Sleek Design But Does the Performance Match?
Samsung has been steadily releasing Blu-ray players since the format's launch. In fact, it was their BD-P1000 Profile 1.0 Blu-ray player that was the first to market in June of 2006 when Blu-ray first launched. The P1000 rather infamously arrived to market amidst much criticism for having what many videophiles saw as a flawed video processor that had its DNR (Digital Noise Reduction) circuitry turned on by default, thereby resulting in a softened image playback. It didn't help that the first crop of titles from Sony, such as the original BD release of The Fifth Element, were less than spectacular as well.
Now, over two years and a few generations down the product line later, Samsung has released the BD-P1500 BD-Live ready Blu-ray Disc player at a SRP of $299.99, but have they learned anything and improved their video playback?
For those with newer receivers with HDMI 1.3 audio support, the HDMI output of the BD-P1500 can bitstream all of the codecs for external decoding. And, as noted above, it will output all but the DTS-HD formats as multichannel PCM. The unit only offers stereo analog outputs, therefore if you cannot use HDMI for multichannel sound, you'll be stuck listening to the legacy codecs via the optical output.
The P1500 is "BD-Live Ready," but as of the writing of this review, it has not yet received the firmware update to activate this functionality. The player is, however, BonusView (Profile 1.1) compatible. [editor's note: the BD-Live firmware upgrade is now available and Brandon has posted his experience with it here].
The P-1500's remote control is similar to Samsung's current design on the remote controls across their product line, but thankfully directional buttons replace the annoying directional scroll wheel design that is used on their display remotes. The remote feels comfortable in the hand, but it's a bit too long making it difficult to navigate with one hand. The lack of any sort of backlighting also makes it difficult to make out the controls in a darkened room.
Setting it Up
Setup for the P1500 was a breeze. The menu system on the player is similar to that which the company uses on their televisions so, having a Samsung display, I was familiar with the layout and was able to navigate the menu system without much effort. The options are labeled intuitively, so setting the player up for the proper output resolution and to bitstream all of the advanced codecs into my Onkyo TX-SR805 A/V receiver took no time at all. Setting up Internet access also took no effort, as the player automatically recognized the DHCP network and obtained an IP address without any issues. The P1500 also has an internal clock and as such there are settings to set the time and your time zone.
Sadly, this player, like most of the Blu-ray players on the market offers no "source direct" mode, that would allow you to automatically output the native resolution of the encoded format of the disc to your display instead of having to set one specific video resolution output. This can be handy for the growing catalog of 1080i/60 Blu-ray Discs (nature documentaries, live concerts and such) which might be better served being de-interlaced by the display than by the player.
The player's startup times were acceptable, but certainly not blazing. Powering the unit on, it takes around 34 seconds before a disc can be inserted. By hitting the eject button instead of power, you can get the disc tray open immediately in a "quick start" mode, so this will help you get the disc loading a bit quicker.
Turning to the BD-Java laden Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to test load times, it took around 67 seconds to reach the disc's opening trailers and another 43 seconds to get through the trailers to the disc's home menu. In comparison to the Sony BDP-S350 and Panasonic's new DMP-BD55, these are noticeably slower speeds. The S350 in its Quick Start mode powers on in a mere 6 seconds and reaches the Pirates of the Caribbean trailers in around 60 seconds. The Panasonic player reaches the trailers in about 54 seconds (from powered off). Samsung has their work cut out for them if they want to match these loading speeds in future players.
On the two Diagonal Filtering tests which test for motion "jaggies", the unit also did poorly on both test patterns. The first test -- a pattern of three waving white bars -- displayed significant jagged edges on all three bars. The second test pattern, which is a rotating white bar, was jagged at nearly all angles. This means the BD-P1500's diagonal filtering is not what it could be, and it may have trouble displaying diagonal lines without stair-stepping distortion on high definition 1080i sources. However, this does not apply to the majority of Blu-ray titles, which are delivered on the disc at 1080p/24 and which do not require diagonal filtering on the player.
Moving on to playback of actual high definition material, I turned to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, comparing the playback of the P1500 to the Sony S350. Comparing chapters 6 and 7 on each unit, the 1080p/24 playback into my Samsung LN52A650 display, the two units were very close, but the Samsung was a little bit softer with more washed out blacks and the S350 had more vibrant colors. I also tried testing the Beowulf Blu-ray Disc and found that the P1500 would not send a 1080p/24 signal to my display with this disc although the Sony S350 gave no problem playing it back in 1080p/24. Naturally, the S350 gave a smoother, less "juddery" image on Beowulf than the P1500.
Standard Definition Playback
Moving on to the standard definition Silicon Optix HQV test suites, I ran the jaggies tests first and the P1500 once again did poorly, although it did slightly better on the second jaggies test with the rotating white bar in SD than it did in HD. In the SD Detail test, the P1500 did very well, extracting good detail with no artifacts from the source.
On the 3:2 cadence test, once again the P1500 performed flawlessly, detecting the film source instantly and playing back the test pattern without any strobing and the racecar video clip with no moiré and good detail in the background grandstand. Finally, on the Mixed 3:2 with titles test, which tests the units ability to do 3:2 with both scrolling CNN-style text and vertically scrolling credits (video titles overlaid on film-based background content) the P1500 performed the conversions without any errors, displaying smooth, detailed text.
For actual DVD content, I went to my go-to title, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The P1500 looked good playing back Chapter 40, where Obi-Wan and Anikan battle, showing good detail and clarity, but there were definite motion jaggies apparent on the background wall. The S350 did not show any motion jaggies in this scene, but was slightly less detailed than the P1500, so it's a toss up between the two units.
Overall the SD playback on the BD-P1500 is pretty good, but is outclassed by some other players in this price range and doesn't hold up to the best upconverting DVD players on the market. We're looking forward to checking out Samsung's upcoming BDP-2500 player which will offer on-board Silicon Optix HQV technology for improved SD and 1080i HD playback.
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Similar Products Tested
Manufacturer's Specifications for the Samsung BD-P1500:
Compatibility:
Video:
Company Information:
Samsung America, Inc.
105 Challenger Road
Ridgefield park, NJ 07660
Tel: (201) 229-5000
Fax: (201) 229-5080
Web: www.samsungusa.com
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