Samsung DVD-1080P7

Blu-ray or HD DVD will one day come to our hallowed shores. (I mean the official discs, as a few players have already arrived.) And then we will all revel in pure 1080p joy, with strikingly clear pictures, smooth transitions and lots of other goodies. But in the meantime, there are still great choices out there that we can use with our 'old’ DVD collection: ever heard of full HD upscaling?

Korean giant Samsung has come out with its latest DVD offering in India, called the 1080P7 (though it was actually announced last year). It really looks cool, with all the claims of upscaling to 1080p and what have you. And remember, you saw the review here first!

Design and Features
The player is jet black all over, with a light frame. It weighs very little compared to some of its peers, making it easier to lug from room to room. The front panel is not regular in design though, with a cap-like attachment extending out of the top border and running down the side borders. The front panel consists of a reflective hard plastic embedded into this, making it look like a very flat headlight (not really). There's a sticker that says 'free HDMI cable', which I think is cool (not the sticker, but the fact that we have one more cable). Another decal that catches the eye: full HD upscaling, which is also the USP of this product.

There's a shiny, medium-sized power button on the left end of the front panel, with the tray located slightly off the center axis. The right end has a conspicuously shiny and large silver joystick button, which operates in four directions. The vertical ends handle stop and play, while the horizontal ends feature forward navigation arrows. In the overall scheme of things, the DVD player’s design is not ordinary; in fact it is quite nice, and rather stands out from the score of players lying next to it in the mega retail mall.

Feature-wise, as you must have figured out by now, the player does full HD upscaling (I can’t wait to check it out!), supports the regular component and S-video connection, and also has digital audio outs in the form of a coaxial and optical out. It has one of each connection, so that makes the connection rack quite bare. That’s fine for a budget player though, as a plethora of options can be irritating (hypocrite reviewer alert!)

The chip is 14-bit, so that’s a new thing; I’m expecting killer colors, while the video processing is still at 108 Mhz. It plays lots of formats: DVD, DVD+RW, -RW, CD, CD-RW, DivX, (including Xvid) and MP3/WMA. It does not play DVD ROM, CDG etc. Besides, it doesn’t do one important thing: it has no USB, so all the dudes with loaded HDs can kindly take their p0rn elsewhere.