Samsung DVD-HD960 Up-Converting DVD Player Review

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(More customer reviews)I am continually amazed at how often people blame new technology rather than their own shortcomings of knowledge regarding HD television. To the reviewer with the JVC 61" 1080P television who is "unsure about the upconverting technology" on this player...your JVC tv is a 1080P upscaler and does not have a direct 1080P input. Many people fail to realize that there is a difference between the two when buying their 1080P tv. They see 1080P and assume it's all the same. Most Sony & Samsung 1080P televisions have DIRECT 1080P signal capability built in through the HDMI inputs. Most 1080P sets by JVC and Toshiba, while "compatible" with 1080P, must perform a separate upconversion to achieve 1080P format imaging. I guarantee if you connect this 1080P upscaling player to a Samsung or Sony tv with 1080P direct connectivity, you WILL no longer question the value of the upconverting technology. Right now 1080P upscaling players for regular DVD discs is the way to go. Think of this Samsung player as a bridge to the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD players. You can get a significantly improved picture from this player that takes advantage of your 1080P display unit. This will allow consumers to bide their time until prices drop on the Blu-ray/HD-DVD players, more HD DVD titles become available for purchase, and allow one format or the other to win out.

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Enjoy your favorite DVD movies in high definition without having to wait for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players with the affordable Samsung DVD-HD960 single-disc, progressive scan DVD player--the perfect partner to your HD-capable LCD or plasma TV. Where standard DVD players (even progressive scan models) provide just 480 lines of resolution, the DVD-HD860 will "upconvert" the picture up to 1080p (as well as 720p and 1080i)--taking full advantage of your HD television's sparkling resolution. This elegantly slim unit can also play a wide range of disc and file formats and offers a number of playback convenience features, including bookmarking, multiple camera angles, and folder accessibility on MP3/WMA-formatted discs.
The DVD-HD960 upconverts a standard DVD's native resolution (480p) to output close to high-definition formats (720p/1080i/1080p). To achieve that higher resolution, the player fills in additional image data by assessing existing pixels and intelligently predicting what the surrounding pixels should look like. Because the upconversion process occurs in the digital domain, no data is lost (compared with analog conversion) and the resulting image is close to pristine. To produce an upconverted picture, your high-def TV must have an HDMI connection (and HDCP support)--the 720p/1080i/1080p choice is only available when using the HDMI cable (which is not included). Also note that the DVD-HD960 is not a high-definition DVD player (i.e., not to be confused with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players, which play specially formatted high definition discs), so it will work with your existing DVD library.
This player also features DCDi (Directional Correlational Deinterlacing) upconversion via the Faroudja FLI-2310 chip, which substantially eliminates jagged edges that appear when standard interlaced video is viewed on progressive-scan displays.
This player is compatible with a wide range of disc formats, including DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-R/RW, VCD, and SVCD, as well as MP3, WMA, and JPEG file formats. Compression rates supported for MP3 are from 128-192 kbps and for WMA from 64-192 kbps. JPEG files can be seen in a slide show with intervals of 6, 12, or 18 seconds between images; and you can zoom in (2x or 4x) on an image or rotate it 90-degrees clockwise.
The bookmark function lets you mark and store up to three scenes at a time for easy recall. Instant replay shows you the previous 10 seconds of the movie again--in case you missed something important. Instant skip jumps ahead 10 seconds--in case you want to miss something. And parental control lets you set a password that must be given before a password-protected disc can be viewed.
It features the following video and audio connections:
Composite AV Out (RCA): 1
S-Video Out: 1
Component video Out: 1
HDMI AV Out: 1
Coaxial digital audio Out: 1
Optical digital audio Out: 1

Tech Talk HDMI is a lossless, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface to link any audio/video source (such as a set-top box, DVD player, or AV receiver) with your TV--all over a single cable. HDMI supports standard, enhanced or high definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It supports all ATSC formats--standard (SDTV), enhanced (EDTV), and high (HDTV).
HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is a system for protecting DVD content outputted via DVI/HDMI from being copied. It provides a secure digital link between a video source (PC, DVD. etc) and a display device (TV, projector, etc). Content is encrypted at the source device to prevent unauthorized copies from being made.
High Definition Formats: The most common high-def (HD) video format is 720p, which displays video at 720 vertical by 1280 horizontal pixels. The "p" denotes that it is progressive scan, meaning that all video lines are filled at the same time. The 1080i format displays video at 1080 vertical by 1920 horizontal pixels, and the "i" means that it is interlaced (the old-school way of presenting video where the screen scans the odd-numbered video lines first, then the even-numbered lines). The 1080p format has the same pixel resolution as 1080i, but it is a progressive scan format and thus has a constant vertical resolution of 720 lines.
What's in the Box Upconverting DVD player, remote control (with batteries), AV cable, printed operating instructions
Warranty 1 year parts, 90 days labor

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