We give you our first impression of the only Blu-ray player on the market, the Samsung BD-P1000. Then we discuss all the options available for calibrating your TV.
It takes a long time to load a DVD.
The menuing system is nicer than old DVDs. It looks cleaner and is snappy. It runs on Java.
It has memory card slots for playing video, looking at pictures, and playing music
I asked the sales guy to pop in a regular DVD and it looked very good. They have a good up converter. In the demo DVD that was playing they show a side by side demo of DVD vs Blu Ray. In the demo they make DVD look real blurry. In actuality the regular DVDs look much nicer than the demo makes them out to be. So, with a good scaler or upconverting DVD player you may not care about next gen DVD.
Chicken Little looked great! Pirates of the Caribbean looked pretty good. A movie called Ultraviolet looked bad, there was a lot of noise in the picture. There was even some pixelation. So like regular DVDs the transfer will make a difference in the quality of the picture.
It is sold out in Southern California at BestBuy. But you can find it at Amazon:
Samsung BD-P1000How to calibrate your TV
We can't overstate how important it is to calibrate you HDTV. The way it looks when you first get it home and plug it in is nowhere near as good as it should look. We'll typically talk about this issue when we're reviewing a set, but we don't always go into detail on how to get it done. We're going to take some time to answer all the emails about the specifics of calibration, and what your options are.
First, and foremost, make sure you change your set's picture mode. When you first turn it on, it will be in a mode called 'Vivid' or 'Dynamic' or something like that. That mode is code for really bright and really bad. It's how the manufacturers try to make their products stand out from the competition in a large retail store. If you don't do anything else, make sure you change this setting. Now to your calibration options.
Most of us own DVD players. If you have a nice HDTV, you really want a DVD player to enjoy the movie experience at home. As luck would have it, there are a bunch of DVDs out their with built-in calibration capabilities. Any THX certified DVD will have them. Chances are you already own one, but if you don't you can rent one for around four dollars at your local rental store. The THX calibrator will help you set things like brightness and contrast and can be very helpful in improving your television's picture quality. For free if you own it or four dollars if you don't, you can't beat this option. Here's a listing of all the DVDs that include the
THX Optimizer (click on 'entire list' to view them all).
Next step is to buy a DVD specifically for calibrating your Home Theater. There are three main choices, each with its pros and cons. They will allow you to get a much finer calibration than the THX DVDs, but also take a bit longer and can be a little more confusing. They will all present you with a series of screens and ask you to adjust certain settings until you see the correct effect on the TV. Once you get through all the screens, your HDTV will look great. Amazon sells all three. We've used Avia and DVE, and tend to favor DVE. We don't have any experience with the Monster/ISF disk. They range in price from $20 to $37 (US dollars).
DVE - $20
Monster/ISF - $30
Avia - $37
If you want to go a little further, or you don't necessarily trust your own judgement for calibrating the TV, you can purchase a home calibration system. The one we've used is called
SpyderTV. It is made by the same company that makes some of the multi-thousand dollar systems used by professionals. It will allow you to make all the same adjustments as the calibration DVDs, but uses advanced electronics to make sure your settings are scientifically correct and perfectly accurate. When we used it, we found that the settings on our televisions didn't change much, since they had already been calibrated with one of the calibration disks. But using the SpyderTV was very simple and quick - and it removed all the guesswork and subjectivity. The price goes up at this step, but it's an investment. Amazon sells the
SpyderTV for $200.
The ultimate step in calibration is to actually hire a trained professional to come to your home and calibrate the TV for you. This is the most expensive option, and it's a one shot deal, so if you need to re-calibrate, you'll have to hire them all over again. But you can be sure that your TV will look it's absolute best when they're done. The professional will typically have access to service menus and calibration options that you as a user either wouldn't have access to, or wouldn't want to mess with because they can really screw up your display. The Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) certifies professionals to calibrate displays. This doesn't mean that someone who isn't certified won't do a great job, but you know a certified technician will be able to get the job done right. To find a certified technician in your area, visit the
ISF website.
