Date: |
February 05, 2006 1:51 PM |
Price: |
$149.99 |
Sponsors: |
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Author: |
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Editor: |
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Score: |
10/10 |
Samsung DVD-HD850 UpConversion DVD Player First Glance Inside the Box
Looking at the box that the DVD Player has arrived in, I was quite surprised, as the player looked like it was going to be a monster! After opening the box, I found that the player was bundled tightly in styrofoam, and nicely tucked away with all of its accessories. Another bonus of purchasing Samsung products!
Even after getting the unit out of the box, I am used to having players 1/2 the size of this around my house, but that's just because I'm cheap ;)! The player itself is of average size compared to its competitors. Feature wise, I would have to say that Samsung definitely has an upper hand, especially when boasting UpConversion! Bundle wise, Samsung has never let me down, hey, they even included batteries for the remote!
Sorting through the rest of the box, what you will find included inside is: Samsung DVD-HD850 Hi-Def UpConversion DVD Player, the remote control, a set of AAA batteries, an HDMI cable, an RCA A/V cable, and the user's guide.
Upon further inspection, the unit features the following audio and video connections on the rear:
* Composite A/V Out (RCA): 1
* Component Video Out: 1
* S-Video Out: 1
* HDMI Out: 1
* Coaxial Digital Audio Out: 1
* Optical Digital Audio Out: 1
First Glance
Just as I was, most of you must be wondering the same question at this point: "Why Hi-Definition? Why pay three times as much? What's the difference?! I'm happy with what I have!".
Well the answer to your question isn't exactly simple, but, I will do my best to explain what I've learned to you. Now, just to let you know, this is just a summarization of what already exists, and if you wish to learn the entire scoop please visit: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hdtv.htm.
What is high definition?
High Definition TeleVision (or HDTV) is slowly becoming more widely seen in households. The purpose of HDTV is to enhance the viewing experience in a home environment. What is High Definition you say? Well, first, we need to look at how an analog television works. An analog TV signal in North America has 525 scan lines (or 625 in Europe) that form the image.
Each whole image is refreshed every 30th of a second. For an interlaced display, half of the scan lines are refreshed every 60th of a second, so every 2/60ths of a second (or 1/30th of a second), a whole frame has changed.
HDTV takes this process one step further by allowing the user to choose between 720 and 1080 scan lines (versus the standard 525 scan lines). Allowing up to twice as many scan lines is a huge difference! With the increased number of scan lines, it means that much more detail can be packed into a single frame. HDTV currently supports the following formats:
* 720p - 1280x720 - progressive scan
* 1080i - 1920x1080 - interlaced scan
* 1080p - 1920x1080 - progressive scan
What is this progressive and interlaced scanning?
We talked about interlaced scanning earlier. This is when the screen refreshes half of the scan lines every 60th of a second, and then refreshes the other half of the scan lines the next 60th of a second. This creates the illusion of a moving image traveling at 23.96 FPS.
Progressive scan is slightly different. It shows the whole image and changes it once every 60th of a second. This creates the illusion of a moving image traveling at 47.92 FPS. It is much smoother and appealing to the viewer, but takes more line bandwidth than the standard interlaced signal.
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