Samsung Bd-d8900 Blu-ray Player and Dvr Combo Reviews

Verdict

Pros

• Amazing feature listing
• Slick internet and DLNA functionality
• Blu-ray & HD channel pic quality

Cons

• Some menus slow to respond
• Can't record ii channels simultaneously
• No Blu-ray recording

Central Specifications

• Review Price: £359.99
• Congenital-in 1TB HDD & dual Freeview Hard disk drive tuners
• AllShare DLNA networking
• 3D Blu-ray playback
• Smart Hub
• second to 3D conversion

There's something undeniably appealing about a single product that does the chore of several devices, as information technology cuts down clutter under your Television set and could save you a bob or ii in the procedure. Few companies tin can exercise this better than Samsung, whose HDD-equipped Blu-ray players not simply do the job of a PVR, disc spinner and digital Television set receiver but also throw tons of other features into the deal, turning them into complete home entertainment hubs.

The BD-D8900M is the step-up version of the BD-D8500M nosotros reviewed earlier this year. This unit doubles the difficult-disk capacity of the BD-D8500M to 1TB, giving y'all about 240 hours of how-do-you-do-def recordings from the built-in Freeview HD (DVB-T2) tuners, which even the staunchest burrow potato would struggle to fill. And with congenital-in Wi-Fi, a host of network features, web content and 3D Blu-ray playback are on board also, could this exist the best £360 you'll ever spend? Allow's find out…

The BD-D8900 is a stylish unit of measurement, boasting Samsung's familiar glossy black finish with eye-catching flashes of silver, but at 60mm high it's a lot chunkier than Samsung's non-HDD Blu-ray players. It's covered in absurd embellishments like a front display panel with illuminated affect-sensitive controls built into it, a forepart-loading disc slot and a window on top that shows the disc whirring round.

Drop down the forepart flap and you'll uncover a couple of other goodies – a CI slot for pay Television smartcards and a USB port that lets you plug in retentivity devices (USB sticks, external HDDs). And on the dorsum there's an impressive assortment of sockets, most notably two HDMI outputs that allows owners of receivers without HDMI v1.4 inputs to enjoy 3D pictures and HD sound simultaneously – one output sends the 3D motion picture to your TV, the other sends audio to your receiver. That'due south something only Panasonic's flagship players accept offered until now.

These dual HDMIs are backed up past component, composite, optical digital sound and analogue stereo outputs, besides equally an Ethernet port and RF antenna input/loopthrough sockets. The simply thing missing is multichannel analogue output for really old receivers, but that's not crucial.

You can never accuse Samsung of skimping on features, and its generosity continues with the BD-D8900M. Our favourite of these features is Smart Hub, Samsung'southward new web portal that brings a range of applications to your TV screen. Not but has the range of content been improved since last year'southward Internet@Tv system with the addition of BBC iPlayer, but also the presentation, which is gorgeous. The brilliant and breezy Smart Hub menu lays out its app icons in a filigree, assuasive y'all to put them into folders (useful if several family members desire to keep their ain content carve up). New apps are added chop-chop and easily from the App Store.

Likewise amongst the apps are Picasa, Google Maps, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, BBC News and DailyMotion, alongside a wealth of bottom-known and specialist apps. You lot can also admission loads of puzzles, games and children's activities, making information technology a truly family-friendly feature. It's notwithstanding no match for Sony'south BRAVIA Cyberspace Video, which provides more catch-upwardly Tv content, only not far behind.

The new Your Video feature lets you look upward information well-nigh movies new and quondam, and gives y'all the opportunity to like or share those movies on social network sites, while the new search style looks for content related to a keyword on Your Video, YouTube and Facebook, although it doesn't search the Freeview EPG.

Side by side upwardly is the DLNA AllShare feature, which allows you to stream content from networked devices such as PCs and NAS drives. Similar previous Samsung products the list of supported formats is lengthy – DivX HD, MP3, WMA, MKV, AVI, WMV to name just a few – although it wouldn't stream AVCHD (which can be played from disc). You can also play the same multimedia formats through the USB port and employ the BD-D8900M to rip CDs onto the hard disk so re-create them to USB or stream them if you wish. There'due south no Blu-ray recording though, like Panasonic's latest combis – this is a straight-upwardly role player.

Not only will the BD-D8900M play 3D Blu-ray discs, but it will also convert 2nd pictures to 3D. That applies non only to Blu-ray discs and DVDs but besides to Freeview programmes/recordings, Smart Hub content and videos streamed over the network or played from USB devices. You tin alter the depth with settings from 1 to ten.

And on the digital Goggle box side, there's a decent array of features on lath including dual Freeview Hard disk drive tuners, which makes it possible to change channels while recording, but it'south hamstrung past its inability to only tape i aqueduct at a time. Elsewhere there's Time Shift, which allows you lot to pause alive TV or lookout man a plan from the commencement while it's still being recorded.

In that location's an 8-twenty-four hours EPG with series link and all the other broadcaster-controlled features common amongst PVRs. Series link is activated using polite dialogue boxes, and once set the Schedule Manager shows yous all the instances when that particular serial is being shown, along with all your other scheduled recordings.

In terms of operation, Samsung has really gone to town on this year's Blu-ray products. You can clearly see its attempts to make the menus wait and feel welcoming and straightforward through the use of brightly coloured graphics, big text and uncomplicated menu structures. It'due south lovely stuff, the sort of onscreen design that doesn't put you off using the product. Some menus drag slightly (particularly the DLNA menus) only the delays are far from infuriating.

The master menu is the best of the agglomeration, using blithe icons laid out forth a platform, with corresponding options floating above. Everything, including USB and DLNA playback, HDD recordings, the EPG and Smart Hub can exist accessed from here, as well as the earth-shaking Settings menu, which over again is a cinch to use. The Recorded Tv carte lays out programmes in blocks with a thumbnail, and these can be sorted by proper noun, date or channel. There's a range of editing features too, allowing you to delete parts of your recordings using an intuitive onscreen editing tool, but accessing these features is very long-winded.

Also long-winded is the process of setting up your Smart Telly ID for apps similar Facebook and Twitter. What's more, entering electronic mail addresses and passwords using the onscreen keypad, which designed to look like that of a mobile phone, is convoluted, making you lot toggle through various pages of letters and switch between different text-entry methods. Thankfully you merely have to do it once if you lot select the 'recall my details' tick box.

Other setup procedures are more straightforward, particularly Wi-Fi setup, which guides technophobes through the procedure using pretty graphics and uncomplicated explanations.

Elsewhere one of the main things that makes this deck pleasant to operate are the fiddling dialogue boxes that pop up when in that location's a disharmonize or something you need to know. Recording clashes, timer schedule changes – anything that happens, the deck will tell you about it. At that place'southward fifty-fifty a helpful characteristic that lets yous know when an SD programme y'all've selected is also being shown in HD.

Selecting DLNA or USB content is elementary as well – the menus share the same layout as the Recorded TV display. Even the EPG is a design master class, squeezing a six-channel, two-60 minutes programme filigree, live Television receiver box, programme synopsis and controls into a single screen without feeling cluttered. The only flaw is that you tin can't read any of the programme names in the grid, which is a shame.

Hit the Info button while watching TV and you'll see one of the best onscreen info banners around. The range of details on display is comprehensive, using coloured icons for things like aspect ratio, resolution, sound format, subtitles and Audio Description. What'southward more than you can browse the entire channel line-up and see what's on days in advance.

The whole shebang is controlled by a wonderfully convenient remote that sports large, tactile buttons, large lettering and a sensible layout. The playback keys even glow in the night, and helpfully there are defended buttons for Smart Hub and 2D-to-3D conversion. Hit the Tools push button and you'll find more options, including a range of moving picture presets and a User setting that lets you adjust various picture parameters.

We tin't find a great deal of fault with the BD-D8900M's functioning. We tuned in to BBC HD'southward Wimbledon coverage and it coped admirably with the fast-moving objects, fifty-fifty keeping track of the brawl during Serena Williams' super-fast serves.

Naturally for a hello-def channel there's item in abundance, delivered to our 1080p test TV without whatsoever significant artefacts like block or mosquito noise. The texture of the grass and scuffed baseline, the pattern of the net, faces in the oversupply are all conveyed with pivot-sharp clarity. Colours are deep and natural, with diverse shades and shadows on clothing and backgrounds looking polish with no banding.

When recorded onto the hard disk, this splendid picture quality remains intact. The lack of recording modes, which on other machines allows you to dip the recording quality to fit more than onto the disc, means that all recordings are in the best quality the deck has to offer, but with such a capacious HDD on board you shouldn't have to worry about the space this takes up.

Standard definition channels also look strong when viewed live or recorded, with some evidence of block noise and feathering on fast move but null to put your nose out of joint.

Blu-ray images look stunning. The crisp, clean digital transfer of pixels from disc to screen results in pristine images that simply shows signs of dissonance if information technology's on the disc. It takes fine details and textures in its stride, rendering them with dazzling vigil. And despite beingness viewed through active shutter spectacles, 3D pictures wait abrupt and vibrant, but with the benefit of extra depth and distance, the effect of which is utterly absorbing.

We're not and then impressed past the quality of the deck's 2nd-to-3D conversion. We tried a few 2D discs and it failed to provide extra depth to the majority of scenes, with only a few obvious 'floating object' moments looking remotely similar the existent thing. But to be fair we're yet to see convincing conversion tech from any manufacturer.

Verdict
All-in-all, the BD-D8900M is a wonderful advertisement for convergence, melding together various AV components into a slick, single-box unit of measurement. It's positively bursting with cut-edge features likewise, ranging from Wi-Fi media streaming to comprehensive Freeview functionality – not to mention a massive 1TB hard-disk. At that place are a few small operational drawbacks, such as the cumbersome text-entry organization and the disability to record 2 channels simultaneously but on the whole information technology's a highly impressive home entertainment hub that leaves few stones unturned.

Trusted Score

Score in detail

• Performance 9

• Design viii

• Features nine

• Value ix

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Source: https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/samsung-bd-d8900m

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