By Matthew Moskovciak, CNET.com
25/05/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/home_av/others/0,39037618,44700448p,00.htm

In almost every standalone Blu-ray player we've reviewed, you're likely to find a comment about its disc-loading speed and how it inevitably doesn't compare with the Sony PlayStation 3. For once, that's not the case as the Samsung BD-P3600 is flat out faster than the PS3 at loading most movies and its operational speed is just as quick. The BD-P3600's feature set is also impressive, including 7.1 analog outputs, 1GB onboard memory, and an included Wi-Fi USB dongle. Mix in its excellent image quality on Blu-ray Discs and sleek design, and you've one of the best Blu-ray players we've laid our hands on. The biggest drawback is the S$699 list price, and we'd still urge anyone interested in high-def gaming and media streaming to consider the PS3 instead. For everyone else, the BD-P3600 is one of our top choices for standalone Blu-ray players.

Design

If you get a thrill out of people looking in your home theater stack and asking, "What's that?", then the BD-P3600 is right up your alley. Bathed in a glossy black finish with round corners and a trapezoidal shape when viewed from the side, it looks like no other Blu-ray player we've tested. The glossy look is cool, but it really shows fingerprints and dust, so expect some upkeep to always have it looking slick.

There are absolutely no buttons on the front of the unit, with playback controls relegated to a series of touch-sensitive controls on the top. That means you pretty much can't stack other components on top of the BD-P3600, and we occasionally had misfires with the touch-sensitive buttons, too. But in terms of pure wow factor, the BD-P3600 delivers. (If you want to go really unconventional, Samsung also offers the wall-mountable BD-P4600.)

The included remote is a substantial redesign over previous players, but in some ways it's a step back. Most of the buttons are logically positioned, but important buttons--like Popup Menu, Disc Menu and Title Menu--are stuck at the bottom of the remote.

The BD-P3600's user interface is visually appealing, with vibrant colors and HD graphics. While the eye candy is nice, we weren't fans of the layout for the setup menus as we found the vertical alignment confusing. (Those with high-end Denon receivers, like the AVR-3808CI, will notice a resemblance.) Luckily, you'll rarely need to access the deeper setup menu system, so it's a minor issue.

Features

Like almost all 2009 Blu-ray players, the BD-P3600 is Profile 2.0-compatible, which means it can playback the Internet-enabled BD-Live feature available on some new Blu-ray movies. It also features 1GB of onboard storage, so you don't need to connect a USB flash drive to download BD-Live content. Even better, the BD-P3600 comes packaged with a USB Wi-Fi dongle so you won't need an Ethernet connection in your living room to take advantage of the Internet-enabled content. Of course, an Ethernet connection is available if you prefer a more stable wired connection.

The BD-P3600 is also capable of streaming media from a connected PC. Supported file formats include MP3, JPEG, and DivX; we would have liked to have seen at least iTunes-friendly AAC also supported. As of press time, we have not been able to get this functionality working on our network, even though we have no problems using similar streaming products such as Apple TV in the same network environment.

The BD-P3600 has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. That means it can decode those soundtrack formats so they can be played back on almost every HDMI-capable A/V receiver. Bitstream output is also supported, if you'd rather the decoding be done in you’re A/V receiver. Those looking to play DVDs with legacy DTS formats, such as DTS 96/24, ES, ES Matrix, and Neo:6, will be happy to note that the BD-P3600 has decoding for these formats, unlike players that feature DTS-HD Master Audio Essential.

The BD-P3600's connectivity is generous. The main connection is the HDMI terminal which is capable of handling 1080p HD video and high-resolution multichannel audio. There's also a component-video socket that can output Blu-ray at 1080i and standard DVDs at 480p. For audio, you can use the aforementioned HDMI port, but there's also a digital optical audio jack. If you have an older, non-HDMI receiver, you'll still be able to take advantage of the new high-resolution soundtracks in full resolution, thanks to the BD-P3600's 7.1 analog audio outputs. The rest of the connectivity is rounded out by an Ethernet port and two USB ports (one on the front, one on the back.)

Performance

Editors' note:

The BD-P3600 uses the exact same video-processing chip as the step-down BD-P1600, and we observed identical performance, therefore the image quality sections are nearly identical.

Last year's BD-P2500 featured excellent image quality, thanks to HQV processing, so we were interested to see how the BD-P3600 performed without the HQV chip. We started off with Silicon Optix's HQV test suite, with the BD-P3600 connected to a Sony KDL-52XBR7 via HDMI.

The BD-P3600 outperformed our expectations on the test disc. It aced the Video Resolution Test, showing the full details of Blu-ray without any jaggies showing up on the rotating white line. Next up were two jaggies tests and the BD-P1600 performed well again with crisp and smooth images. It passed the Film Resolution Test as well, depicting both the initial test pattern and the long panning shot of Raymond James Stadium without major image defects.

We switched over to actual program material, and the BD-P3600 didn't let up. We fired up Mission: Impossible III and the panning sequence at the beginning of Chapter 8 looked perfect, lacking any moire visible in the stairs. It also handled Chapter 16 well, with the trimming of the limo looking jaggy-free as it approaches Tom Cruise. Next, we looked at Ghost Rider and the end of Chapter 6 was properly rendered, with the BD-P3600 showing no moire in the grille of the RV as the camera pans away. Last up was the video-based Tony Bennett: An American Classic, and the BD-P3600 did an acceptable job with only a few jaggies visible in the striped shirts of the dancers. It's worth pointing out that we got nearly identical performance on all these scenes from the entry-level BD-P1600, as well the Panasonic DMP-BD60.

One of the biggest letdowns of Blu-ray compared with DVD so far has been how much slower and less responsive standalone Blu-ray players are at loading and navigating discs. Samsung's BD-P3600 is a huge step ahead for standalone players as it's the first one we've used that feels just as responsive as the PS3. In some cases it also loaded discs faster. The BD-P3600 loaded Mission: Impossible III in a blazing 11 seconds with the player on; the same disc took the PS3 13 seconds, and the Panasonic DMP-BD60 21 seconds. With discs offering more elaborate menu systems, the BD-P3600 easily bested other standalones, getting the movie section of Pirates of the Caribbean in 1 minute 15 seconds, compared with 1 minute 53 seconds on the DMP-BD60; the PS3 took 1 minute 22 seconds to load this disc. While a dozen seconds here or there may not seem like much, it goes a long way toward making the player more enjoyable to use.

There are still many more movies available on standard DVD than Blu-ray, so standard-def performance still matters. We started off looking at test patterns from Silicon Optix's HQV test suite, with the BD-P3600 upscaling to 1080p.

The BD-P3600 started off strong, resolving all the details of the initial resolution pattern without any of the image instability that we sometimes see on lesser players. Next up were two video-based jaggies tests, and the BD-P3600 stumbled, failing both tests; jaggies were visible on both the rotating white line and three pivoting lines. On the other hand, it had no problems with the 2:3 pulldown test, as we couldn't see any moire in the grandstands as the race car drove by.

We moved onto program material, starting with Star Trek: Insurrection, and the BD-P3600 deftly handled the introduction, rendering both the hulls of the boats and the curved bridge railings smoothly. We flipped over to the difficult introduction of Seabiscuit and the BD-P3600 performed well again, lacking the jaggies and other image distortions that so frequently show up on this disc. That said, we had the Panasonic DMP-BD60 on hand to directly compare, and we'd give the nod to the Panasonic for DVD playback as it had a slightly cleaner and sharper look to it.