Samsung DVD-HD950

Pros: design, remote features, easy set up

Cons: mediocre picture quality

Summary: purchasing a new LCD TV meant that i needed a new DVD player since I'd bought my old one back in 1999. After reading a few reviews, I decided to buy the HD950. I was quite pleased with the fact that i was literally able to set this player up in 5 minutes. Where i wasn't impressed was in the area of picture quality via any connection (S-Video + RCA, component and even HDMI) Being that HDMI is the newest standard in audio/video this was my default choice. Upon popping in my Star Wars EP III DVD i was quite disappointed. Picture resolution (at 720p) was not great. After fine tuning in the DVD player's menu, there was a slight improvment, but not much. I found the PQ to be soft and the colors were off, even after adjusting from the player and the TV. Believe it or not, I've actually had better luck using the component cables. Although resolution is still a bit soft, it looks better than the HDMI connection and the colors are truer. There is one problem that's arisen with this connection and that is the appearance of flickering black horizontal lines, particularly in the upper letterbox portion of the screen and sometimes in the middle. It is worse on some DVDs than others.