By Aaron Tan, a freelance writer

THE Samsung HT-BD8200 home theatre system is up a notch from the feeble-sounding speakers that come with most LCD television sets.

Built as a soundbar that houses two speakers and a Blu-ray DVD player, this lean system also comes with a wireless subwoofer.

That means no unsightly cables or speaker boxes strewn across the living room that might incur the wrath of your significant other.

The motorised disc-loading mechanism and touch-sensitive playback control panel are also likely to wow party guests.

The Samsung folks have clearly designed this home theatre-in-a-box with simplicity and ease-of-use in mind.

Connectors for digital content sources, such as an Apple iPod or USB drive, are on the side of the sound bar.

The one-touch buttons on the remote control unit are clearly labelled and let you choose DVD subtitle languages and audio encoding standards (Dolby Digital or DTS) in a jiffy.

The video quality I got from a Blu-ray disc of the movie Transformers was excellent: Colours were vibrant and the metallic details of the Transformer robots were rendered with sharpness and clarity.

While the system produces good quality treble and dialogue, do not expect the same kind of room-filling audio that 5.1-speaker home theatre set-ups produce.

To overcome the limitations of having just two speakers in the soundbar, Samsung uses a signal processing engine called V-sound to create a multi-channel surround sound experience by bouncing sounds off the walls.

Turning V-sound on and off, however, did not seem to produce any noticeable difference in surround effects.

During the movie, the subwoofer produced enough oomph with no signs of distortion, although the bass overpowered the speakers in some instances.

Here is the fix: On the sound bar's onscreen menu, set the subwoofer distance as the distance from where you are seated to it. For instance, if you are seated 3m away from the subwoofer, input that distance into the onscreen settings.

Also, lower the subwoofer volume if necessary.

Besides playing movies and music, the appliance can also stream media content from your PC over a home network using Windows file-sharing.

Note that the package does not include the Samsung Wireless LAN adapter that is required for you to hook the system up to a wireless network.

Setting up file-sharing could get a little tricky for newbies who have not done it before. Refer to the user manual for a step-by-step guide.

In any case, you can always plug a USB drive that contains your music or movies into the soundbar for playback. The soundbar also lets you create your own playlists.

Final say

The Samsung HT-BD8200 will jazz up any living room with its elegant design and good acoustics.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

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