 Just what I wanted. |
| Review Date: May 14, 2009 |
| Reviewer: D. Miller, Mariposa, CA USA |
Bought a Samsung LN52A650 before xmas which I thoroughly love and have been debating what audio to match it up with. Blu-ray and 5.1 were a must but buying both a player and 5.1 amp plus matching speakers/subwoofer can get pretty spendy. TA-DA...this thing shows up. Not being 5.1 savvy before this I wasn't prepared for the rear speakers to pretty much stay quiet but when they get the right feed its awesome.
My set up:
DirecTV HDDVR hdmi to the LN52A650 for broadcast TV.
BD1250 hdmi to LN52A650 for BD/DVD/CD/IPod/Pandora/FM/camera/etc.
Network cables wired direct from DSL modem to BD1250, LN52A650 and HDDVR. (The wife loves Pandora...check out their website if you love music and aren't familiar with them.)
Optical audio from DirecTV HDDVR to HT-BD1250 if I want to listen to 5.1 from DirecTV. Note: It says in the LN52A650 documents that going from it to another audio system is always at best "stereo" no matter what type of connector you use. The heck with that ...I went optical from the HDDVR to the 1250. Ratatooie via StarzHD sounds 5.1 fantastic.
This new setup let me "retire" my old Sony "stereo only" amp, an old Panasonic CD player, a Panasonic "progressive" DVD player and a couple of tall Sony speakers. (That stuff is now hooked up and rockin' in the garage.) The vacated shelf space is now occupied by perfect sized wicker baskets that my wife found that are holding much of our DVD collection.
I still use the 3 remotes because I haven't figured out how to get all the functionality I need without them. I usually watch ESPN so, as I've always done, I hit the "ON" button on the DirecTV remote and it fires up the TV and the HDDVR. I left the speakers on the TV set to "on" so on start up the broadcast TV sound comes over them. Note: The DirecTV remote will turn the HT-BD1250 on if you set it up but you have to move the switch at the top, etc., etc....pain in the butt.
At first having to use one of the Samsung remotes to fire up the 1250 bothered me but I've changed my mind. The reason? We have TV watching visitors from time to time so for them to just plop down, hit the DirecTV "ON" button and start watching "without" the surround sound booming away is my preference. The LN52A650's speakers are good enough. What's cool is that if they pop in a disc it automatically fires up the 5.1 and the TV speakers shut down. If you want to listen to a broadcast over 5.1 just hit tools and select the 1250 for sound.
The "Any-Net" feature enables the 1250 to be available for use from many of the menus on the Samsung remotes. Also the volume can be adjusted by any of the remotes, including the DirecTV remote. Pretty easy!
And last but not least hitting the "Off" button on the DirecTV remote shuts the HDDVR, LN52A650 AND the BD1250 off. Apparently the "Any-Net" talking between the TV and the 1250 must tell it to take a break too. I really like that...no one can inadvertantly leave the amp on.
Question to any of you with a similar TV and Blu-ray. I'm not really seeing any "dramatic" difference between the 1080i HD stuff I get off the dish (which is stunning by the way)and a blu-ray movie. Should there be? |
This system is worth its money. Entertainment at its best!
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| Review Date: June 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: JayZ, Ca, USA |
| This system is worth its money. Entertainment at its best!!! I am tired of people nit-picking the smallest of issues. I rate this sound system based off of the sound and picture that it can display for the cost of the money. It is more than worth the cost of the money, even with the small issues that some people have mentioned. I have friends that have Bose and other $2000 to $3000 systems and they all agree with one thing when they hear my system... that they overpaid and it was NOT worth it. The sound is excellent, along with the Blu-ray... but most of all the up-converting of regular DVD's is excellent. Samsung did a great job. I am not into the other features such as ipod and the internet, so I am not rating those features. I bought this to listen to and to watch movies with my Samsung b650 plasma TV, not to play on the internet. Well done Samsung!!! And the people that complain about the wireless connection to Netflix or Pandora..., please keep in mind... wireless is never perfect and never will be perfect. Hardwire it and it will always be perfect. Again, well done Samsung! |
Nice compact system to sync with Samsung TV
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| Review Date: June 7, 2009 |
| Reviewer: H. Tam, Los Angeles |
This neat little unit had a nice feature that syncs with newer Samsung TV controls like volume (probably through HDMI and optical speaker in/out). The only drawback to that is the online media software slow startup.
The actual player unit is deeper than expected (doesn't quite fit on my 12" shelf), but that's to accomodate the power and switching necessary for speaker system.
Speakers are small enough for 1000W theatre sound, but system won't make the stage bounce (ok, since this is for older parents' large living room). That said, the sub is not square cube, but taller and narrower, which makes sub conveniently fit behind TV. Speakers have cheap shiny plastic grill that doesn't lend itself to "hide" very well (matte finish might have been better). Proprietary speaker connectors to player unit are small and should have been standard speaker wire connectors (going to have to splice for large gauge with more wire strands). |
Don't do the firmware update and you have a great unit!
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| Review Date: December 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Gregory S. Emerson, Belleville, MI |
| I had to write this review since all the last reviews have totally trashed this unit based on a firmware update. I bought mine from QVC back in the summer and I've had absolutely no problems with it AT ALL. The sound is amazing! The blu-ray movies are crystal clear. It functions with the anynet mode on my Samsung 50 inch plasma TV and my PS3 flawlessly. I use one remote to turn everything on and off. I will say that I never hooked up the internet to the system, which apparently was the downfall of all these naysayers when prompted for a firmware update. Since I had no internet connection, I have never been prompted for a firmware update. I see no reason for an update when everything works perfectly! I'm not sure why Samsung still has that update out there since it's caused a lot of problems, but if you're not going to be using the Netflix streaming option or Pandora then don't be hesitant about buying this theater system. Just don't hook up a wireless or hard cabled internet connection to it and you won't have the problems most of these folks on here have had. I couldn't be happier with mine! I'd buy it again in a heartbeat! I needed to balance out the reviews on here because the system is getting a really bad rap for a bad firmware update when in reality it's a kick butt system! |
Samsung HT-BD1250 Home Theater
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| Review Date: December 31, 2009 |
| Reviewer: D. Lai, Bay Area, CA |
I have been looking to purchase a home theater system for a few months now and finally decided this was the one to go with.
I was looking at a Sony theater, thinking to replace the 5 CD/DVD player with a separate Blu-ray player and then thought, I might as well get a Samsung Blu-ray theater.
With it's Anynet technology for Samsung components, just turning on the player will turn on the TV, and switch it's HDMI to whatever connection the Blu-ray is on. I know that Sony's Bravia components do the same as well, but not sure of Panasonic, LG, etc.
Anyway, connecting the wires from the Blu-ray player to the speakers are fool-proof, as the male connectors are all color coded to the back of the Blu-ray player. The wires going into the woofer and speakers are pretty standard, so nothing new here.
Our first movies on the Blu-ray theater system were UP! and Star Trek. Both movies were amazing to see in HD and I could not believe how sharp the images were. Prior to the Blu-ray player, we had a Samsung 1080p upconvert DVD player. And let me tell you, what an upgrade!
I found that the internet ready features such as Pandora, Netflix, YouTube and Blockbuster are awesome as well. I had some problems hooking up my Comcast modem to my router, so if you have problems, let me know. But after figuring all that out, we use Pandora constantly now through the Blu-ray system. We had it before and was just broadcasting by phone, but now that it's tied in through the Blu-ray system, it's awesome! Netflix was something we just signed up for because of the Blu-ray system, and it is very convenient to stream movies to the system. The movies available to watch via streaming, however, was very limited (the new releases are not available to stream). We're just waiting more Blu-ray discs to show up to use the system to it's potential.
The price was fair among the Blu-ray home theater systems. One thing I did before we purchased this was went to Best Buy to see the unit in person and played around with the features. I wasn't too impressed by the iPod connection because you have to page down through the list of artist, or song, or album just to get where you want - a typing feature would be great, though.
All in all, I am extremely satisfied with this purchase. As with all feedback, this is my opinion. Do yourself a favor and go to an electronics store to check this out (or other systems) before buying. |
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