Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Harman Kardon, a division of Harman International Industries, Incorporated (www.harman.com), today announced the introduction of its first Blu-ray DiscTM media player, the Harman Kardon® BDP 1. The Harman Kardon brand, long respected in the sound industry, builds on its home theater heritage by offering the exciting new features of the next-generation of Blu-ray Disc media. By including BD-Live with the BDP 1 player, home-theater buffs who have vast Blu-Ray-disc movie collections have access to a new world of interactive content, including games, ringtones and other specialized Internet content. With its elegant design, the BDP 1 complements high-definition displays and audio/video receivers, while the unique Harman Kardon user interface simplifies setup and operation."

There aren't that many big-brand-name players making Blu-ray players, so it's nice to see another step into the field - although the name Harmon Kardon fills me with some anger given what I recently went through with my Harmon Kardon amplifier - more on that later. The direct-from-Harmon-Kardon price of $499 USD seems more than a little steep, especially since I didn't see anything in the specs that jumped out at be as being significantly different over other Blu-ray players on the market today.

This is the review I posted to Amazon.com. I figured I'd share it with the esteemed readers of this site - you'll want to avoid this product.

As a Blu-ray player, I have no signifant complaints other than by default the Bonus View is turned on and it will say the words "Bonus View" in every second of the movie. You have to go into the settings to turn this off - you can't turn if off with the remote, which is hugely irritating. Oh, and it's pretty sluggish starting up and with most menu functions. The REAL problem, and trust me when I say this, is this player's incompatibility with regular DVDs. Out of the box, I had problems with the player sputtering and stuttering while playing regular DVDs. And these were brand new DVDs, with nary a scratch or smudge. I tried updating the firmware - same problem. I used a DVD head cleaner - same problem. I called Samsung and sent it in for repair, got it back, and the third regular DVD I tried it it ("Cellular") started skipping wildly about half-way through. This is a brand new DVD, the first time playing it. Samsung released a buggy product, and they've already released a newer version (the BD-P1600), leaving all owners of this current product in the lurch. Do not buy this product - it's a classic case of a big company releasing a flawed product them quickly replacing it.