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’s bright, colourful visuals look sumptuous, oozing with rich, noise-free colours and crisp detail. Indiana Jones is also full of scenes that demonstrate the system’s superb detail handling, from the sharply-rendered swarms of ants to the detail inside Orellana’s dingy tomb, a sequence that also reveals top-notch shadow detail and contrast. The sound is sweet and crisp with loads of top-end detail, courtesy of the smooth and well controlled treble. Dialogue is similarly clear and open, allowing you to hear Pierce Brosnan’s voice in all its flat, awkward detail. It’s a genuine surprise to hear such assured sound quality from a one-box system, although the lack of dedicated surround and centre channels does reduce the overall impact somewhat – we can’t wait to hear what the 5.1-channel HT954PB has to offer.
In the box you’ll find a combined Blu-ray player/receiver unit, two front speakers and a passive subwoofer. The surprisingly chunky main unit is styled in a snazzy gloss-black finish, jazzed up further with a volume dial surrounded by a ring of blue light and a row of touch-sensitive buttons. It’s attractive and fairly well built, but falls foul of the hollow, plasticky feel common among one-box systems. We like surprises here at TrustedReviews, and the HB354BS is an extremely pleasant one. We admit that we didn’t have high hopes given the system’s inevitable build quality issues, but its sound quality is more potent and poised than expected, injecting movies with an irresistible sense of excitement despite the lack of centre and surround speakers.
Samsung HT-BD7200 2.1-Channel Blu-ray Home Theater System
Even easier to configure was the accompanying PS-WBD8200 powered sub, as the main unit automatically searched for and linked with the wireless kicker. The process required only about three seconds to go from standby to linked after power on, while the player itself was still warming up. A recessed "ID SET" button--the only control whatsoever on the sub itself--is provided to aid in the wireless configuration , but frankly the wireless connectivity was so reliable that I never needed any help. The cabinet is a respectable size for home theater use, yet remarkably lightweight, especially considering its onboard amplification. The connections around back are angled to facilitate hanging the soundbar directly on the wall, with a clear plastic installation template and metal mounting hardware included.
For now it gets a Recommended Award on the presumption that LG will make sure the price is keen. You won’t find many players with a better operating system, which makes the deck gratifyingly simple to use. It employs the dubiously-named but ingenious XrossMediaBar, which displays a horizontal row of icons interjected by the corresponding options. One of these is the setup menu, which presents all of the options in an understandable way, including the HDMI and secondary audio options, although there’s no specific setting that makes the deck output in LPCM. There are three optical digital inputs too, plus coaxial digital and analogue stereo ports for good measure.
Warranty & Returns
Nifty little LEDs and other animated lights appear during startup and power-down. Bang in the centre of the fascia lies one of the system’s killer features – an iPod dock. It slides out when you press the panel in the centre and supports all types of iPod, including the touch, plus you can browse through songs using the onscreen GUI. You’ll also find a USB Plus port on top that supports playback of movies, music and photos. If you like Blu-ray movies delivered with plenty of power then give the BDV-FS350 a miss – the weak sub and overall lack of potency might leave you feeling a tad underwhelmed when watching action-packed Blu-ray discs. The sub’s lack of HD audio decoding is also a shame, as is the absence of Master Audio support.
As for the BDP-S350, it’s a highly attractive, slimline Profile 2.0 player (provided its firmware has been updated from the original Profile 1.1 spec), and it’s beautifully built for a so-called ‘budget’ player. It also spins DVDs, CDs and recordable Blu-ray discs, although it doesn’t support MP3 or DivX playback from any of them – only JPEG is supported. The subwoofer meanwhile is admirably slim, measuring just 95mm wide and 215mm tall, which makes it far from imposing. It’s also surprisingly sturdy for a system sub and is finished in fetching shades of black, with ports on the front and side. Buttons are sparse, with just volume, input select and power buttons found on top, and there’s a simple display panel that shows the current input and houses the system’s setup menu. Given Blu-ray’s ability to deliver immersive hi-res 7.1-channel soundtracks, you might question the sense of pairing a Blu-ray player with a 2.1-channel sound system, which is exactly what Sony has done with the BDV-FS350.
Where Movies and Technology Meet
Like the company's other 2009 Blu-ray products, this funky-looking home theater system can also stream Netflix movies and Pandora's online music service. Although it’s not up there with LG and Samsung’s latest players, it’s fairly fast to load a disc. We clocked ”Spider-Man 3’s” first screen appearing at around 55 seconds, which is well within acceptable limits.
But if we have one gripe about the system’s sound performance, it’s that there’s simply not enough welly behind it. Control your iPod with the LG remote control and an easy to use on screen display and as the content is being played back, the iPod or iPhone is being recharged. DVD or Blu-ray players featuring 1080P up scaling can improve the picture quality of a Standard Definition DVD to that of Full High Definition 1080P picture by using the HDMI connection and filling in the missing details. For the ultimate picture, a Blu-ray disc will provide all the detailed picture quality without the need for picture to be up scaled. Blu-ray Full HD PlaybackWith Blu-ray full HD playback, enjoy brilliant images with 1080p high definition resolution and audio that’s of the highest quality.
1 Blu-ray Home Theater System delivers virtual 7.1 sound
Because the Blu-ray player is Profile 2.0 you can access BD Live extras, but it also supports YouTube video streaming as found on LG’s standalone BD370. The feature isn’t found on the first batch of systems but a later firmware update will enable it. Starting with the system’s sound performance, we gave it a run out with the ”Iron Man” Blu-ray disc and although we can’t pretend that the two channels do justice to its scintillating Dolby TrueHD soundtrack, you can certainly hear the high calibre of the speakers.
Blockbuster ("powered by Roxio CinemaNow") requires a Blockbuster account, and we then activate the player online at /samsungbd. We can stream trailers immediately (even before we link/open the account) and we can rent new releases for $3.99 or buy various titles at various prices. Older titles are available for rental or purchase and are generally less expensive. The service itself is pretty straightforward, and similar to Netflix; configure, click, and watch; but with a different business model behind it. The system also delivers excellent picture quality, which is comparable to that of the BD370.
The front speakers are gorgeous, with a glossy black finish and oval shape that will attract plenty of attention. Each one is perched on a silver horseshoe-shaped stand and plugs into the back of the main unit using flimsy springclip terminals, another sign of all-in-one cost cutting. As for the subwoofer, the matching gloss-black finish makes it look fine from a distance but on closer inspection it’s worryingly light and hollow – although at least it’s sensibly mounted on rubber feet to minimise vibration. But these issues aside, the speakers display impressive finesse with the other sonic elements and music playback is a treat.
John P. Falcone is an executive editor at CNET, where he coordinates a group of more than 20 editors and writers based in New York and San Francisco as they cover the latest and greatest products in consumer technology. With an easy search facility and the ability to sign in with a YouTube account, finding your favourite videos is easy and simple. Good variety of movies OV, but expensive, and for the money, nothing special. The snack service is moving-theater-slow, but the folks working there were nice enough, and spoke English. Things to do ranked using Tripadvisor data including reviews, ratings, photos, and popularity.
BD-Live worked perfectly, assuming that the network connection was operating properly, after I had installed my own thumb drive. Yes, we have to look at a thumb drive sticking out the left side of this soundbar because Samsung--one of the inventors of the SD card--couldn't put, what, 14 cents worth of flash memory inside an $800 product? I did notice that the WLAN linkup was a little moody, and the little adapter grew hot, despite the constant, significant fan noise whenever the unit is powered on. Within the wings of the HT-BD8200 soundbar are two integrated tall-boy loudspeakers. Like many other aspects of this package, these speakers utilize existing Samsung technologies, namely their BioKelp cones, driven by their hi-fi digital Crystal Amplifier, both of which could be heard in the Samsung HT-AS730ST Home Theater Receiver with 5.1 Speaker System. At the center is a wonderfully svelte vertical Blu-ray player with a motorized pocket that extends forward, accepting and ejecting discs to/from a top slot, although the loading mechanism needs a little encouragement before swallowing a disc.
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