BD: Memento
This is one of my favorite thriller/suspense movies. It keeps you on your toes and has some incredibly well-shot footage, especially with lots of outdoor scenes, vehicle lines and facial close-ups with plenty of skin detail. Taking a look at the close-ups you could really see that this DVD as a better quality transfer, lending itself to an impressive presentation.

The picture could stand to be a bit sharper overall, but the image varied from scene to scene - making it difficult to know the root cause for any picture quality issues.

Helios HVD2085 (left) vs. Samsung BD-P1000 (right)

Overall, detail abounded in various scenes. In particular the hair, skin detail and tattoo textures were clearly visible as was the dirt on the hood of the car in the bottom comparison. When comparing real 1080i/p vs. scaled 1080p it's all about detail, so if I sound like a broken record it's simply because items like hair, skin and various textures are where you most clearly see the differences. This is one of the better masters I had see in a Blu-ray Disc title and it was nice to see that not every disc suffered from the bad mastering that plagued many titles. Blu-ray won the comparison on resolution grounds, but I have to note that we did see a slightly bluish color cast in comparison to our other players.

BD: House of Flying Daggers
Again, this title seemed promising and then we received it only to become disappointed in the overall graininess of the picture. And I DO mean the picture was grainy. The graininess seemed to become a major problem as it interacted with the noise reduction settings of the player - producing a crawling grainy pattern that seemed to dominate each scene.

The film was also noticeably jumpy, having a persistent up-and-down motion as it played. We shot some photos below to try and capture the noise phenomenon, but obviously without providing motion it's hard to get the full effect.

A grainy picture dominated this movie, rendering it as one of the worst BD transfers yet in my opinion.

During some key scenes there were optimal points to discern fine edge detail and resolution, but this was not the choice movie with which to test out the benefits of the Samsung BD-P1000 player versus standard definition DVDs.

Listening Evaluation

We fired up the 5.1 analogue outputs and took a listen to the Samsung BD-P1000 in both Dolby Digital and PCM-uncompressed modes. There is no real music-only titles available so we focused mostly on credit music where some of the best tracks of any movie are kept (as any industry insider knows, this is where the composer can let it rip without having to tone it down for the Director.) We were pleased to find that we really liked the increased quality present in the uncompressed PCM tracks. I think this is a case of "never had it, never missed it". Once the uncompressed tracks were compared with the Dolby Digital tracks, high-end clarity and the perceived low frequency extension increased audibly.

As mentioned above, some titles had a different volume level for the uncompressed PCM tracks when compared to their Dolby Digital counterparts. Memento , for example, had about a 5dB difference in level, making it hard to compare tracks (we got good at quickly adjusting volume during the pause of reacquiring the stream). Other titles like House of Flying Daggers had level matched tracks that were easy to compare. Overall, I'd have to say that I wish standard DVDs had more advanced audio for films - until you hear some uncompressed tracks in close comparison, you may not realize what you are missing. That's a home run for high definition DVDs and I am now looking forward to the new lossless Dolby and DTS formats which we imagine will start arriving sometime in 2007 (with hardware support that is).

Conclusion

Let's understand something. The $999 Samsung BD-P1000 is for those consumers who want, and can afford, the latest and greatest. This is an early-adopter product. With these products come several factors: Buy it, and you will 1) have the greatest level of quality available in DVD (compared to standard definition, this is not a statement on comparing formats), 2) be subject to the occasional bug or issue associated with a first-generation product, and 3) pay more than what these products will eventually cost once early adopters allow manufacturers to recoup R & D and bring down prices.

What can we say overall about the BD-P1000? It's a decent product - worth every penny to those who have the funds and demand the latest and greatest gadgets. It is also, however, an immature product. For those looking to work on a budget, you can afford to wait a bit and settle for standard DVD upconversion to 720p/1080i which is now available in decent form for less than $150. For those looking at high end DVD players with upconversion capability, the Blu-ray player now looks very tempting indeed and might actually save you some money.

We are very disappointed with the software available for Blu-ray. It seems very unpredictable and adds one more level of "buyer beware" to an already uncertain marketplace. When it's all said and done, my vote is for everyone to rush out and buy these players - once you do the prices will come down and "mere mortals" can then enjoy high definition without having to empty their wallets of quite so much cash. So, support those of us who can't afford the latest gadgets - buy these players up!