Samsung HT BD1250 Blu ray Home Theater System
home theater system with Blu-ray Disc player/receiver, 5 speakers, and a subwoofer * built-in support for Netflix?movie and Pandora?music services (subscriptions required) * includes built-in iPod dock with audio, video, and iPhone support * console features Samsung’s Touch of Color?red accent * Energy Star?compliant * wireless rear speaker operation and wireless Internet streaming require Samsung’s optional wireless adapter * Anynet Plus technology for simplified operation with a compatible Samsung TV (HDMI-CEC) * video upconversion for standard DVD playback * built-in decoding for Dolby?Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital True HD? Dolby?Pro Logic?II, DTS, and DTS-HD Master Audio * 6-channel amplifier (165 watts x 4 for main and rear speakers, 170 watts x 2 for center speaker and subwoofer) * Crystal Amp technology improves sound quality * Smart Volume keeps listening levels steady *
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Does the job but with some quirks
Bought this to replace my old Samsung DVD player that lacked blue-ray.
The model has a good match with what I wanted. Small standard form factor so it can be stacked, in-built receiver and some audio in that I make use of.
I set it up and tried it with the only blue-ray movie I had at hand, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The player reported that it couldn’t play the format which made me wonder if the unit was dysfunctional. Made sure I had the latest firmware and called support to check if this movie had issues but that was a wasted hour.
Well, fortunately I tested other movies before returning the unit and they all play fine. Guess I’ll have to wait for a firmware update before I have another go at that movie.
My personally biased list would be:
Pros
* Netflix and Pandora streaming
* Small and quiet
* Dual optical in (one for my DVR one for my Logitech Squeezebox)
* Remote can handle basic functions on my Samsung TV
* Reasonable price/performance
Cons
* Buttons on unit on the front top of the box instead of front panel
* Slow start-up of blue-ray movies
* Seems to loose track of where you stop a movie on power down
* Wireless LAN adapter sometimes loose connection despite static IP
* Didn’t play Benjamin Button movie (see above)
* Audio out HDMI or speakers, not both
2 Stars Disapponiting sound. I’m returning it.
I’m annoyed at having to pay another $80 for the wireless dongle, and also at the lack of HDMI input, but the deal-breaker is the boomy sound of the speakers no matter which sound mode I choose. Even female newscaster’s voices are overly boomy. I’d be willing to use the system without the sub, but the satellite speakers sound anemic without it.
I’m not a sound snob. The $299 Panasonic HTIB I’m replacing sounded great(but no Blu Ray).
Guess I’ll have to add a separate BD player to the Panasonic and put up with the clutter. The Samsung system is unlistenable. It’s great that they hit a marketable price point with this BD-HTIB system, but it’s a dismal failure. I can’t believe the other reviews, unless I was sold a different version of the Samsung HT-BD1250.
5 Stars Just what I wanted.
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?
4 Stars So far so good, with caveats
After deciding on a Samsung HTIB system to integrate with my 2-year-old Samsung 46″ HDTV, I came across this HT-BD1250 system at Best Buy with all the features I wanted (Bluray, surround sound with wireless to the rear speakers, Anynet+ integration, iPod integration), plus a few that I decided were “nice-to-have” (wireless network integration/Pandora/Netflix). Once I realized I would need to add the Samsung SWA-4000 wireless speaker amplifier and additional HDMI and optical cables for integration with my TV and HD/DVR cable box, the total package through Amazon was by far the best deal and way to go.
First quick note: You DO NOT need anything other than BASIC HDMI cables, which when purchased as a package here with Amazon are 80+% cheaper (even with the shipping charge from the third-party vendors) than if you buy them at Best Buy or other brick/mortar. DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE on so-called “higher end” HDMI cables.
As for the HTIB system itself, I found that the documentation guided me through most of my installation/cabliing scenarios, and everything worked pretty much the first time once I powered everything up. I needed to make a few calls to Samsung tech support to get everything configured the way I wanted (I had some specific questions about the video/resolution modes switching between HD and non-HD inputs), but the support was English-speaking and reasonably competent. (I only got one “bum steer” from their tech support when I was making what turned out to be a user error on my part with the iPod integration, but the tech also didn’t identify it correctly and wanted me to send the unit in for service at my own expense…not an acceptable option. I later walked away from it for a few hours and then returned back to it with a clear head, and figured out my error in using the setup menus, and it turned out all was well after all.)
I should probably mention my wiring/integration setup: I have a Samsung LN-4661F HD TV, a Motorola HD/DVR cable box from my cable company, and now my Samsung HT-BD1250 HTIB. Cabling is as follows: HDMI Out from the Motorola HD/DVR cable box to HDMI In 1 on the TV (CATV audio and video are integrated on the HDMI), HDMI Out from the HD-BD1250 HTIB to HDMI In 2 on the TV (for DVD/BD video), and Optical Audio Out 1 from the TV to Optical Audio In 1 on the HD-BD1250 (to feed the CATV audio back from the TV to be reproduced through the HTIB’s sound amplifier).
I attempted to use a “standard” USB wireless network adapter to integrate with my home wireless network and found that it was unable to detect it; I suspect I could have made it work with some additional initial configuration first on my laptop, but I ended up scrapping that idea and I simply ordered the Samsung Wireless adapter for this unit, and it integrated perfectly with my home network in minutes. If you’re really tech-savvy and think you can get a “standard” USB wireless adapter configured to work with this, I suppose you could try to do so and save $30 or $40, but for $79.99 the Samsung WIS09ABGN adapter works right out of the box and is a supported solution.
As for the wireless network/Internet integration itself, I’ve tested Pandora and it works well; haven’t tested Netflix on demand yet. I also have yet to be able to figure out how to get integration with my PC via wireless to work as a source input (like to access music/multimedia I have on my PC), but it’s an advertised feature of this system and I’m confident I can hack my way through and make that work eventually…not a priority for me, though, just another “nice to have”.
The iPod integration works fairly well, but I’m a little disappointed that I was not able to figure out how to make “Shuffle” functionality work…I seem to be stuck playing my music in the order it’s stored in my playlists. Not sure yet if this is a limitation or if I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.
The wireless speaker connection to the rear speakers with the SWA-4000 configured well pretty much the first time (I just had to play with the power cycling upon initial configuration) and the sound has been loud and clear. I did experience exactly one sound dropout on it the first day which immediately resolved and has not recurred, but it got my attention and I’m concerned about it based on reviews I read of other Samsung HTIB systems with wireless rear speaker connections. We shall see.
Configured out of the box, sound to the rear speakers only comes out if the input source provides it (like from a Dolby 5.1-enhanced DVD or BD), but I found that by cycling through the Dolby Effect Modes on the remote to the “Matrix” setting, I can hear sound through all 5 speakers all the time…exactly what I want, and the sound is great.
Another quick item to mention: I tested a couple of “standard” DVDs and the “1080p upscaling” feature of the BD player works well. As a result of this, I plan to only choose the added expense of Bluray discs in cases when I know there will be real value added, either feature-wise or sound/picture-wise (example, I purposely chose The Dark Knight as my first Bluray disc purchase). For my 45-year-old eyes and ears, upscaled DVD will be more than adequate in most cases.
Finally, I found that even with Anynet+ capability, I still needed to access all 3 of my remotes (TV, HTIB, and CATV) to control all needed functionality. Samsung support informed me that Anynet+ capability would allow integrated power on/off and basic volume/channel control, but it would not allow advanced function control on my TV such as P.SIZE, etc. Keep your expectations realistic on what Anynet+ will and won’t provide. I solved this by also purchasing a Logitech Harmony One universal remote (which I have reviewed separately), and this product, while expensive, is a true one-remote solution for my new home theater setup, and one I would recommend highly.
Bottom line (for this reviewer): For me, the HT-BD1250 HTIB was not a true one-box solution. However, after adding the SWA-4000 wireless speaker amplifier, 2 inexpensive HDMI cables and 1 inexpensive optical audio cable, the Samsung WIS09ABGN adapter for wireless network/Internet integration, and the Logitech Harmony One universal remote, I am now extremely pleased with the result, and I look forward to using my new Home Theater every day after work. I feel like I’m finally fulfilling to potential of the HD TV that I purchased 2 years ago…and I now know that was certainly NOT the case with my old setup of just the TV and my HD/DVR box with a 5-way component cable providing the connection.
The Samsung HT-BD1250 HTIB is a good solution if you do your research and you set your expectation levels properly.
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Review update from author:
I spoke to Samsung Level II tech support, and they informed me that (a) PC integration is not available – the placard included with the system is “not exactly true”, and (b) Shuffle functionality on iPod is not available, despite the fact that Level I support told me I should be able to “use any feature that I can use conventionally on an iPod”. Again, “not exactly true”.
These are not showstoppers, but I am disappointed in those 2 shortcomings. Not enough to return the unit, but enough to hold my rating at only 4 stars instead of 5.
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Review update #2 from author:
Signed up for a trial subscription of Netflix, and tried the Instant Queue/Streaming to my HTIB. It works well, but we definitely found that the picture quality was not nearly DVD quality (let alone BD quality). We watched National Treasure 2. I’m sure this has to do with the speed of my Internet connection (<3Mb/sec) and my 802.11g wireless network (I don’t have 802.11n on my older router). Not enough to ruin the movie for us, but definitely a factor worth noting.
Still, having Netflix Streaming On Demand for a subset of their movie offerings is a nice entertainment option for us.
Review rating still stands at 4 stars out of 5 for me.
4 Stars Lovin it!
I’ve had this system for a couple of months now and I love it. It has good sound and is a good complement to my LN52A650. The only thing I don’t like about it (and based on my googling it’s not the system but the disc), the auto resume function doesn’t work with most of the blu ray discs I watch. Works fine on non blu ray but be prepared to restart most blu rays from the beginning every time you stop it. I use this system’s remote as the universal to control the TV so there’s no clutter. It has some pretty cool features to make sure you optimize the sound and I can’t wait to get the wireless adapter so I can stream Netflix and Pandora!
Buy/More Info
