Digital Trends

Samsung DVD-HD960 June 18th, 2007 | by Justin Whitaker

Features and Design

The slim design of the HD960, along with the glossy black front panel, accented by a silver lining along the bottom, gives the player a high-tech and low-profile look that will blend seamlessly with other audio and video components in your home theater. The front of the player is simple and straightforward, with only the essential controls laid out along the front panel. The power button is placed on the left corner and emits a soft blue glow once the unit is powered on. The basic controls of play, pause, fast forward, and rewind are consolidated on a black circle control in the far right-hand corner, and the only other control button is the open/close for the DVD tray. An LED display to the right of the DVD tray supplies the basic information about the disc being played. All in all, the minimalist design does a very good job of blending together both function and style.

The included remote control provides a plethora of control options for operating the DVD player. The nice part about the audio and display options with the HD960 DVD player is that it offers a number of tweaking options for serious videophiles. It also offers an "EZ Set" option to toggle through a preset list of display resolutions to allow you to easily find the resolution that looks best on your TV. The layout of the remote is straightforward and well thought out, with the most commonly used buttons (play, pause, stop, chapter skip) placed directly in the center for easy access. I do wish, however, that the most often used buttons were somehow differentiated more clearly from the other buttons — either with a larger size or with a different color — to allow them to be easily found in the low light levels typically found in a home theater environment.


Features

• Upconversion of standard 480p DVD format to 720p/1080i/1080p
• HDMI output
• DivX (MPEG-4) and HD JPEG format support
• Slim design

Image Courtesy of Samsung