The Official Samsung BD-P1500 Owner's Thread - Page 5

Probably because Samsung has a pretty pathetic reputation for reliable BD players.

I am still looking for critical feedback on its SD performance. I believe the 1200 model had great SD performance that went away with the 1400. I wonder how long until Secrets put this player through the ringer.

AdmiralJoker,

I see this is your first post. Not only is it informative, it's hilariously entertaining. Hope to see more from you!

I bought a 1500 after returning a Magnavox/Funai player that had an excessively loud fan. Just my luck, the 1500 was DOA. Well, not quite dead as it would display the splash screen and I could get into the setup menu, but it wouldn't load any discs (the LOAD message stayed on the display indefinitely). I'll return it in the next few days, and I'm done with trying out these new players. My S300 may be slow, and it doesn't bitstream the advanced audio codecs, but at least it works reliably with no excessive noise.

I have tested it briefly against my toshiba a30 for sd playback. I am sorry to say it is not as good. I am using a projector with a 104" screen so any difference is noticable. I would not sat it is bad by any means, just thaty the toshiba is better.

That indeed is true, no player is perfect. Sorry to ruffle your feathers over my comments, hey look, I am a consumer too and wanted to be a fan of Samsung on several purchases and was let down so I got a right to an opinion being that this is a forum and all. Bottom line is that this player looks cheap to me, sorry if that bothers you....as far as performance, it may be Samsungs first winner, who knows. All I am saying is they got arguably the worst track record out of all these machines so for your sake, I hope you got a good one. It wouldn't surprise me though that once we start getting a little deeper into this thread, the issues will start to surface. As you said, no player is perfect, some are just less prone to issues/better supported than others, if you feel in your due diligence that Samsung is a good bet, that is all that matters.

You're right, this is a forum. In this forum, there are individual threads on specific topics. The topic of this thread is comments from owners of a particular Blu-ray player and questions from potential owners or people curious about this model. Trashing Samsung because of one's past experience, or just because they may have a tarnished reputation with some, is not the topic of this thread.

No one says you can't have an opinion, or that you can't post your opinion. But, one should remain on topic, or at least close to it for a thread like this to be useful to others.


That's the problem. You aren't listening, only talking. "who knows" is the owners of this player and this is a thread for them to share their experience. You don't own this player yet are intent on offering an opinion that doesn't help anyone on this topic.

Oh I hear you my friend and in terms of helping people, I may be helping someone avoid a mistake, however, I do hope things work out for you on your decision. Contrary to your opinion, I am not on a crusade against Samsung, when I was considering the 1400, many told me it was just a matter of time before it would let me down, I bought it anyway and should have listened. The 1500 certainly deserves a shot for those willing to ignore Samsungs' track record and are motivated to save a couple of bucks, I still say it looks and feels cheaply made and I am not inspired by what I have read regarding their customer service, again, maybe things have improved this time around. As mentioned, things were pretty rosey with the Panasonic for a while but the issues slowly started to crop up on that one too and that is supposedly the best value/supported player at the momment.

I don't know, the 1500 isn't that compelling over the Panasonic except if you are solely motivated by dollars and cents and for that I say there will be a price to be paid one way or another. I will step aside and see where the thread develops, hopefully in the right direction for all who take a chance on this one, I think we all deserve a winner from bluray, I just am skeptical that we are not quite there yet.

I bought this player recently at Best Buy. I wanted a Blu-Ray player with BD 2.0 and DTS-HD compatibility. This is my 2nd blu-ray player; my first is a PS3. Without going through an extensive review, the player works fine though I was disappointed that the support for DTS-HD MA is unclear. This player is connected to my 2nd audio setup and I have only auditioned it hooked up to my TV via HDMI.

Sadly, I am contemplating returning the player because of random audio drop out issues I am encountering with just about every movie I have viewed. Perhaps my first inclination to buy either the upcoming Panasonic BD-50 was the correct one. Oddly enough, I have had no issues with my 60GB PS3.

I too had thought this player handled DTS-HD MA, but the Samsung website clearly states that it does not:

"DTS HD decoder - No"
"Dolby True HD decoder - Yes"

BluRay 2.0 ready, but no DTS-HD MA. Sad...

Can you be more specific? What is your audio configuration and what player settings are you using?

Since no one else is experiencing the same issues you describe, it seems likely you have a defective player, or perhaps something set up incorrectly.

This player outputs DTS-HD MA in bitstream form, as was described by Samsung when the player was announced. DTS-HD MA decoding was never claimed for this player.

What's sad about that?

Sure.

I have the player hooked up via HDMI to my Panasonic HDTV. I have the audio settings at PCM (which I believe is the default factory settings). Normally, I would use the HDMI to my audio receiver but I didn't want to replace my PS3 in my dedicated room since this player does not do DTS-HD decoding.

I was planning on buying a new receiver for the family room setup that supported DTS-HD (MA) decoding in the future. Hope that adds clarity.

For the record, I have tried about 6 films total. Some rentals via Blockbuster and a couple that I own. All but one exhibited the audio drop out intermittently throughout the films. I will try switching HDMI cables to see if that helps.

Doubtful that will be the issue. If you had an inadequate HDMI cable, you would most likely be seeing some form of video dropouts.


I don't suppose you would recall if the discs you had dropouts on were PCM audio tracks?

The only "problem" I have been able to replicate is a few very brief audio drops using the PCM track on Ratatouille.

The 1500 is 2.0 capable, loads faster, and does not have the True HD audio dropout problem that the BD-30 has. It is also $100-150 cheaper. I liked my BD-30 but to say the only thing the 1500 has over the BD-30 is a cheaper price couldnt be further from the truth.

I have to add one important thing concerning the new hi rez audio formats. My last BD player internally decoded dolby true HD and it maybe sounded slightly better than regular dolby digital to my Emotiva processor. My new samsung 1500 bitstreaming dolby true hd to my recently purchased integra 9.8 processor sounds so much better than before it is almost scarry. What i mean is that if you really want to enjoy the new audio formats to the fullest extent , you really must have a receiver or processor that decodes them. IMO letting the BD player decode the audio is not nearly as good as having a reciever or processor handle it. The difference on my system is night and day.

Off the top of my head, these are the last films I remember viewing on this particular player. I've noted some of my observations that I recall:

National Treasure
National Treasure 2 (Only a few times in the first half of the film)
Good Luck Chuck (6-8 drop outs throughout film)
Mr. Woodcock (no problems)
Twister

Do you suppose that this is isolated to direct HDMI connection to a TV as primary audio? Perhaps most people are not seeing it as they are using their receivers either through optical or HDMI... Just a guess. I really don't mean to be the wet blanket in this thread. It's certainly possible that I have one of the few defective players.

Still no audio drop out for me, Just watched:

Spiderman 3 - Truehd
Tears of the sun - Pcm

Dan, what was your last BD player? Very few players internally decode DolbyHD or DTSMA. The PS3 and a few high end players do but not many more at this time. That is the reason why I am asking the question. The sound from internal and external decoding should be the same.

Possibly, but I can't say for certain. I know the audio section in a TV is nowhere near as good as what one would find in even an entry level AV receiver.

The titles you listed are a mix of PCM and TrueHD, and all have Dolby Digital tracks as well. Like others here, I have found no issues at all with any lossy or lossless codecs (all flavors of Dolby and DTS), only a few very slight drops in a PCM track, and these are so slight I had to listen for thewm two or three times to make sure I heard something.

There are a number of reasons why they wouldn't be the same, but that is another thread. We should stick to the topic here so as not to derail the thread.

I have same dropout problem. Had 1500 connected to Onkyo 805 via HDMI. I already have a BD-30 that's works perfectly, so the 1500 will go back, maybe in time when prices and bugs all get worked out I may try another one.

I have the same setup as you but with no audio dropouts so far. What movies? Are the dropouts random or repeatable?

Thanks!

I had dropouts with Celine Dion A New Day and TrueHD during chapter 8. I think it's due to heat but my best guess. I put the same disc in my BD-30 played from start to end and watched for any dropouts and played without issue. I could have a bad player, however I was more curious about the 1500 and even if it did not have a drop out problem, I think the BD-30 will be hard to beat or even equal, so the 1500 would have to get a multitude of positive feedback on this forum for me to even consider trying another. On the plus side, it's great your 1500 is working good for you, I wish you all the luck, it seems the technology will take a few more years to get perfected, (hardware and software).

Anybody that can listen to an entire Celine Dion concert - in HD audio - twice - in one day, deserves my respect.

Thanks, I think? Anyway only made it to chapter 8 with the 1500 so less than 1 1/2 times in one day, WHEW!

I had this problem watching Ratatouille last night. It seemed like more than just an audio drop. It felt as if the video paused slightly as well.

MY other player is a Sharp . It says that it decodes dolby true. Maybe i am just lucky but i have not had one single audio drop out yet. By tyhe way i am not a big fan of samsung. I had a samsung plasma for a week and returned for a panasonic plasma that was much better. I bought this machine only because i wanted to hear the hi rez audio formats through my new processor. I had every intention of returning it after that and buying the panasonic 50 when it is released.

I've also had the audio dropout problem on my 1500. So far we've watched 3 blu ray movies (ratatouille, the departed, HP Order of the Phoenix) and 2 DVDs. There were no dropouts at all on the DVDs. Ratatouille had either all the dropouts or most. I'm not 100% sure if there were any dropouts on the departed, if there were there weren't many and I didn't watch all of the HP movie with the kids, but the parts I saw had no dropouts.

The dropouts all appeared to be just audio, and were all less than 1 sec, I'm guessing that there were at least 3 and maybe up to 5 on ratatouille. I was kinda hoping that it was a one off problem, but now hearing others are also running into it makes me wonder if this is the blu ray player for me.

One other problem I ran into last night was it seemed that the player booted in an unstable mode. I turned it on, opened the drawer dropped in the DVD Grand Prix and hit the close button. Nothing happened, so I hit the close button 3 more times and still nothing happened. I then went looking for the remote, and while looking my son walked up and pushed the close button, that time the drawer closed, but the player wouldn't read the disc, eventually it popped up a message saying the disc couldn't be played. Then my son hit the power button, turned it off, and turned it on again. This time he opened it up, closed it on the first try, and we proceeded to watch the movie with no other issues at all.

I'm a little bit bummed about these very small problems, because aside from them, everything else on the player works pretty well.

I'll probably keep it for 30 days and then decide if I should bring it back and wait for the s350.