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Samsung 5 DVD Player
DVD swings and round-a-bouts!
By Max Christoffersen
February 2001
Samsung C-700 multi-DVD player. $1499
"Who needs a 5-disc DVD player..?"
That was first question from the cheap seats when the Samsung SC700 DVD carousel player arrived. "Why does anyone want to watch 10 hours of movies?
"Well if you got 'em why not play 'em?" was my reply.
"Yeah but 10 hours...?"
"Well you could always play 5 CDs instead..."
Obviously, to some, a 5-disc DVD player does seem over the top. If you watched 5 discs complete with supplementary information in one sitting, you could read this review, watch a one-day cricket match, do the NZ Herald crossword, run a marathon and still have time for a flight to Sydney and back and the Sammie would still be playing.
So all in all, why do you need a 5 disc DVD player? Well like most things audio today, for convenience. I really like the concept of having five films (or five CDs) in storage ready to go. And I have to concede, the Samsung converted me.
So now you've got an idea why you need the Samsung, maybe you want to know if you want the Samsung!
First let's give some credit where its due. This Korean company has been working hard to foot it with the big guys of audio and they are genuinely competing in the DVD market with their range of players. Go back 10 years and read the audio mags. Samsung is nowhere to be seen. But pick them up today, and there are new DVD players sporting features some of their major league competitions have yet to develop.
The American market Samsung N2000 sports NUON games compatibility; my own Samsung 905 was among the first to offer RGB output and the UK market bought thousands of Samsung 709s. And when you look at the line-up of review products in mainstream audio magazines you find the usual Sony, Sharp, and Meridian names alongside... Samsung (December 2000 Stereophile Guide to Home Theater). Samsung has sure come a long way in a short time!
First things first - what's the build quality like? The C700 appears as somewhat lightweight unit, with a brushed-plastic-aluminium-look-a-like fascia. From a distance with its jog button, it does a remarkable impression of an HT receiver. But it also looks very uncluttered given it's a busy five disc machine.
The remote follows the very ergonomic Samsung style, but this time with a small joystick-style toggle in the middle. And yes, the remote does have open/close on it and a 'next disc' key allowing you to change discs from your seat. Another handy feature is the DVD-memory that means even when the player is turned off, the DVD will start from the last scene it played.
In operation, the thing I Iiked most, is it's fast! This is the fastest player I have seen going from chapter to chapter or from menu to chosen selection. This really makes for a machine to show off to the friends. The needless DVD delays are no more. This machine shoots off after your selection like Stephen Fleming after a slip catch. The disc drive is also quieter than my own Samsung, which can be a make-or-break factor that many enthusiasts overlook.
The Samsung also sports component video outputs as well as S-Video and composite and features its own on board DD decoder and PAL and NTSC playback compatibility. Digital optical out connections as well as digital coaxial outputs round out the very comprehensive range of connections on the back panel.
To get a feel for the Samsung, I used the coaxial out to my Yamaha DSPA-1 and found the player equipped itself well as a transport only machine. Predictably it sounds a little brittle, and not overly warm with a slight trace of top end sibilance, but otherwise a very easy-going and very enjoyable performance on both music and DVD.
For the first time, I also tried an on-board DD decoder and I was genuinely amazed with the results. The set-up can be fiddly but follow the on screen instructions and you too may find that the Samsung's on board DD decoding is good enough for all but the most demanding home theatre enthusiast. All the clean definition of Dolby Digital was there. It works and it works well enough to suggest that it might be a tough pick in a double-blind A/B test.
I tested the video out put going directly to my projector and found that while the PAL image looked very clean, the NTSC image available from open zone music-concert discs (G3 Live, Sarah Mclachlin and Best of Sessions at West 54th St) exhibited the tell-tale signs of being a transcoded NTSC to PAL signal. So set your display device to PAL when playing any discs (not auto) or you will likely have red banded lines across your screen when using NTSC DVDs.
The PAL image however was gorgeous through a stock composite signal feed and scenes from test discs like A Bug's Life, Toy Story and The Shawshank Redemption all looked exquisite. When selected to PAL, the NTSC DVDs also looked OK, but with some image shrinkage and black banding top and bottom.
But okay here we go: Not all was well in Samsung Land. Three days in, it decided it didn't like Zone 4 discs anymore and refused to load anything for the entire day. It simply took a hissy fit and wouldn't budge. So I left it alone, came back the next day and it played perfectly and continued to. Put it down to shifting it from its original location or maybe a ghost in the machine from its older sibling right next door!
Some other quirks surfaced: The headphone socket didn't work and one ergonomic bug-bear: you'll need your TV on to select random play as the on-screen menu display is not repeated on the player itself. And the loading tray really could use the disc numbers to be in bright white, when the tray comes out it's hard to tell which disc number goes with what disc and at night it's impossible to see.
So some quirks and maybe a ghost in the machine aside, but the Samsung did a lot very right and it made me a believer in the multi-disc concept! It's worth the price of entry ($1499) just for the swift tracking and component outputs on a multi-disc player. You may end up playing more five CD lots than DVDs, but that is what it's for.
And if you really want to pull an all-nighter DVD session, thank Samsung for allowing you to play the Aliens saga complete from beginning to end without ever leaving your seat!
[Zone information: the Samsung C-700 is supplied as a Zone 4 player. These can be multizoned at Next Electronics for around $45]
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