Samsung DVD-HD931 Early Impressions (1 Viewer)

[Chris Shelly]

This is the odd thing. According to the manual for the 57HDX82 it supports 480i, 480p and 1080i from the DVI port. Yet the only mode that actually works using the HD931 is 720p...go figure

Some people are getting the 1080i to work but many are reporting problems. Not sure if it is a player issue or a TV issue are a little of both. DVI is a new thing and I don't think all the manufactures followed the same standards. Question is what is the standard and what will they do about it?

Chris

 

[HanLee]

How is this player performing now guys? Any further reviews or comments on it?

-Han

 

[Doug Schiller]

Well, I got mine on Monday and I am in heaven.
I was always happy with my Panny RP-82 but this player easily beats it.

I have it hooked to a Hitachi Ultravision 51SWX20B via DVI and running in 1080i mode.

Everything I throw at it looks amazing.
I just watched the Superbit "Punch Drunk Love" and it was jaw dropping. No mosqito artifacts, no ringing, blacks were perfect to my eye, and all the details I could easily see (couch fabric, hair, skin color, etc.)

Not a bad upgrade for ~ $250 shipped. If only it had multichannel DVDAudio, I could sell my RP-82.

Doug

 

[Winfred.S]

Chris,

Contact Samsung, they are aware that the first batch of players could not display 1080i. They will send you an upgrade CD as a fix. They will ask for you serial.

 

[Winfred.S]

oops, just reading back. I guess you already knew about this problem.

 

[Philip Verdieck]

What is HDCP? I have a Sony KV-34HS510 with DVI.

specs here:
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...Yrwfjc&Dept=tv

 

[Oswald Pascual]

Well I do not have DVI on on my display unit, so I guess I am out of luck. I also am not familiar with HDCP. Anyone?

I hope when HD-DVD's come out they will work with RGB.

 

[MikeSRC]

HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is a copy-protection scheme for DVI connections that has been adopted by the powers that be for all high definition signal transfer, even the upconverted variety. Both the sending device and the display device must be HDCP compliant to process the signal. The sending device sends a "key" to the display device, which sends back its own "key" to the sending device. If both keys are valid, the display will receive and properly display the high-def signal.

Although it's not written in stone, it's becoming very likely that the eventual standard for transmission of HD signals will be a variation of DVI, HDMI, which will also include HDCP and is backwards compatible with DVI. While it might take some time for HDTV content via satellite, cable and OTA to adopt this, there's little doubt that any HD DVD format will have a copy protected connection.

If you'd like to know more about it, there's a good article exerpted from Widescreen Review here: HDMI

P.S. - I received the firmware upgrade disc and it solves the problems this player had with Sony and Toshiba TVs being unable to display 1080i.

 

[Jason F.]

Anyone know how it works with the new 51H83 Tosh's?

 

[Rick Anderson]

I got mine a couple weeks ago. It worked in 480p and 720p on my Sony KP57WV700 but all I got at 1080i was snow. I called Samsung and they sent me the upgrade disc. I got it Friday and it solved the problem: 1080i now works fine and the picture is very impressive.

 

[Frank Smith]

Does the 931 come with a DVI cable? If so, what length and type? Thanks.

 

[Rick Anderson]

No, no DVI cable is included.

 

[Ron Reda]

Doug Schiller's review of this player has really got me interested as I too have a Hitachi Ultravision 51SWX20B. I wonder how it compares with the Panny RP91 I have now...

 

[Doug Schiller]

Well, after the addition of the Pioneer 563A (which takes care of my SACD/DVD-Audio side), I'll be putting up my Region Free Panasonic RP-82 for sale.

I've had the Samsung for over a month and am still amazed at the quality on the Hitachi. Both Daredevil and Solaris looked razor sharp on my display.

To answer your question, the Panny RP-82 had the Fajourda chip and was considered the better player for progressive displays (compared to the RP91).

As long as you are using DVI, the Samsung should be much better than the RP91 on 16x9 discs.

You may want to keep the player though because it is the king of 4x3 letterbox (non 16x9) DVDs. The Samsung GUI is probably the same as their cheapest player and has zero bells and whistles besides DVI output.

Doug

 

[Ron Reda]

Doug,

Why did you have to go and say all of those nice things about the Sammy? Now I have to go buy one!

I don't have too many 4x3 (non 16x9) DVDs, so I may just get rid of the RP91. The black ones are in pretty short supply, so I should have no problem selling it.

 

[*Luke*]

I also have a Sammy DLP but have read that the monitor will undo then redo the signal since it has a similiar chip. I read that you must decide to either let the monitor or the dvd player do the process and I have yet to see where the process can be stopped on my monitor but I think it can on the player. Any one have any actual facts/experiences?

 

[Ted Lee]

i'm kinda interested in this thing. does anyone know if the mitsubishi rptv's have the hdcp?

also, if anyone would like to post updated reviews of their unit i'd be appreciative.

thx,

ted

 

[Scott Wong]

Perhaps someone can chime in here... I just purchased a Samsung HLN-567W DLP set. I was also planning on purchasing the 931 DVD player, as well. I instead decided to go with the Denon DVD-2200. It's a *little* bit of a higher end player and was told the DAC's in the Denon are quite a bit better than they are in the Samsung. In the store where I made the purchase, I honestly could not tell any difference between the connection made with a Monster Cable D400 DVI cable and one made with a set of Monster Cable M1000v component video cables. I guess what I'm saying is I didn't see the difference between the DVI and component video outputs of the DVD player. I like to think that I'm pretty picky and the same opening chapter of Toy Story via DVD looked the same be it DVI or component.

I'm not at all sure what the point of this reply is except perhaps I needed to spend a bit more time with the Sammy 931 and its DVI output. I just know that I wanted a little better of an 'overall' player and the picture that the Denon DVD-2200 puts out is nothing short of impressive, IMO.

Has anyone by chance compared the 931 to any other players? I know there was a Panasonic model mentioned earlier.

Scott.

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

The TV you purchased has a VERY good scaler in it (I think the same scaler used in the 931 DVD player) the only thing the 931 adds in this case is less D->A conversions. When a TV has a poor-to-mediocre scaler the differences become more apparent, especially w/ fixed-pixel displays like DLP, LCD, LCOS, and Plasma.

The Bravo D1 (DVI Upscaling player) ate my RP91 alive in PQ on a 52" Widescreen RCA and on my current Panasonic L300U Projector, mainly because both have poor internal scalers. The difference on a TV like yours which has a great scaler would be much much less noticable. It's even possible that the Deinterlacer on your TV is better and running the player in interlaced mode would give you superior PQ (this is the case with most people owning Pioneer Elite RPTVS).

 

[Ted Lee]

hi all -

i just picked this up and early impressions are positive.

i compared the composite and s-vid to the dvi connection and the dvi connection really shines. even my girlfriend immediately noticed the difference. (i was using "finding nemo" as a test and you could clearly see how much brighter and sharper the image was.)

anyway, it seems i can only get it to output either 1080i or 480p? when i try 720p (blue), then my tv (mits ws-65313) doesn't register any signal.

i just want to be sure i'm not doing anything wrong?

thx,

ted