No dual record
Wish that deficiency had been mentioned earlier! What a chocolate teapot this thing is?!
On the face of it, Samsung's BD-D8900 seems to be the ideal convergence product that will allow you to get rid of the stack of boxes that hide under your TV. Not only does this deck act as a 3D-compatible Blu-ray player, but it also has an integrated twin tuner Freeview HD DVR, along with support for Samsung's Smart Hub internet …
I am loosing patience with manufacturers who build something sensible then strip out the best bits to save 38 cents.
It's just twattishness, and I don't buy things from twats. My last home entertainment purchase was from Humax, who are pretty generally non-twattish about things like this.
It's not standard (as the review makes clear) but Blu-Ray players do take a while to load discs. Nobody seems to know why. However, having had a Sony BR player for about 18 months, I can genuinely say it has never bothered me. I don't know how long it takes to load BR discs - I'm not sad enough to time them. DVDs start near-enough instantly. Knowng BR discs take a little while I normally put the disc in first, then turn on the telly, close the curtains, turn down the lights etc and by the time I actually sit down the disc is up and the animated menus are on with the (always too loud) background music.
If you remember that most discs come with about 5 minutes of ads before you get to the damned film anyway (yes YOU Disney!) the few seconds waiting for the disc to load is immaterial.
I do wish I knew why, though.
The menu gubbins for BDs is written in Java. Most BD players skimp on processing mips and memory. If you have a complicated splash-screen-menu-doohickey and you have BD-live content then they grind to a halt. It's like loading a whizzy web 2.0 site on a craptastic old PC.
There are some players that are quicker (Oppo and the newer Panasonic allegedly).
The ugly bastard child.. is an unloved device hence the industry will conclude that no-one wants a BR Player combined with a DVR and from hence forth there will be two boxes under everyones telly..
OK three boxes if you have a surround sound.. so 4 devices in total if you count the screen itself..
When I was a kid growing up we only had one device it was called a telly! why have we fallen for this con of taking bits out of the telly and selling them separately??
Technika Smartbox 8320HD Freeview HD+ (http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.208-9147.aspx)
Possibly more features! iptv iplayer skyplayer etc, internal wifi - smaller HDD and no BR.
Am I happy with it? Well if you asked me 6 months ago No! but now overall yes, they have released a lot of updates to fix a lot of bugs it works much better now. I would not want to upgrade unless it was a significantly improvement... I might upgrade my TV to a freeview HD+ integrated TV.
I recently picked up an LG HR-600 for only £200.
It seems to do everything this one does (twin tuner Freeview HD recording, Blu-ray, 802-11n WiFi, iPlayer, Youtube, DLNA) though the hard drive is a bit on the small side (250GB).
Pretty happy with it - it isn't quite as slick as a Humax, but everything works as it's supposed to (which seems to be a rarity with these things).
For half the price you can get a PS3 slim (price fluctuates, got my 250gb for the bedroom for £196 new), which is a better 'convergence' product. iplayer, lovefilm, blu/dvd (fast loading as well), media playback over the network, web browser etc. Get a play TV kit and it's a dual freeview PVR with an amazing interface for £30 extra. Get a PSP, and you have remote view stuff.
Yes, I sound a bit like a fanboy, but no one has mentioned it yet and it's really a cracking device (and I didn't even mention the G word.)