Samsung HT-BD1250 Blu-ray Home Cinema System
Samsung was the first company to unleash a one-box Blu-ray system with last year's HT-BD2, a 7.1 setup with a Profile 1.0 player at its core. Fast forward a year and the Korean company has followed it up with a range of systems based on its latest Profile 2.0 decks, whose Wi-Fi BD Live support, lightning-quick loading times and built-in memory make them arguably the best on the market.
Among these new systems is the HT-BD1250, a 5.1-channel affair that offers all the above features and more. It looks pretty special on paper, but faces stiff competition from the LG HB954PB and Panasonic SC-BT205, both of which impressed us with stellar AV performance and a tasty range of features. So how does the HT-BD1250 measure up?
One thing's for sure - Samsung trumps them both on the looks front. The combined Blu-ray spinner and 5.1-channel receiver looks like a slightly bigger version of the BD-P3600, with its slanted edges and touch-sensitive buttons along the top. It's also decked out in the same gloss black finish that adorns 99% of home cinema kit out there at the moment (would it hurt someone to use multicoloured stripes once in a while?) but it does make the unit look undeniably sleek and sophisticated.
Both the Panasonic and LG systems use spouse-bothering tallboy speakers, but the BD1250's use a more modest bookshelf design. Their compact shape makes them much easier to place around the room if space is tight, and although they're not a patch on LG's champagne flutes, their gloss-black finish makes them an attractive feature. They're light but sturdy, and each one is perched on a plastic stand that clips on the bottom.
The speaker line-up is completed by one of the smallest centres we've ever encountered - it's about the same size as the remote - and a passive subwoofer remarkable only for its glossy front panel and compact size. All of the speaker cones are made from Bio Kelp, which uses the sonic properties of seaweed (obviously) to deliver what Samsung describes as 'higher resolution sound'. It's good for the environment too.
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Great picture, good sound, dreadful build quality
3rd July 2011, By SamsungUser
We bought a Samsung BD-1250 in November 2009 when they first came out alongside a 40" LED TV and thought the picture quality was fantastic and the sound pretty good. The Samsung TV/Blu-Ray Player integration is a bit clunky as are the controls - scene selection isn't always available and sometimes when paused the player goes back to the start of the disk. However, we then found out that Samsung's software configuration management is awful. In 2010 we purchased Avatar, which didn't wouldn't play and we had to upgrade the software from Samsung's website, this fried the motherboard and it had to be replaced (luckily under warranty). Since then the player was intermittently not playing Blu-Rays, the sound kept going out of sync with the pictures, some Blu-Rays stopped in the middle and wouldn't restart or the sound would go. We took it back to Samsung's repair centre and they had it for 5 weeks while Samsung created new software version (we went from v 13 to v 71). It has now come back and we've had it for 2 weeks and the player just stops intermittently and goes onto standby for no apparent reason. When we switch it back on the machine has pictures but no sound and you have to load another Blu-Ray to get the sound back. All of this seem to be down to very poor software on the Blu-Ray player and I fear having to perform any further upgrades as it may break the machine again. We will purchase a Panasonic, Sony or LG instead. Be warned about this player.
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