display (if I had to guess @ 55 "). One word. Unimpressive. It was playing The Fifth Element and I actually got down on my hands and knees to make sure about what I was witnessing. I even saw the opened blu-ray case the disc came out of and had enough time to be unimpressed with that too. My son was taken by the movie so I had a little time to stand and look. I saw lots of problems, or distractions. I kept thinking there were scratches on the film. But more surprising to me was the lack of positives. I thought I'd see some sort of, well, fullness, that I perhaps had never appreciated was missing from DVD. ( I always marvel at those guys who talk about movies they saw in the seventies and how they can recollect all the minutia of its presentation.) Anyway, For anyone looking forward to all this, let's just hope this thing wasn't set up right. Personally, I think we're looking at the next "Laserdisc". I'll be surprised if any of this stuff ever achieves more than a niche market, and here's why. I believe the number of people willing to spend even 25 bucks on a title is significantly lower than the number willing to spend 15.99. And I'm at the point where I don't even want to pay THAT anymore. I don't know, I'm probably just an idiot. I only really looked at the thing for maybe two and a half minutes. I guess I was somehow hoping that the movie was going to somehow look different than on DVD. We'll see how it goes either way I suppose.
Matt

Todd McF · 06-23-2006, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt-Z

...I don't know, I'm probably just an idiot. I only really looked at the thing for maybe two and a half minutes. I guess I was somehow hoping that the movie was going to somehow look different than on DVD. We'll see how it goes either way I suppose.
Matt

Your not an idiot. I've seen the same display at my BB/Magnolia and it could easily pass for standard def DVD. Same thing with HD DVD display, but that was marginally better. Certainly no WOW factor at all in either technology. No chance I'm parting with even $500 until I see something that makes me go WOW.

I'm not shy about spending on my theater - but I smell the next Laserdisc / Beta Max fiasco from a mile away. I think they are *both* going to be MIA at Best Buy / CC in just a few months. No chance they will waste the floor space on this.

Nobody was watching *either* display and BB was packed!

In contrast, all the LCD/Plasma/DLP displays showing the typical HD loops looked fantastic and were generating serious traffic.

BrandonJF · 06-23-2006, 03:14 PM

I don't know how anyone can tell anything at a Best Buy. I tried looking at House of Flying Daggers on their display, but could barely make out anything due to all the ambient light bouncing off the screen. The displays aren't in the darker area of the store where the tvs are at.

The best demo material I've seen is that little bit where they show a split-screen comparison between DVD and HD-DVD. Haha. Definitely overexaggerated, but, hey, maybe someone will bite. If they really believe in this stuff, let's see some real split-screen comparisons in those demos...

One observation (which is admittedly meaningless in the grand scheme of things) this week - on Tuesday at my local BB, they had 2 Toshiba HD-DVD players and 2 Samsung Blu-Ray players. Yesterday, they only had 2 Samsung Blu-Ray players.