Samsung touts second-gen Blu-ray player

By Matt Chapman on Jan 10, 2007 9:27 AM
Filed under Hardware

Cheaper and with better specs.

Samsung has updated its Blu-ray high-definition DVD player by upping its specs and cutting its price.

The BD-P1200 unit was released just six months after the BD-P1000, which disappointed critics and cost almost $1,000. Samsung has reduced the BD-P1200 price tag to US$799.

The latest player adds HDMI 1.3 with CEC functions to allow the unit to control other devices, such as automatically powering up a television.

The BD-P1200 also includes Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) technology from Silicon Optix, which Samsung claims is similar to that used by film studios.

"HQV's true 1080i to 1080p HD deinterlacing delivers the sharpest, most detailed HD images possible by employing per-pixel motion adaptive algorithms and a sophisticated multi-directional diagonal filter that ensures video free from jagged edges," said a statement from Silicon Optix.

"The powerful HQV processing engine also provides per-pixel motion adaptive noise-reduction, detail enhancement and advanced scaling delivering premium quality up-converted standard DVD material."

The player is also backwards compatible with regular DVDs and, unlike the new hybrid machine from LG, will play audio CDs.

The HDMI connection outputs audio using 7.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus.