Samsung has certainly had a turbulent year as a Blu-ray supporter. If only choosing one side in the HD Format War wasn't stressful enough, our friends at Samsung have had to endure early criticism of their first Blu-ray player, the BD-P1000 (we loved that machine), poor quality early titles, and the continuously delayed Blu-ray trump card, the Playstation 3. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Samsung had developed a follow-up model.

As this writing, it has already been a few months since the release of the BD-P1200. The general concensus among home theater enthusiasts is that the model is superior to its older brother, but we wanted to find out for ourselves. So with that in mind, we bring you the Samsung a battle of old vs new or rather BD-P1000 vs BD-P1200.

Features

• Blu-ray playback at content native HD resolution of 1080p/1080i/720p
• HQV video selectable upconversion processing (720p/1080i/1080p)
• HDMI 1.3 digital interface
• BD/DVD/CD playback
• Supports 24 frames per second
• Stereo and 5.1-channel audio outputs
• Ethernet port
• Dolby Digital, DTS, MP3 audio decoding

First Impressions

As always, Samsung brings their A-game when it comes to package design. The BD-P1200 comes in a blue and white coloured box, featuring a photograph of the unit on the side. Once again, showcasing Blu-ray's "Full HD 1080p" capabilities, using what's strikingly similar to a certain logo used by Blu-ray mastermind, SONY.

Inside the box was less impressive than last time. Samsung has opted to remove much of what made the unpackaging special with the BD-P1000. The inner layer of cardboard is gone, as is the artwork lining the inside of the box. While these things aren't integral to the performance of the unit, the excitement was certainly not the same as last time.

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