Strengths: great picture (when it worked)

Weaknesses: locking-up (frozen picture), skipping

Summary: I am 0/3 with this unit. My first experience was not the best. All of my DVDs (burnt and new) would skip ahead chapters for no reason. I gave it 2 weeks and returned it to BB. I got another, went home.....went through the set-up menu and the screen would freeze and the unit would become unreponsive ( I had to unplug to reset).....this happened several times even when using the remote for rewinding or fastforwarding. So I returned the DVD palyer one more time and got another of the same. Got home, exact same time, plus the DVD tray would not open or would be very delayed, had to push open button several times. So after 2 hours of this, I returned it for refund. I am very dissapointed with Samsung for this product and it as turned me off Samsung products. I have the Samsung 50" plasma (S5053) and very happy with that product but not so with thier DVD players.

Strengths: Great Picture

Weaknesses: HDMI cable not included

Summary: After trying my old DVD player on my new Samsung 5064 plasma I quickly ran out to BB and picked up this model. Picked up a HDMI cable at Sams. Was not disappointed. The uncoverted picture looked as good as the 1080i signals I'd been getting over cable (outstanding). Unit has a small footprint and I liked the black finish.

Strengths: n/a

Weaknesses: everything about it

Summary: Well I purchased this dvd player from tiger direct I was very curious to see how an up convert 1080i dvd player would look on my DLP 42" samsung and I was very disapointed when I took the dvd player out of the box and plugged it in and all of the sudden the power "on" light and the "standby" light started to blink rapidly and an aweful clicking noise as well! I started to smell that electric smell so I unplugged it. I waited a 1/2 hour then plugged it back it in it started to do it again! So, I let it do that for 3 hours finally I unplugged it for 10 min. then plugged it back in. What do you know? The stand by light was steady and it looked normal! I plugged it in to my home theater and picked out X-men 2 to do my tweaking and a couple burned dvd's that I had problems with playing in an older sony 5 carousel dvd player. Well, after tweaking the settings I put the dvd in the tray then it said loading heard it spin then all of the sudden on the screen it says "error can't read disc" I tried 1 audio cd, 1 burned dvd-r movie and a brand new dvd I just bought all said the same error can't read disc. I called samsung today and they said for me to reset it and see what happens if that doesn't work they said a lense cleaner. I'm not going to run out and buy a $13-$19 lense cleaner just for this item I'm going to return they said if that doesn't work to send it in and would take 7-14 business days to fix. Well, I got a RMA from tiger direct and ordered a Panasonic DVD S53S HDMI upconvert dvd player. It has all the same functions as the samsung dvd-hd870 minus a toslink optical out put. I use the digital coaxial so no biggie. I think this player at first glance is sleek, light weight and simple. But overall experience has been disappointing. There was hardly any reviews about the samsung HD-870 on line so I wanted to share my experience with this piece of sh.. For $79.99 it seems you would be getting a $100+ dvd player but, I wish it worked to tell you overall how it plays the 720p upconvert for regular SD dvd's.