Samsung DVD-C350 DVD Player

There really isn't a lot to say about the Samsung DVD-C350 DVD Player. Is it that bad? No. It's that good. It plays DVDs. It creates brilliant images and crystal clear audio out of all proportion to its very low price. You're going to love it. If you need a DVD player but it. You'll be very pleased.

Well, we've got some space to fill here so we might as well tell you why you're going to love your C350 so much.

Definitely, the progressive scan feature is at the top of the list. The standard DVD image is interlaced. It's 1950s technology, literally. The engineers of the day had to design TVs that way because the technology was so slow that if you tried to scan TV images progressively the top of the screen would be getting dark by the time the scanning beam hit the bottom of the screen. (Think of how the radar scopes in old war movies looked. The plane on the screen is a bright blob when the beam hits it and then slowly darkens until the beam goes around and hits it again.)

History lesson over. That was then. This is now. Flat screens on modern TVs don't need interlaced images. So send them a progressive image and the picture looks much better. That what your C350 does. It also has component output. If you've bought your TV in the last few years it probably has one or more sets of component inputs. Look for three RCA (large-sized) jacks that might be marked Y, Pb and Pr. If you have them you're in luck. By separating and sending different parts of the TV image down separate wires, the picture is greatly improved. Strange but true.

So what does that advanced 14-bit video DAC do? Well obviously it's four bits better than the ten bit kind! Seriously it's just another circuit that helps make the picture even better.

So you've got an excellent video signal. What can we do about the sound? It's called digital coaxial audio out and it keeps the soundtrack in pure digital form from the DVD to your TV set. The result is the cleanest, clearest audio you can get out of a DVD.

You know those black bars you see on the top and bottom of the screen when you watch a widescreen movie on a 4:3 screen? That's called letterboxing. The black bars are on the side when you watch an old 4:3 TV show or movie on a widescreen set. Then it's called pillarboxing. Some people don't mind them because it maintains the aspect ratio of the original TV show or movie. Other people find them distracting and hate them. Guess what the EZView Letter Box Eliminator does? Exactly. If you like letterboxing and pillarboxing leave it off. If you find them distracting turn on EZView. If you like it one way and your spouse likes it the other way, well, we're not touching that one.

In addition to the kind of regular DVDs you buy or rent, your C350 can play a number of different kinds of DVDs and CDs you (or more likely your kids) can burn on the computer. And you can enjoy a number of different file formats including JPEG images and MP3 song tracks.

Wow. Looks like we had more to say about the C350 than we thought we did. We just have one more thing to add. Your C350 not only starts out affordable it stays affordable. It draws a whopping six watts when it's playing. We've got gizmos that pull that much power in standby mode.

The Samsung DVD-C350 DVD Player is an EPA Energy Star. With those kinds of numbers we'd say it's more like an Energy Superstar.