8mm Forum: Samsung Blu Ray DVD

This is topic Samsung Blu Ray DVD in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000436

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 21, 2006, 09:10 AM:

Hi,
I was wondering if any of you guy's with VP are running Blu Ray Hi Def with the new Samsung BD-P1000. I would love to hear any reviews for this as i would dearly love to own one, i am struggling at the moment to keep my credit card firmly in my wallet, lol. UK price is £840.00 [Eek!]

with two free films included, no doubt that will drop fairly quickly.

Chris.

Posted by Barry Johnson (Member # 84) on November 21, 2006, 02:04 PM:

In a years time the prices will have dropped alarmingly,or,a new format war is going to be unleashed and it will slip away quietly.
Ordinary DVD still rules the roost.

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on November 21, 2006, 06:03 PM:

Did members realise the High Def Cine film has been available for decades.

Standard is Ectachrome or Tri-x

High Defination is Kodachrome with its finer grain [Big Grin]

Posted by Robert Wales (Member # 502) on November 21, 2006, 08:52 PM:

Chris ;

Here in North America the word on the on-line forums is that the Samsung is NOT an especially good machine. It's currently the only one available ( except for the new Sony Playstation 3 ) and Sony themselves have delayed the introduction of their own stand-alone machines as there are still a few kinks to be worked out. ( Rumour has it the shortage of Blu-Ray parts is also a problem.) My advice is to wait. You may want to read up at avs forum or home theater forum ( U.S. spelling for 'theater'), both of which have plenty of discussion and information.

[ November 21, 2006, 09:54 PM: Message edited by: Robert Wales ]

Posted by Tony Milman (Member # 7) on November 22, 2006, 12:36 AM:

Chris

For that you could buy a GS1200 and use it to show the Kodachrome [Wink]

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 22, 2006, 12:39 AM:

Hi again,

Thanks for the replies guy's. I am just itching to get going on this as i have the HD ready panasonic and the cable that cost me £85, but the players are taking too long, dam my big screen addiction. [Big Grin]

I have done some research now and realise that the samsung is not perfect, i wish i knew why it was so expensive here in the UK though. [Frown]

I will wait and hopefully not to long until i see a good review and reasonable price. I would say that the actual dvd's are priced well, some are the same price as standard dvd's most are just an extra £5-£8.

Tony, Buying a GS is not the problem, it's getting the Kodachrome that her in doors will watch. [Frown]

Chris.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 22, 2006, 03:31 AM:

Didn't I read about an HD DVD player for about £400 a few months ago. Produces superior imagery to the Blu-Ray costing twice as much apparently.

Beware though Chris, the Panasonic is the minimum spec. (same as my own Hitachi cheapy) to get the HDTV label. You may be better off in the short term investing in DVD player with a line doubler.

Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on November 22, 2006, 03:57 PM:

I was hearing at the weekend there are 2 rival systems the Sony Blue Ray and a different system by Toshiba.
In the Uk Sony types are £1000 and the Toshiba types £500.
They of course use different type of discs as well.
Surely the DVD shops will not be happy about stocking 2 types of each film, along with normal DVDs.
It looks like VHS vs Betamax vs V2000 again.
My advice is wait a while, see if the £1000 ones come down to the same level as Toshiba types sell for. If you must buy before one fails then check how you will get the DVDs to suit.

As to leads I'm told the shops sell them between £8 and £80, I'm informed the cheaper one are just as good in use as the expensive ones. With digital it is not like analogue where dearer leads are better.

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 23, 2006, 02:15 AM:

Hi all,

David, the Toshiba is HDI, but has a resolution of only 1080i and not 1080p which is the highest resolution in Hi definition. At this early stage it may well not show much difference, but will reflect in the price. As far as leads go the problem is in the length of the lead, the longer the lead the more deterioration the signal, therefore you need a lead which is capable of holding the signal for a longer length, and that's why mine was expensive. [Frown]

It was a long one. [Big Grin]

John, if your talking about progressive scan, i have been using progressive scan for some time, and have even used the DIV output giving pure digital signal to my panasonic. I found that using superbit dvd's was best, standard dvd's are not good enough and can show pixalisation errors, not even all superbits are up to scratch. Even if my dvd projector is only at the lowest standard, which i'm not sure about, the quality of a Hi def dvd would still be far superior to any standard dvd, even if it was being upscale. What Hitachi do you own? and what do you call cheap, don't forget that technology is now cheaper than ever, a £10,000 projector of 6 years ago cannot hold a candle to a £1000 projector of today.

Chris.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 23, 2006, 03:48 AM:

I dunno Chris, I saw video projectors years ago which give today's cheapies a run for their money. One of the best I ever saw was about 12 years ago - it cost £30k though.

The Hitachi I have is the one similar to the Panasonic. PT something or the other. It goes for around a grand now so cheap as chips. After everything that was said about the Panasonic on here over the last couple of years I went to have a demonstration and the salesman then put the Hitachi on as a direct comparison. It was more expensive at the time but apparently gave a better picture, was a better looking machine, so that was that. My 10 year old ASK projector was finally supplanted just as it was giving up the ghost. Unlike a Super 8 machine I couldn't be bothered getting it repaired.

The upscaler I was referring to was an HDMI output incorporating a line doubler. Richer Sounds had a Cambridge Audio player a couple of months ago for around £300 which worked extremely well. I'm not sure the cheapies actually do what they advertize but the result is the minimum specification HDTV such as the Panasonic and Hitachi video projectors should benefit from this upgrade. I tried to purchase a cheapie Panasonic DVD with this a couple of months ago but the shop was out of stock and since then I haven't been back. Shame, because I could have reported on the results.

For now I'm sticking to true high definition. Kodachrome offered equivalent 600 line resolution I'm told. Add to that the random grain which adds half again and you have potentially superior imagery over lower spec. HDTV which can be run on Super 8 projectors costing next to nothing. Interesting thought.

Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on November 23, 2006, 04:02 AM:

". As far as leads go the problem is in the length of the lead, the longer the lead the more deterioration the signal, therefore you need a lead which is capable of holding the signal for a longer length, and that's why mine was expensive."

In the advice I was given I do not know if length came into it.
At the first opertunity I will throw length into the question.

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 23, 2006, 09:33 AM:

David, that would be interesting, i have a specialist shop here in my home town and they sold me my cable, we had quite a chat, about my set up and this particular cable was the out come, if it could have been cheaper it would have suited my pocket better.

John, A 30k projector, [Eek!]

i have seen new projectors at this price, but i am afraid i am very sceptical about a 12 year old VP being better than my panasonic, the simple reason is that there have been some hugh advancements it LCD technology as well as DVD encoding. here is the specifications to Panasonic's PT900 it would be interesting to compare. http://www.panasonic.co.uk/home-cinema-projectors/pt-ae900e/index.htm

External line doublers, i believe have the problem of softening the picture due to the fact they have to receive the picture in analogue form and then convert it back to digital. My progressive scan player which was not cheap at the time i bought it, keeps everything digital using it with the DVI/HDMI output.

I dont want to comment on 8mm, it has a charm and feel that is not possible using digital material, and i dont think it is fair to start anything on that, has always proved to be a pointless argument. I only really wanted to ask the guy's on here if any have had experience with the new blu ray format, as i know a few dabble in both formats, DVD/8mm. I would question cheap though as i never found it cheap. [Frown]

Chris.

Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on November 23, 2006, 09:59 AM:

Just been told length does not matter in the home situation and does not efect the advice I was previously given.
I once heard of a person suggesting the use of gold plated 13amp plugs!

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 23, 2006, 11:17 AM:

The £30k projector may not have been better than the Panasonic Chris but it would probably be pretty close. That was really all I was alluding to. As it was the three gun type it did have more natural imagery and considering all I saw on it were NTSC laser discs it was probably better than I thought at the time. I suppose the point I was making was I've seen a lot of video projectors over the years and because of work have had access to and used an awful lot of them.

The Panasonic is an excellent performer for the money and so is the Hitachi. I doubt either is going to last as long as my ASK did though. I still have an Epsom EMP from about 8 or 9 years ago somewhere too but even though that retailed at about £7k at the time it didn't last long and no one was able to repair it. Makes for a nice paperweight though.

I didn't intend to imply a comparison between video projection and Super 8. I just wanted to point out the facts as I understand them. Kodachrome is finer grain than just about any other Super 8 film stock (possibly all of them but I don't know for sure) but I think you'll find if you run a Kodachrome from about 10 years ago on a semi-decent Super 8 you'll find the imagery pretty astounding (more recent Kodachrome didn't appear to be as good.) As far as I'm concerned it's pretty cheap. I have a projector here that cost £200 (a Silma Blue Memory) and 4 rolls of recently processed Kodachrome. Altogether an outlay of £242 and high definition equivalent imagery. That must be considered cheap by anyone has been into film collecting for a number of years.

I'm not trying to start an argument with anyone, it's just my opinion and I hope people can respect it so please let's not have any snotty comments.

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 23, 2006, 01:38 PM:

David,

13 Amp gold plated plugs, Nice i'll see if i can find some, lol. As far as the cable go that was the advice given to me over twelve months ago, maybe things have changed. Either way, i still feel that there will be a difference in quality between a cable costing say £9.99 and one at £100, who knows, i could have been ripped off.

John,

I don't think i have ever given a snotty comment im my life, and if my post sounded that way then i apologise. I realise that you have a lot of experience in imagery and sound systems, the BFCC THX demos prove that, and i have had the pleasure of being invited to see the home set up you had in London, which i always look back on as a great experience. Predator still sticks in my mine, for 8mm it was amazing and i have yet to see a DVD that can beat it.

It is still early days for HDMI and Blu Ray DVD, i am sure that in a year or two the teething problems i have read about will be ironed out as seems to be the way with these things.

I am not as qualified to speak about film as you and others on this forum and i wont comment on the Kodachrome V HDMI, i'll leave that to others. It was possible a mistake posting about DVD on here, i just saw the General Yak (video included) and thought it would be ok.

Once again i apologise if i have offended anyone. [Frown]

Chris.

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on November 23, 2006, 02:56 PM:

So what exactly is Blu Ray? Is it a trade name for a system or is it a generic term?

I'm still planning to run DVD along side Cine in my long time coming screening room ( I still have dream [Roll Eyes]

), but the longer I leave it the more things develop, and frankly, I'm a bit lost... [Frown]

Are Hi Def DVDs different from regular DVDs? What are the factors that determine what sytem to choose at the moment? It all seems so complicated, but I want to understand it [Smile]

.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Mike [Cool]

Posted by Tony Milman (Member # 7) on November 23, 2006, 06:16 PM:

I suspect my tongue in cheek comment sparked that off [Big Grin]

You guys all need to lighten up [Razz]

Personally although i haven't the foggiest what you are talking about I am finding it interesting. I just hope someone will give me the model number of what I need to go buy [Smile]

Posted by Craig Hamilton (Member # 258) on November 23, 2006, 07:21 PM:

Tony

The model number you require is GS-1200 Xenon [Big Grin]

Sorry Chris, could not resist [Wink]

Craig

Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on November 24, 2006, 02:05 AM:

Well Mike I'll have a go.
As you know we have video projectors to which other items can be added just like our TV sets, DVD players, Freeview boxes and Sky boxes etc.
If you visit Currys/ Comet etc. you will see most TV sets are labelled HD ready, as yet in the UK there is not a proper HD TV broadcasting started, BBC are experimenting for a year, a couple of channels or so are done by SKY.
Also coming out now are HD DVDs, but there are 2 rival incompatable systems one by Sony the other Toshiba. ( VHS vs. Betamax again.)
So it could be a few years before all this settles down.
I think you will find the present DVD players and discs will have a good few years left in them yet should you decide to buy now.
If you buy a new TV you should look to see it has an HDMI socket for conection of HD equipment.
I do hope this is an internatioal standard and will be on the HD DVD players.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 24, 2006, 03:09 AM:

Apologies Chris, I didn't mean you had made any "snotty" comments. I was expecting to receive some from others as a result of talking about video projection and perhaps suggesting I still prefer the look of Super 8 film.

I did try to send you an email last night explaining the nature of my post and not to take offence but my internet connection crashed - I hoped the email got off before the crash occurred.

Sounds to me like you already have a DVD with an upscaler built in. HDMI between components should line doubt automatically but it rather depends on the player being used as to how effective it is. The Cambridge Audio DVD from Richer Sounds is reputedly very good value for money.

Incidentally I just received an offer from Richer Sounds who are selling the Samsung Blu-Ray player with a few hundred quid off. I won't be going near it myself though as the images aren't good enough to justify the outlay.

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 26, 2006, 02:32 PM:

No problems John, I have just done some work to my computer and been off line for a few days as a result. Can you give me your reasons why the samsung does not produce the picture quality it should, it is the only 1080p player available at the moment, and as 1080p is the top end of the Hi Def scale, i would have thought a cracking picture, or is there something i don't know.

Chris.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 27, 2006, 04:51 AM:

It was tested against a high definition dvd player costing half the amount and the high definition player produced superior imagery.

Clearly they'd messed up the first attempt at a Blu-Ray in the rush to get it out. High definition dvd by contrast would appear to have their act together. Worth waiting a while longer before taking the plunge as all should become clearer pretty quickly.

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 27, 2006, 07:38 AM:

I agree with you John, i have just read a report that the Toshiba was giving better results on 1080i, which means that it's not right yet on the Blu Ray side, even though technically it should be better. I am also now calming down and i am going to wait until these problems are sorted and i read better reviews, still i am excited about the prospects of watching films in high definition. I am wondering if hi def will also be better on the motion side, one of the big problems of DVD especially PAL.

Chris.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 28, 2006, 04:15 AM:

The high definition I've seen over the past 18 months have been generally impressive. However, I was dismayed by a demonstration of Spider-Man 2 as it looked dreadful. The computer generated special effects were far too clean and all semblance of reality was lost.

Perhaps high definition is going to adversely affect modern special effects done on computer monitors. That could mean every modern big budget action flick suffers as a result of being able to see the picture with too much clarity. Happens already to a certain extent on 35mm but generally that is seen blown up on big screens - watch some prints on a small screen though and special effects are rather too obvious.

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on November 28, 2006, 04:44 AM:

Hi thats a thought John, on my sony cs2 VP which I love I do have odd not so hot dvds that actually look really good on it.

Also as we have said before so much even put on dvd they hardly bother to make sharp etc and often just use the old masters from the vhs releases so theres absolutely no need at all to go beyond dvd.
Any film can be made to look superb on ordinary dvd and modern stuff is stunning and by far and away as good as you need.
Its all marketing hype etc, we have our tv ariel in the loft with an already weak signal as rural and happily watch everything a bit grainy wise and it really never bothers you on anything you are actually watching, though we do of course have the dvd for films etc and the VP.
I honestly think ordinary dvd will stay on top for years, hec they give away better dvd players now free when you buy a tv etc than you could buy 5/6 years ago!!! and in our local coop they ahve a beautiful slimline multiregion alba or bush for £19.99 that is superb!!!!!!
Best Mark.

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on November 28, 2006, 01:24 PM:

A little adjustment on the focus knob required then, might as well stick to standard DVD's. [Frown]

The trouble with DVD's is that they vary in quality so much, even newly released DVD's can differ, The more extras they put on the less room for the actual film data is one problem. The two disc limited addition of The Wizard of Oz (Do67536) is excellent along with The Adventures of Robin Hood (D065131) Why they don't produce more to this quality i do not know. If HD/Blu Ray is going to be the same then that will be a disappointment.

Mark, you will have to get rid of that aerial soon as the UK is all going digital.

Chris.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 29, 2006, 04:01 AM:

Perhaps I was inadvertantly knocking the modern version of high definition a little too much. Real footage transferred to the new 1080 line system such as a very impressive demonstration I saw of an underwater film is outstanding. This was a download from the web played back on a pretty good 42 inch plasma set giving a resolution that must have been about 800 lines (present DVD's yield only around 400 lines). It was sharp as tack and very, very colourful. It still looked realistic too which is something the big budget, special effects laden feature films struggle with. I am quite often dismayed by special effects on present dvd's so you clarify them further and they tend to look like the cartoons they are.

I used to think similarly to Mark with regards to dvd. I think the general public (not us film collector types) are impressed enough by dvd and accept what they're given without question. However, once they start seeing the outstanding imagery by the new HD they'll aspire to get it. It will take years though.

Wizard of Oz and Robin Hood went back to the original Technicolor separation negatives and were then alligned on a computer which is why they looked so good. Going to all that effort for modern releases is probably not worth it as people will buy it regardless. Has to be said that most of the transfers now are pretty darned good though.

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on December 01, 2006, 12:51 PM:

Not round here Chris, well for ages.
I was asking in currys when it will come here so he put our post code in the comp and nothing. not even an expected or hoped for time for digital radio or TV up this way.
Apparently the North east is the area with the biggest number of awkward areas, valleys, hills, blackspots, etc( why we like living here) so we will be left till last, there are apparently other awkward areas to be done before us not even started yet.
For many miles around about here you can`t even get channel 5 which is a great shame considering some of the content late at night!!!!!!!!
we have a small stone cottage so would need planning permission to get sky and it would look naff anyway so looks like we will be the last to get it. I can see them switching over and it still not being available here.
No gas either or broadband etc etc but its not that flammin rural, must be a " That lot up there, bugger em " oooeeer !!!!! )
best Mark

PS channel 5 around 11pm or 12 odd nights groan.
PPS I saw in the sony shop the other day HD TV and it looked to me as if you could almost put your hand into it but considering our finances at the mo, you can only dream anyway..

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on December 07, 2006, 10:33 PM:

With all those viewing problems, you could try getting a projector and some super 8 films, i hear it's interference free. [Big Grin]

Chris.

UBB.classic^TM 6.3.1.2