Samsung DVD-1080P9 1080p Upconverting DVD Player

A progressive scan DVD player that upsamples your DVD content so that it can be properly displayed on your HDTV's. It hooks up to your TV via an HDMI cable and this device has HDMI-CEC which means you can control compatible devices with the same remote. It supports Dolby Digital sound and also has a USB port. It also supports a wide range of formats including DVD-Video, DVD-R/W and DVD+R/W. It also has a CD ripping feature and it will even play DivX and MPEG-4 video files. There are several upscaling DVD players on the market in this price bracket but this Samsung model has more features than most of its rivals.



Customer feedback:

1. My first concern when I buy equipment is how well does it perform what it's supposed to do and a DVD player should be about as simple as an electronic device should be. Connect it, plug it in, turn it on, - play a disc.
This Samsung easily answers all this with a short set-up due to the choice of television options available today. Some may not like the compact size of the remote, but it suits my needs. I'm sure this model can be programmed into most Universal Remotes and since it's a DVD player it doesn't require any unique control. Additionally, it has controls for Samsung TVs on the romote, but I cannot say if it works flawlessly since I don't have that brand TV.
The console has minimal controls on it, Play/Pause, Forward, Reverse, Stop on a round panel an open/close button and the power button so searching menus or any other tasks will have to be by remote. Again, very simple to operate.
Now for my last consideration; Appearance.

2. First a note about up-conversation. This DVD player or any up-converting DVD player does not give you anything close to BluRay quality. HDTVs, particularly inexpensive ones, often do a very bad job of displaying low def content. What up-conversion is all about is resampling the image to a resolution the TV can display naively. If all else was the same you could expect about the same quality of image from a up-converted image on a 1080p TV as you would have seen on a much older 480p TV of the same size with a progressive scan DVD player. That being said, if you have a 1080p TV then you will most likely benefit from up-conversion, just understand that what you will be getting is still DVD quality, nothing more.
Onto specifics about this player. My biggest complaint about this player is that its remote (which is not a universal but can control Samsung TVs) has shared buttons for the TV's volume. If you are watching a movie and try to change the volume without remembering to first push the TV button you will instead get rewind or chapter back. If you do have a Samsung TV then its remote will most likely be able to control this DVD player and that may be a better fit, especially if the TV supports Anynet. Another disappointment was the sound and overall slowness of the eject mechanism which wines and seems to struggle to open and close the tray. There is a slightly longer than expected delay when pressing the eject button or waiting for a disc to load. The DVD tray is very shallow, making it harder to get a disc into the "sweet spot" by feel, but even my kids have not had many problems. All-in-all none of these complaints are horrible, just not what you might expect from one of the most expensive players on the market.