Samsung DVD-HD850 review

Video resolution issues can be a perplexing area even for reviewers, so don't be confused -- the player won't magically turn your DVD films into high definition. What it will do is process the video stream and convert it into a higher resolution, effectively filling in the gaps before the signal is sent to your display. This means that standard DVDs look more natural, with less smeared detail and a greater overall sharpness. True HD movies will look far better, but that isn't Samsung's job -- the DVD-HD850 will simply make all your existing movies look more presentable on a digital display.

If your TV isn't a flat screen, or it belongs to the group that aren't high-definition compatible, then you might still find some use in the basic progressive-scan functions. Using the component video outputs, the Samsung will output DVD movies in their native resolution, but via progressive scan. Normally over lower-quality connections, video is interlaced, which means that odd and even lines of video are sent at intervals, which can result in a flickery image. Progressive scan sends the odd and even lines together, meaning the picture is cleaned up considerably as well as being much smoother. Another good reason to make the upgrade.

DivX playback is a nice little bonus on the DVD-HD850, as it was missing from the higher-end Denon DVD-2910. DivX is a compression technology that's commonly used for video transferred across the Internet. Unofficially, the attraction will be for users who download TV shows that have been broadcast in America before they are in the UK, but the format is picking up support from other Web sites and the DivX Web site itself has plenty of legal content that can be downloaded for free. You can also burn your JPEG pictures and MP3/WMA music to CD and DVD for direct playback, and the drive supports both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW formats. In fact, it will even play VCDs and SVCDs, but the inherent quality of these formats is very low, so they are disappointing for those of us who are growing increasingly tired of standard DVDs after sampling so much hi-def.

Bear in mind that the next model up in Samsung's range, the DVD-HD950, will also play back DVD-A and SACD discs. This makes it a high-definition player on both video and audio fronts. We found the player was available for around £40 more than the 850, so it might be worth the upgrade if you're serious about your hi-fi. Both models are apparently easy to 'remote hack' to make them multi-region, but this will require some online research.

Performance
Compared to the other upscaling players we've had in for review, the DVD-HD850 fared very well. Up against the Buffalo LinkTheater -- a cheap player whose main selling point was wireless networking -- the difference was substantial. Samsung's player had much better colour reproduction over component, and using HDMI made an even more noticeable improvement in fine detail areas.

Predictibly, it loses out slightly to the high-end prowess of Denon's mighty DVD-2910 when it comes to contrast reproduction. We've seen the car chases in Ronin more times than we care to recall and Samsung's player didn't pull out the finer shadow detail. Then again, Denon's player is nearly three times more expensive than Samsung's. The differences that are likely to affect everyday viewing are minimal, meaning the Samsung is much better value.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Nick Hide