Samsung: HD931 & 841 DVI DVD

HDinTX · Post by **HDinTX** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:58 pm

Having used this DVD player now for several months, I am generally pleased with its performance. I am using it via the DVI output to my Samsung HLN-567W DLP set. However, there are a couple of things that I am not clear about in the setup of the player. The manual doesn't go into any detail and is generally pretty vague on these issues. Does anyone know of a way to get the front panel display to show the current bit rate of the DVD playing? And also, the the video display setup has two modes for the DVI setting, Mode A and Mode B. What is the difference between the two? Thanks.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:05 pm

And also, the the video display setup has two modes for the DVI setting, Mode A and Mode B.

I could swear I just ran into that. I believe it is a timing thing. That means in one mode the picture will be in the center and the other mode it won't. This was on a CRT RPTV with the picture off center horizontally. It is possible to not see any change as this is based on the display design.

tombanjo1 · Post by **tombanjo1** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:08 pm

I have both the 931 (I'm selling the 931 if anyone is interested [email protected]) and the new 841. If not for the superb 720p picture through the DVI, I'd throw both units through the window. I wish Samsung would charge a bit more for their players and put a little thought into the design. For instance:

The 931:
The remote is a piece of crap that you have to hit the button a few times for it to work, and you need to aim it almost straight on the unit. It was aso nearly immpossible to "learn" it to a universal.

DVD's have a major case of the stickey's in this player. I learned to wash whatever I put in there beforehand.

The one good thing about the unit, the ability to upconvert to 720p or 1080i, was mitigated by having to get up and do it manually.

Now we have the brand new 841.

The remote is better laid out and much more responsive. It has a scroll through button for 480p, 720p 760p and 1080i. But it doen't have a "last used" setting for it. So if you pop in a new disc (or go back to watching a long paused one) you then lose the setting and it reverts back to 480p. This really sucks because you don't realize it until it dawns on you that the picture ain't all that clear anymore.

What's worse is if you pause a film for a while and the machine goes into sleep mode, you lose it. This is a step backwards and quite absurd. Being busy, it sometimes takes a few days to watch one movie in chunks. I need to call Samsung, as something may be wrong with my unit.

Positives include sacd and dvda. I've only listened to a couple of discs in each format and they sound suprisingly good. Of course I wasn't expecting much, but it didn't have that shrill sound that you'd expect form a $180 player that features superb video through a DVI connection and HD upconversion as it's selling points. Adding both these multi channel high rez formats to the player and having them sound decent enough is a nice bonus. Smart too, as they are already connected to a multi channel system, so why not?

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 8:55 pm

it reverts back to 480p. This really sucks because you don't realize it until it dawns on you

Probably just software...

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 7:07 am

...as in a software update.