Just about every consumer electronics company has its own home theater in a box (HTiB) offering, which makes the process of picking one a bit more complicated -- but usually a lot more affordable than it used to be.
Samsung's HT-BD1250 Blu-ray Home Theater System ties almost all of the necessary theater pieces into one package. It's also sort of a jack of all A/V trades, allowing users to stream Pandora and Netflix, as well as play Blu-rays, CDs, DVDs and portable media from an iPod. It even adds wireless networking into the mix -- if you're willing to spend another $80 on Samsung's WIS09ABGN Wireless USB/LAN Adapter. You can even make the rear speakers wireless, but that also needs its own extra, the $142 SWA-4000 wireless receiver. Both are optional add-ons, and were not made available for testing.
Out of the box, the HT-BD1250 includes a super-glossy slick black Blu-ray player/receiver, one large and long (16 x 16 x 8) subwoofer, five super-small speakers, an iPod dock and a remote. One of the greatest items that comes with this that we don't typically find in other HTiB setups is speaker wire. The unit comes with a 10-foot run for the center channel, 13.25 feet for each of the front speakers and the subwoofer, and 33 feet for each of the rear speakers. That's right, kids. You may have to run the wire to wherever you want the speakers, but you don't have to put on pants to drive to the local A/V store.
Also, because the BD1250 has no external video inputs, connecting any additional A/V devices to your system, such as a cable box or VCR, requires that you use the player's optical and/or analog audio jacks for sound and plug the video jacks directly into your TV.
The web of wires isn't finished just yet, though. If you want to tap into all of the A/V goodies (and we know you will), you will need to network the system. Now, the easy way to do this is to hook it up via an Ethernet cable. Hook it up and you are pretty much ready to rock. The unit also has a wireless (WiFi) option, but not out of the box (boo!). As mentioned, you will need to add the WIS09ABGN Wireless USB/LAN Adapter into the mix.
Once the system was hooked up, we kicked on the Blu-ray player -- accidentally. Samsung put all of the unit's controls on top of the component. Even though they look cool and are triggered at the touch of a feather, we found ourselves constantly turning the unit on or opening the disc tray by accident. Bumbling fools are we? Perhaps. However, we are used to the old-fashioned way of having the Power button and other controls on the front of the unit or even tucked away from our many thumbs behind a flip-up panel.
Still, like the controls, the unit is incredibly easy to operate. However, to get the unit exactly how you want it might take a bit of tweaking. For instance, the first few Blu-ray runs emitted a horrible humming noise from the front speakers. At first, we thought it was some sort of vibration only to realize that yes, it was coming from the actual speakers. A quick trip into the menu's Setup screen allowed us to manually set the Speaker Distance, and all was right within our audio world [editor's note: odd behavior, but at least the solution was simple enough -CB].
Blu-ray Basics
Samsung is known for its sweet delivery of high-def, so it was no surprise that during actual Blu-ray material, images were bold, bright and detailed. There was not one disc that played poorly. However, some of those discs took longer than others to load, depending on whether they did or did not use BD-Java for their menus and such.
With the Blu-ray player completely off, we hit eject, which opened the tray almost instantly. Getting to the Samsung/Netflix/Pandora logo screen took about 12 seconds total. With the player powered on and the disc tray open, a standard DVD (The Incredibles) loaded to the FBI logo within 16 seconds, with the Cars trailer coming in about 15 seconds later. On a simple Blu-ray Disc (Labor Pains), we saw the FBI logo after only 10 seconds, with the first preview clocking in at 22 seconds.
Load times for BD-Java discs were a bit all over the place. For I Love You, Man, the player displays the Paramount logo a full one minute after pressing play, with the menu coming in 2 seconds later. With BD-Live enabled and our 1GB memory stick hanging out of the front panel, we were able to receive Iron Man's prompt to download extras at 32 seconds, with the menu coming another 15 seconds after we clicked "no." The stick is not included, but required to take advantage of BD-Live extras (1GB or larger, please). Overall, these lading times are well within the realm of acceptability and shouldn't be too annoying even to those used to the speedy load times of modern CD and DVD players.
Disc loading and cool images aside, we used Silicon Optix's HQV Benchmark DVD to put the system to the upconversion test. Colors and details were presented very well. The system also passed the "jaggies" test, and conveyed a very smooth depiction of the flag's stripes as well as detail in the brick. Noise reduction was pretty impressive, although the Motion Adaptive Noise Reduction was less so, with a bit of blur on the rollercoaster and some noise in the background. It also took maybe a second for the HT-BD1250 to lock into the 3:2 cadence on the "Super Speedway" segment. Finally, in other Cadence tests, the newspaper held its shape and text very well, while the coffee cups were jumpy enough to make us feel like we were on our own caffeine overload.
Once you get an actual disc playing, the remote is fairly easy to operate. Of course, there will be the typical learning curve you'd experience with any new remote. Overall though, everything is laid out well and the unit fits nicely into even our own dainty palms.
How Does It Sound?
While many pooh-pooh the performance of home-theater-in-a-box systems, we were pleased with the HT-BD1250's consistent performance for Blu-ray discs. For those with smaller spaces like ours, this system will more than rock the house. Despite the small size of each satellite, the unit delivered good, bold sound. The subwoofer did Iron Man a lot of justice, especially when he first came stomping out of that cave. We're pretty sure that the neighbors were terrified of that rapid machine gun fire, although they must be pretty used to hearing sounds like those emitting from our house by now. This system isn't going to challenge a mid to high-end receiver, standalone Blu-ray player and separate speaker package, but for the price, it's hard to beat.
The FM tuner (hey! Remember real radio??) actually did a decent job of finding channels that some of our other FM tuners couldn't track. Once you switch out of Blu-ray mode, two of the remote's buttons will be your best friend: PL II Mode and PL II Effect. Use these to tune into full 5.1 surround sound from two-channel sources like radio.
You'll have to do the same tiny tweak when using an iPod. Having an iPod in the A/V mix was a very nice touch, especially right out of the box. However, the on-screen menu doesn't offer any of the portable's perks, such as shuffle, artist/album information or cover art.
Speaking of which, why should anyone stare at a blank screen during any audio playback? Our iPod has that information built-in, which would seem like a no-brainer. Also, since the HT-BD1250 is networked anyway, it would be nice if the setup could tap into some album information and/or artwork from Gracenote or elsewhere during CD playback.
Other A/V Goodies
Samsung adds value to this setup by offering access to Netflix and Pandora's Internet streaming services. Both are easy to add, if your HT-BD1250 is hooked up to the web and you have accounts for each service.
The Pandora interface is extremely easy. A layout at the bottom of the screen provides a key to color-coded buttons. How could it possibly get easier than colors? Push A to create stations and you'll get directed to a screen where you'll need to maneuver the remote to type. Once you input a band, the blue D button will create your station and soon you'll be cranking out an entirely new, free music collection. We were getting the Led out, rocking to Rush, and well, reliving a bevy of classic rock moments. There was also plenty of punk, rap, R&B and just about every other genre. Overall, it was a nice selection of music, and Pandora does supply album information and artwork during playback.
Netflix streaming is just another cool perk for BD1250 owners. Sadly, it's not free, but $9 for unlimited streaming is not a painful price to pay, considering it also gets you a rented DVD in the mail every once in a while (Blu-ray rental costs extra). It took less than a minute to start streaming a family favorite, Clueless. We saw one jitter at the very beginning of service, but haven't experienced any quality issues since. After not using the service for a few days, we logged in for The Fugitive, only to find out that our account had been inexplicably disabled. A quick code entry on the Netflix website had the service back up and running in seconds.
Viewers can add movies to their "Watch Instantly" queue through the Netflix website. Sadly, many of the titles we wanted to check out (no Bourne? No love for Lost?) were not available for streaming. Still, there is plenty to play. Add selections to your queue on the computer, and up comes the cover art on your TV screen, almost instantly. Scroll through the covers, and you'll find a ratings system (which you can add to), as well as the title's description and other essential info. Starting up a title takes about 20 to 30 seconds -- whether it's from the beginning or elsewhere in the movie. Scrolling through flicks will add another minute of buffer time, but Netflix does provide more chapter options than your typical DVD.
Turn-Ons
Turn-Offs
Final Thoughts
The Samsung HT-BD1250 had plenty to keep us entertained. We were pretty fat and happy with a full diet of endless music and video from a variety of external services. The Blu-ray playback wasn't too bad to boot. The speakers are small, but can crank pretty well in almost any size room (just don't get greedy!). Overall, it's a slick, compact starter package.
System Specs:
Where to Buy:
Company Information:
Samsung America, Inc.
105 Challenger Road
Ridgefield park, NJ 07660
Tel: (201) 229-5000
Fax: (201) 229-5080
On the web: www.samsungusa.com
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