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Samsung HT-BD1252 review

Samsung HT-BD1252
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £400
inc VAT

A budget home cinema kit, the HT-BD1252's tinny speakers don't impress, and it has limited features.

Samsung’s minimalist HT-BD1252 player has subtle touch controls along the top and a small flap on the front panel that hides a USB port.

The volume control on the top of the case may be awkward if you need to stack another unit on top or place it under a shelf.

Speaker setup was a breeze, thanks to the colour-coded and shaped terminals. There’s no microphone for automatic setup, but you can adjust the distance and levels of satellites manually with a test tone. Apart from the large subwoofer, the speakers felt lightweight. Surround effects were crisp and produced an impression of space, but there wasn’t enough mid-range and the bass felt isolated. The centre speaker was particularly weedy.

There are no video inputs but an external iPod dock lets you watch video from your player, albeit via a composite video output. There’s a USB port for the optional WiFi dongle (around £60) and a card slot for an optional wireless rear speaker kit (around £70).

The HT-BD1252 took only 37 seconds to reach the main menu of a Blu-ray film from Off, and skipped through chapters in no time. In our DVD tests we found the picture smooth but saw a bit of ghosting. You can’t play Blu-ray content recorded to DVD, but AVCHD files recorded to DVD are supported.

You can access files on data discs and USB flash drives or over the network, if you’ve set up your PC for media streaming. Entering your username and password is awkward on the onscreen keyboard, but once it’s set up you have a basic media streamer, although only a bare minimum of media files are supported: JPEG photos, MP3 music and DivX videos. There’s no YouTube streaming, either.

Samsung’s HT-BD1252 is let down by poor format support (it also lacks DTS-HD MA) and no access to YouTube, while the speakers just aren’t beefy enough to warrant the ‘home cinema’ moniker. There are better kits at this price.

Details

Price £400
Rating ***

Connections

HDMI inputs 0
HDMI outputs 1
Component inputs 0
Component outputs 1
Output resolutions 480i, 480p, PAL (576i), 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
Total SCART sockets 0
SCART socket type N/A
S-Video input 0
S-video output 0
Composite inputs 0
Composite outputs 1
Stereo phono inputs 1
Stereo phono outputs 0
Coaxial S/PDIF inputs 0
Coaxial S/PDIF outputs 0
Optical S/PDIF inputs 2
Optical S/PDIF outputs 0
Multi-channel input no
Speaker configuration 5.1
Main unit end speaker connection type proprietary
Speaker end speaker connection type spring terminals
Other connections External iPod dock, FM antenna, optional wireless rear speaker kit
Wired network ports 10/100
Wireless networking support optional 802.11b/g

Playback

Surround sound formats Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic ll, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD HRA, DTS-HD MA Essential
Optical drive yes
Supported playback disc formats BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE, DVD±R, DVD±RW, CD-R, CD-RW
Audio format support MP3
Video playback formats MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX
Image viewing formats JPEG
Radio FM RDS

Speakers

Speaker configuration 5.1
RMS power output 1000W
RMS power centre 170W
RMS power front 330W
RMS power surround 330W
RMS power subwoofer 170W
Wall mountable no
Centre speaker cable length 3.0m
Front speaker cable length 4.0m
Surround speaker cable length 10.0m

General

Extras remote control, composite cable, FM antenna, speaker wire, iPod dock
Size 440x345x63mmmm
Subwoofer dimensions 201x410x403mmmm
Centre speaker dimensions 300x50x59mmmm
Front speaker dimensions 260x260x1120mmmm
Surround speaker dimensions 100x89x151mmmm
Power consumption standby 1W
Power consumption on 40W

Buying Information

Price £400
Warranty one year collect and return
Supplier http://www.play.com
Details www.samsung.com/uk