Talk about an overachiever! Samsung's DVD-HD841 combines top picture quality with terrific multichannel high resolution audio. Owners of newer High-Definition televisions need to know about this DVD player. It can "upconvert" DVD video to use more of your TV's HD capabilities — you can enjoy picture quality that's noticeably sharper than progressive-scan DVD (480p).

The player's built-in "scaler" lets you select from three upconverted resolution options — 720p, 768p or 1080i — for the best-looking picture with more TV types (TV must have a DVI input). For tube TVs, 1080i generally works best, while 720p is the perfect match for DLP big-screens. The 768p setting matches the native resolution of many HD-ready flat-panel plasma and LCD TVs.

The improvement in picture quality comes from letting the DVD-HD841's advanced scaler circuitry do the video conversion normally handled by the TV. The DVD-HD841 performs this scaling internally, while the signal is still digital. When the signal passes to the TV via a DVI connection, the upconverted signal stays digital until it's displayed on the screen, thus eliminating a cycle of digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversions and the accompanying loss in signal quality. A DVI connection typically provides a sharper picture than component video on any TV, but the difference is most dramatic on "fixed-pixel" displays: DLP, plasma and LCD, and LCoS. (And don't worry — this player still gives you a great picture if you've just got a standard TV.)

The DVD-HD841 is a high-performance audio player, as well, with multichannel decoding for movies (Dolby® Digital/DTS®) and music (Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio).

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