Samsung UHD Movie Pack Review

dolfin

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If you have bought a UHD TV this year, one question that might hunt is what about UHD content? Seriously, official presence of UHD content in India is absolutely nothing. Given the lack of internet bandwidth, watching online is ruled out. One might download demo clips and short documentaries from the web, thats all! UHD BluRay Players are still to establish and it does not make sense to invest now. There are UHD rips but all are highly compressed and compromise quality. My options were going scant and then I came across an unusual option Samsung UHD Move Pack. (Model - CY-SUC10SH1)

Its a 1 terabyte hard disk with 10 legitimate UHD movies and 30 documentaries. It was costing ?5000 on GEB. With blank HDD costing upwards of 3k, it seemed a good option and I purchased it. It contains G.I. Joe: Retaliation, World War Z, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Night at the Museum, The Counsellor, Forrest Gump, Star Trek: The Future Begins, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Life of Pi & The Book Thief. Choice is not available but at least not total crap.

I had to wait for around 20 days till it arrived from US. I had kept my fingers crossed. It is to be directly connected to Samsung One connect box. What if the files do not play? What if the quality is compromised like other web material? I had my backup plans ready. If it does not play, I would connect it to nVidia Shield TV and try playing it through Kodi or Plex. Finally it came and here are my first thoughts about it.

Packaging & Build Quality (7/10):
It is normal like any other Hard Disk. It comes with a White USB 3.0 Micro B type cable and an instruction booklet. Build quality is normal like any other HDD.

Connectivity (8/10):
The booklet says that device is compatible with Samsung 2014 and 15 line Televisions and requires internet connection and it is to be plugged directly to the One Connect Box.

Software Interface (6/10):
The device got connected to 2016 line TV effortlessly. Once connected, the interface identifies it as UHD Video Pack and searches for some server. On first click the interface reported error that it is not able to connect to the server and did not allow to enter in the folder. Upon second click I went inside. For the first time Interface allows to set access password for media rating. That means accessing the media equal and above that rating requires password. This is a nice feature. However I could not find a setting to change that later. The interface is presented in vertical tiles and easy to navigate. By default all media is shown. There is no way to filter or sort. Clicking on the tile opens internal media player to play the file. Subtitles can be set on-off through the option. Overall its a basic interface, do not expect a media player experience.

Media Quality & Conclusion (7/10): :thumbsup:
Good things first. Media quality is great and not compromised. Initial load time is 3-4 seconds but once loaded it plays effortlessly. However the media is designed for TV playback. There is no multi-channel audio. Just plain 2.1 PCM sound. Theres no HDR. Since the product is designed two years back, this is quite expected. Apart from those movies, rest of the things are just stuffed to fill the space. I was amazed to find Samsung demo clips and Tears of Steel there! There are few good documentaries though such as Bears, Cappadocia, Grand Canyon Adventure, Legend of Flight, Seven Wonders of the World, Genet and The Last Reef etc.

As an experience UHD Movie Pack delivers what it is designed for. Nothing great. However as a format it has immense potential. 10 movies on BluRay would easily cost around 8-10k. 5k on HDD is not a bad bargain. Cut down those extra useless documentaries and give a good multi-channel sound track (TrueHD or DTS-HD). Offer the user to have choice of movies, polish the interface a little-bit and you have a great product. Movie houses may not go for this format in a big way and it may remain as Samsung niche. But hats off to Samsung for at least thinking out of the Box
 
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