It has been a long and winding road for Samsung in terms of its standalone HD players. The Korean company did beat the competition with its world's first Blu-ray player, the BD-P1000. But in the process of rushing out the product, it missed a jarring software bug -- plaguing its pilot offering with softer-than-expected visuals. This development may have prompted its regional office to bypass the BD-P1200 altogether for a more polished BD-P1400 -- a feature-packed piece of kit designed to unlock the full potential of blue laser-based media.
Design
When it comes to aesthetics, you can trust the Koreans and their relentless quest for perfection, and you could hardly be disappointed with the BD-P1400's beaming frontage. Aside from the attractive piano-black finish, the Samsung's curved lines enable it to break from the usual boxy form factor, and there is a recessed decorative silver stripe along the bezel's bottom. An ultra-bright blue power button/indicator and equally glaring (but dimmable) white LCD display round out the player's X factor.
Aside from the pretty face, the set features a traditional layout. Beginning Across the front, we have the above-mentioned power button followed by a disc tray, display and a somewhat unresponsive four-way playback control. Shifting our attention to the rear, there is a battery of gold-plated A/V jacks as well as a quiet cooling fan. Missing, though, are the familiar hi-fi feet which (theoretically) dampen vibration for enhanced playback. In retrospect, there are more pros than cons to this design, if you sideline its stain-prone glossy material -- which applies to all brands -- and its abnormal height.
The design is getting a little stale but auxiliary TV control is a big plus.
Bundled in the package, we have a black-and-grey, standard issue remote control. Perfectly functional and ergonomic, existing Samsung users will find this a snap to learn and operate. The rubbery controls here are not only snappier than their TV equivalent, they are also well-labelled, and offer nice tactile feedback. As a bonus, its designers have also given the crucial playback controls a glow-in-the-dark treatment -- plus a set of auxiliary keys to manipulate common TV functions from other brands.
We aren't expecting much from the BD-P1400's menu and this was exactly what was delivered in its series of six sub-menus. Navigation-wise, the menu is organized in a multilevel structure that drills down progressively from the left to right, providing instant feedback on the flow of options. If you still need help to get things moving, there is a helpful 61-page manual for quick reference. Despite its user-friendliness you will have to rely on your TV for in-depth picture processing -- although there are detailed 5.1 speaker settings to configure internal sound decoding.
What makes the BD-P1400 truly shine is its support for all of the HD sound formats: Dolby Digital+/TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio/High Resolution. It's currently the most affordable standalone Blu-ray player to deliver these next-gen surround formats in their raw form for external decoding. For backward compatibility with older gear, it can also decode them internally and outputs multichannel CD-quality sound (linear PCM) through either discreet 5.1 analog audio or HDMI output. The latter, however, is capable of extracting only the Core or lower-quality compressed DTS soundtrack for internal DTS-HD decoding.
To match its promising sonic credentials, this Samsung does 1080p video via HDMI, and also outputs in the highly sought-after 24Hz film mode. Upscaling of DVD to full high definition is adequately covered, too, though it's capped to the mainstream 50/60Hz flavor. In terms of advanced interactivity for value-added picture-in-picture and commentary extras, the BD-P1400 is officially Profile 1.0-ready. There's no word on a future 1.1 upgrade, and we seriously doubt it will materialize with the company already announcing the replacement BD-P1500 overseas. Nonetheless, rest assured this model will still replay these 1.1 titles, just less the extras.
Almost every jack imaginable can be found on the BD-P1400 including a network port.
For multimedia compatibility, the Sammy plays back JPEG and MP3 files out-of-the-box, cut on optical media. However, Samsung could have gone the extra mile to leverage the onboard network port for wired streaming. That said, we suspect this value-added functionality would inflate the price by a considerable amount. It's already a godsend that Internet connectivity is included here -- handy for one-touch firmware upgrades such as the recent one that resolved 1080p24 judder.
The BD-P1400 is loaded with just about all the necessary jacks relevant in Asia. At the top of the list is an HDMI 1.3 jack that provides AnyNet+ functionality (Consumer Electronics Control for one-remote operation of Samsung components) plus HD audio-video. Going down the chain, we have the 1080i-ready component-video complemented by standard-definition S-video and composite ports.
Performance
To stretch the legs of this promising player, we assembled a 6.1 home theatre built around a TrueHD/DTS-HD-ready Onkyo TX-SR875 A/V receiver and an Epson EMP-TW1000 1080p projector.
Initial impressions of the BD-P1400 were generally positive. It wasn't a speed demon like the PS3 when booting up, but managed a respectable 20 secs (tip: hit the eject instead of power button), and another 30 secs to load most Blu-rays -- the notoriously slow Ratatouille took 60 secs. Software compatibility-wise, it played back most titles including Die Hard 4, though we have yet to lay our hands on a Profile 1.1 release.
For those interested in its musicality, we evaluated the digital and analog stereo outputs pitted against a Rotel CD player. On digital without the latter's superior Burr Brown digital-to-analog converter, there was almost negligible distinction between the two. Switching over to analog and playing back Bruce Guthro's Touch was a different picture altogether. Vocals, particularly, were a tad constrained and treble was clearly less extended. It was an uphill battle when we turned our attention on Guns and Roses' Attitude. The fast rhythms were a huge challenge from the beginning, likewise for the instruments' transparency.
Razor-sharp and vibrant JPEGs presented in original aspect ratio.
There wasn't much improvement when we put the BD-P1400 through the pace using our reference DVD materials. Without the assistance of a dedicated upscaling chip, a 1080p clip of Ghost in The Shell 2: Innocence was notably softer compared to Onkyo's HQV-processed output. Looking on the bright side, there weren't obvious jaggies, and this really wasn't a fair comparison to start with. These observations tallied with the results we collected in our standard-def HQV benchmarks, in which we picked up moderate distortion in our 3:2 detection test -- indicating a possible lapse in frame-rate conversion.
It was a 1080p24 Blu-ray playback that really brought out the best in this kit. Motion reproduction was silky smooth (after the latest firmware upgrade) coupled with pristine, eye-popping fidelity. These fine attributes were exemplified in Pixar's Cars, rendered in clinically clean, vivid hues and rich, intricate details. Having said that, disabling 24Hz did result in slightly softer pictures, while HD-HQV flagged mild losses in detail during our film resolution loss test. Going DTS-HD and TrueHD delivered added body and extension to the overall soundfield, but the improvement was less profound compared to the leap in video resolution.
Another peculiar -- but minor -- issue was that we experienced random audio dropouts when subtitles were activated. This was encountered in Fantastic 4 on the DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, and hopefully a future firmware upgrade can solve this.
Wrapping up the evaluation, we focused on its multimedia playback with auto media detection and menu call-up. Disc and file-loading time here were almost instantaneous in most cases. Above all, we were quite impressed by the sharp and vibrant rendering of JPEGs presented in their original aspect ratio. MP3s, on the other hand, were clear and enjoyable, and sound quality varied depending on actual compression levels, as you'd expect.
Conclusion
The AU$769 Samsung BD-P1400 is a no-brainer for 1080p24-ready displays and next-gen A/V receiver owners. It may not be up to the mark for serious CD/DVD playback, and it lacks Profile 1.1 support, but at such an affordable price we felt that these are minor shortfalls which most can live with. Afterall, most current AV receivers are capable enough to work around some of these deficiencies.