Finally, an Affordable and GOOD Stand-Alone BD Player

If you haven't got on the Blu-Ray bandwagon, then good for you because you've waited for the right moment – NOW!

Previously, you would have to spend around $300 for one these new fangled players.  At that price, you were better off buying a Playstation 3, which is the fastest loading and easily the best  Blu-Ray player PERIOD.  During the holiday season, prices have been falling for you grubby-handed shoppers!  For example, Amazon was basically giving away when a purcahse of certain HDTVs.  I found my Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray player clinging for dear life onto my Samsung LN46A650 46” LCD HDTV as it was delivered.

Even without buying a TV, Amazon was sell this particular player for an astounding $200!  However way you slice it, it’s good value for money. Not only that, but this is no two-bit, feature-withdrawn, and cheaply made player from an unknown Tiwanese brand.  Oh, not at all.  The Koreans are coming!  And they are a well respected, self-made brand!

If you don’t believe me, check out the other reviews out there.  It ranks just below the Sony BDP-S350, making it the 2nd best standalone Blu-Ray player.

Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray Player
Samsung’s 4th generation Blu-Ray player improves upon the other models, including faster load times, and now added Profile 2.0 features such as BD-Live.  They were the first to introduce a stand-alone player, beating the creator of the format out the gate (Sony).

Samsung’s BD-P1500’s design takes on a minimalistic approach, while providing a high gloss texture to provid e a classy look.  There isn’t much that adorns the front, but that’s what makes it beautiful.  The display hides behind the smooth glossy surface so you can’t tell where it starts and where it begins.  The status display just jumps out of nowhere.  Then there are the transport buttons, which is arranged in a circular 4-way button.  You get Stop, Play, and skip back/forward.  The power button blends in as well, except when it’s plugged in.  For some reason, Samsung decided it was a good idea to have it glow bright red when it’s off, but blue when it is on!  Then there’s the eject button – which is located to the right of the disc tray.

The depth of the unit is actually a bit shorter than most AV equipment, but about the same size as other DVD players.  This means, just like most DVD players, you’ll have to put it on top of the stack if that’s how you arrange your equipment.  Thankfully, the styling is so good, it will blend in with the rest of your high-end equipment.  And because it has that minimalistic look, it doesn’t look out of place if you don’t have much equipment to speak of.

The remote is pretty tall (long?), much like the Samsung TV.  It’s also as tall as my reciever’s remote as well as the PS3’s.  What does this mean?  It means I find myself picking up the wrong remote more often than not!  Every one of them are about the same length and width!  Other than that, buttons on the Blu-Ray player is intuatively laid out.  None of this weird button placements or having all the buttons the exact same shape and size, making it difficult to work with.  Despite all this, the only issue I have with the remote is that it does not light up for use in the dark.  Oh well, you can’t have everything.

Installation – The Outputs
There are many ways you can install this player.  The best way is a single HDMI cable from the player to your reciever, then from that, to your TV.  If you don’t have a reciever, then direct to the TV is okay.  It’s a straight digital signal from the player so picture quality will not be lost in the transport.

The next best connection is provided by the component cable.  This gives you three RCA jacks that consist of red, blue, and green.  They don’t carry audio, so you’ll have to use the digital optical output for sound or the stereo L/R RCA output.  Of course, if you do go the stereo L/R route, you can’t enjoy discreate 5.1 or 7.1 channels of surround sound Blu-Rays can provide.

The last option isn’t really an option at all.  If you go this route, may the HD gods come down on you and rip your eyes out.  I’m talking about the yellow RCA composite video.  It doesn’t provide anything beyond 480i, so it’s not really a choice unless you still have a standard TV.  And if that’s the case, you really should stick with a cheap DVD player.  You can still use digital optical out for audio if you have a reciever for surround sound goodness, but that’s like running away from that Cloverfield monster with beer goggles.

Good news for BD-Live fans!  The BD-P1500 does indeed have an Ethernet port!  Oh wait – you still need a USB flash drive.  Well, it does also allows you to update your firmware. Though not automatically.  You’ll have to go into the setup menu to invoke it.  It’s better than nothing, really – some players still require you to get firmware updates via a burnt CD or USB flash drive.

Speaking of which, the BD-P1500 also have a USB port.  It’s meant for a flash drive, which is required for BD-Live content.  You see, Profile 2.0 (which allows for BD-Live) require players to have a gigabyte of persistant storge before they are considered Profile 2.0 compliant.  Why Samsung just didn’t just build a gig of flash into the player is a wonder.  Flash memory is cheap, and a gigabyte is just about a bag of chips and a few sodas.  Thankfully, because it is so cheap, you can buy one and plug it in yourself, and not bat an eye.
Unfortunately, there is no coaxial digital out available on this unit, nor is there analog 5.1 RCA outputs.  If you have a reciever that does not haveHDMI or optical inputs, you’re screwed.

In the Box
Inside, you find the basics.  The player is wrapped in a styrofoam bag and protected by thick form-fitted styrofoam to either side.  You will also find the remote, a pair of AA batteries, a baggie with the manual/quick guide/warranty info, and an composite A/V cable.  You will not find an HDMI cable, however.  What a pitty.

Set Up
The menu system on the player is organized very well.  It have some pretty advanced settings such as setting the output format for the audio, setting dynamic compression, video resolution, and video signal type.

For example, despite not having an analog output for surround, the Samsung does indeed do some audio decoding.  What’s the point?  Well, if you own a reciever that isn’t capable of decoding Dolby Digital TrueHD, then the player will decode it for you, and sent it to your reciever as a digital linear PCM, which all recievers can decode at a bare minimum.  Unfortunately, the Samsung BD-P1500 does not decode DTS-MA, which is DTS’s versiono f lossless HD audio.  You can also set the player to bitstream the audio information directly to your reciever so that your reciever can do all the decoding.  This is best since there is less signal conversion in the chain.  This also mean if your reciever can decode Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS-MA, you’re golden!

As for the video resolution, you can set it to match your display’s capability.  Youc an set it to output 480i all the way to 1080p.  You can also set it to 1080p24, which will give you the best results when watchign Blu-Ray films.  Movies are usually recorded in 24 fps, so this video mode is native to the media, giving you less artifacts from converting to the standard 30 or 60 fps most TVs are capable of doing.  Thankfully, most HDTVs nowadays can handle 1080p24 natively.

Evaluation
As expected, picture quality was wonderfully crisp and clear.  Audio reproduction was excellent, but it has more to do with the reciever than the player.  There was no sync issues I could detect.

Color and saturation was very accurate.  After using the PS3 and the HD Basics Blu-Ray to calibrate my display, I switched the HDMI cable over to the BD-P1500 without changing any of the settings on the TV.  Using the same HD Basics disc on the BD-P1500 did not change anything on the screen one bit!  Color levels, saturation, and even brigtness and contrast levels were unchanged!  This mean that the Samsung BD-P1500 is every bit as good as the Sony Playstation 3 when it comes to picture quality!

The player does take a bit longer than the PS3 to load a movie.  I find that it tacks a few seconds on top of what the PS3 can do.  That’s actually pretty good for a stand-alone player.  For example, Rambo pops up in about 30 seconds, while the PS3 was able to do it in 20.  With non-Java based (feature-sparse) titles such as Terminator, load time was much faster.  With about 15 seconds on the clock, it was slower than the PS3 by only 3 seconds.

I used the new Rambo movie to evaluate the player, since it utilizes both BonusView (introduced in Profile 1.1), and BD-Live (introduced in Profile 2.0).  BonusView requires a second video decder since it displays a picture-in-picture video in the corner of the screen on top of the main movie.  Imagine audio commentaries on steroids.
The BD-P1500- handled this test admirably.  Fast-forwarding and rewinding the movie does make the PiP go away, but it does come back when you resume normal playback speed.  On the PS3, it does that too, but only if you go past 2x speed.  1.5x and 2x fast forwarding allows for the BonusView PiP video to persist in the corner with the video inside that window matching speed with the main video.  Too bad the BD-P1500 can’t do that, but again, for a stand-alone, having this feature working as well is does now is an amazing feat.

BD-Live is basically a way to provide rich bonus content viathe internet.  Since it is connected to the internet, content is usually fresh and new, hence the world “Live”.  It’s an interesting concept, but much like audio commentaries (and the above BonusView), I don’t see many people indulging themselves in it.

To test BD-Live, Rambo includes a special feature called “Mologic”.  Supposedly, you are able to blog about the movie while you watch it, but the interface is slow and unresponsive.  Even then it causes problems such as not allowing you to go back to the main menu.  The only resolution is to delete the file that was downloaded to the flash drive.  Don’t feel bad – the PS3 experienced the same issue, so it is not the player.  Unfortunately, I don’t have another disc that takes advantange of BD-Live.  The Dark Knight is rumored to take advantage of BD-Live as well, so when I get my hand s on it, I’ll see if it’s a bug with the program, or just a flawed technology.

The Upshot
This is the year of HD, it seems.  There were great deals to be had with HDTVs as well as Blu-Ray players.  Blu-Ray movies haven’t come down in price yet, but there are many sales that peg select movies as low as $10 a title, even on not-so-old titles such as Transformer.

Don’t be left out!  The Samsung BD-P1500 is a great stand-alone player, and that’s without me having to add “for the price” at the end of that sentence.  It is Profile 2.0 compliant, so it is not missing any features you will need.  It is also easy to update the firmware so you won't be left treading water when a new Blu-Ray movie comes out that doesn't work.