Samsung's BD-P1000 launch party

HD buffs, check it out: we hit up the launch of Samsung's BD-P1000 at the Samsung Experience yesterday. It was a little sparse and peppered some pseudo-celebs like movie execs from Lions Gate and Sony Pictures Entertainment, Danny Masterson from That 70s Show, etc., but their P1000s were in full effect. The way the Samsung execs took the stage, we kind of thought they'd have a real announcement to make, but instead they just showed off what was quite possibly the corniest demo video we've ever seen (more after the break), and rounded everybody up to peep a Terminator 2 1080p demo on a huge freakin' plasma with colored ambient lighting (what's that Philips?). Really nothing unexpected -- especially since we've already been demoed the player -- but click on to see a few choice shots of their swanky party.

Technical difficulties? Nah, just late setup.

"Say, howsabout a promo video to show off the power of our sweet new piece of HD gear?"

He's a happy man -- he's got a P1000 which just caused his house to collapse into an arctice icescape, and 3D helicopters just flew into his ears. Seriously.

Did you know Samsung plasmas and Blu-ray drives create a 3D viewing experience? Neither did we.

Dude, please ground yourself before touching bare metal.

And, of course, the player. What we came for.

We'd be lying if we said it wasn't slick up close.

Remote could use a little work though -- so what else is new?

What, you didn't think we'd leave you hanging on the rear ports, did you?

Ah, the Ambilight ambient lit demo room.

The truck just blew up, hence the red. And there was much applause, and we went home with some more stuff to throw into the Engadget Swag Bag v2 (coming soon).

[Rachel @ Jun 16th 2006 10:52AM]

Danny Masterson? Was Screech not available?

[zombieflanders @ Jun 16th 2006 11:20AM]

Just as a courtesy for the future, if some of you don't care about the format war, then please JUST DON'T COMMENT. I'm getting pretty sick of wading through a billion "I don't care about this" comments everytime an HD DVD or Blu-ray story is posted. Obviously, you care enough to post a comment, so say something constructive or nothing at all, please.

[Evan Evans @ Jun 16th 2006 11:25AM]

It has a fan?

[ChillyWilly @ Jun 16th 2006 11:47AM]

Rachel wrote:
"Danny Masterson? Was Screech not available?"

Nope.. he was doing the Howard Stern show.

I'm all for the Blu-Ray, but hoping for some sort of idea how many titles will be released and when the players will actually ship.

The back of the unit has a nice bevy of ports, including an HDMI port (which is expected) I wonder how soon we'll see Blu-Ray units from other companies that omit the HDMI port or if it's a mandate on any Blu-Ray unit.

[Jason @ Jun 16th 2006 12:20PM]

An early CNET article indicates that the SD upconverted output on the Tosh HDA1 HD-DVD player looks sharper and cleaner than on this Samsung beast and the Tosh is 1/2 the price.

Of course the BD fan boys are already gearing up claiming that we won't see BD in all its glory until dual layer recorded discs at higher bit rates start shipping next year.

I would really like to see BOTH formats thrive with future players supporting both formats, but with the pricing on the first generation of blu-ray players as high as it is and PS3 priced so high I think that Sony is screwed.

[Jason @ Jun 16th 2006 12:22PM]

One more thing to add, people who have compared 1080i and 1080p output side by side say that they can't tell the difference AT ALL. Additionally blu-ray movies don't seem to look any better than HD-DVD titles, it all comes down (as with standard DVD) to the quality of the transfer.

[Brian @ Jun 16th 2006 1:34PM]

Please can we stop having 3 page long posts that show up in the RSS feed section. this is a pain in the butt for mobile and desktop scrolling.

[DarkSol @ Jun 16th 2006 2:15PM]

So what you are saying is, is that Engadget should shorten their news articles to pander to your needs? Please.

And regarding your comment about a CNet article, I perused CNet to try and find this article, couldn't find it. Next time, give us links.

[The Jeremy @ Jun 16th 2006 2:49PM]

It would be nice if Samsung gave away some of these units in a promo to increase public interest in their Blu-Ray line.

And I really think the HD-DVD supporters are overestimating the branding importance of tacking on the letters "HD" to DVD in order to convey its nextgen status. CDi and CD+G failed to take off, and in both cases, the names sounded hokey. Whereas with a name like "Blu-Ray", it sounds like something new which from a branding perspective asserts that its better and cooler than standard DVD.

[DanH @ Jun 16th 2006 5:00PM]

The Samsung, given the photos people have seen of the interior boards, is not the 1080p standard bearer. It seems to be doing a 1080p->1080i->1080p hat trick. The Broadcomm decoder chip (the same as in the Toshiba HD-DVD player) cannot output 1080p. They're using a de-interlacer after the decoder to convert it back to 1080p (if you choose that as your video output resolution).

The trouble is that some inexpensive "reverse telecine" de-interlacers "bob" the video to 540p, so as to halve part of the pixel matrix!

This was also a problem with some of Warner Brother's HD-DVD titles like A Perfect Storm, The Fugitive, and Full Metal Jacket where older 1080i/60 HD tapes were used and run through a "bobbing" de-interlacer. The resultant video was robbed of much of its original data, and looked much softer than a new, true 1080p/24 transfer.

So, don't judge Blu-Ray on the basis of the first, and probably not the best, player to market.

Rumors are out that the Sony and Pioneer players utilize a newer Sigma Designs decoder chip that allows whatever is on the disc to be output natively with no unnecessary, and quality robbing conversions (if your TV can handle it).

[RedBull Runner @ Jun 16th 2006 5:22PM]

"Whereas with a name like "Blu-Ray", it sounds like something new which from a branding perspective asserts that its better and cooler than standard DVD." that name alone makes it sound like some made up crap in a Sci-Fi movie... think "unobtanium" in 'The Core'

ya, i agree with whatshisname, sony is pretty screwed

[EatingPie @ Jun 16th 2006 6:31PM]

DanH - Good comments. Very informative.

Question for you... When you say bob to 540p, I'm assuming that's a downconvert to 540p with some interpolation (or similar algorithmic method) involved. Is that right? Can you expound if I'm wrong here?

Thanks!

-Pie

[Bryan @ Jun 17th 2006 9:19AM]

Thanks for an insider's view. It's OK that most companies really can't put together a great show. They should be busy with producing the best value in devices. Apple's just an exception.