Official Samsung BD-P1600 Owners/master thread - Page 5

Well I'll be thoroughly enjoying my DVD collection with a quality scaling alongside what BD is available while you're limiting yourself to just "good HD content"...

There's nothing to say the P1600 isn't capable of good scaling, but there's nothing (like a known quality scaling architecture) to say that it is capable. A Secrets test of its DVD capabilities would be nice, but something tells me it's not far off from their results of the P1400.

Load times are where you will likely see a noticeable improvement. The P1500 was a big step up, and I'd say it's likely the P1600 is at least a small bit better than it was.

Is the wifi included and ready to be setup out of the box?
Is the wifi a usb dongle? If so, then no usb memory upgradeable?
What is the advantage of usb memory upgrade for a bdp?

WiFi is a USB dongle and is not included. The P1600 does not have internal memory, so to use some BDLive features you will need USB memory upgrade. If you plan to use WiFi AND USB memory upgrade, it looks like you'll have to use the second USB port on the front for one or the other.

Are there any players with built in wifi like the ps3?

The P3600 includes the usb WiFi Dongle in the box.

xjnorto
Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Saint George, UT
Posts: 112

"Watchable maybe, passable, meh.
480i is something less than six times fewer pixels than 1920x1080. Garbage in garbage out."
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a blurry image captured at 1080i/p won't look much better than the same blurry image captured at 480i. it all depends on things like camera focus, telecine operator skills, and other variables.
just cuz blu ray has 6x the pixels doesn't necessarily guarantee anything.

the vast majority of sd dvds look great on my 108" screen, played on a onkyo hd-805 hd dvd player with reon vp. obviously not hi def but d**m nice.
much more than just 'passable'.

blu rays, of course, look even better played on my samsung bdp1400.

a badly done blu ray can look like sh*t. "garbage in, garbage out"??

No internal storage...isn't that against the BD 2.0 spec? If not, that's a VERY strange loophole.

I really wanted the 3600 (for wifi, pandora, neflix, 7.1 outs). After I saw it in person I decided against it b/c I don't like the design at all. At least they could put the disc drawer in the center.

I decided that I didn't really need the 7.1 outs and could grab the wifi dongle to make the 1600 wireless. I don't mind the disc drawer being off-center on this player b/c the dropdown front covers it up Now I find out that it doesn't have local memory?? That's ridiculous. It shouldn't be able to call itself a profile 2.0 player /BD Live...whatever the terminology is...without internal storage.

And if I bought the cheap usb memory...why is the port in the front? That looks stupid too (since the back one would be used for the wifi dongle). I usually like samsung, but this poor design is ridiculous.

Sorry, had to vent

This was going to be my first BD player. I really wanted it for the Netflix, and thought it would be nice in case I rented and BDs.

Bought one of these from Brandsmart yesterday for 248.88. They had stacks and stacks of them. They also had stacks of the Onkyo art the same price, and the 1500 Sammy for 198.98.

At any rate, I really like it so far. I wanted the BD35 but stumbled on this instead and thought the Netflix feature might be useful in the future. The player is really comparable in size to the Panny too. very slim and light, and it looks good. I watched The Dark Knight last night and the PQ was perfect. No worse than my PS3 that's for sure, and I know some of you won't believe it but at least with my Onkyo 805 the bitstreamed audio is definitely richer sounding. I had always suspected my HD-A2 had the edge in audio and now that I can bitstream BD's it's equal. I know there will never be a final decision on whether there is a difference, but in my setup there surely seems to be.

Load times are plenty quick here too. I am glad to see they are finally making strides in this area. It's not as fast as the PS3, but it's not painful to load a disc anymore.

All in all, barring playback hiccups with any of my discs, I like the player a lot. For $248.88 I really feel I got my money's worth. This is the player I was looking for a year and a half ago when i got the second PS3. Had there been small, fast, high quality players like this I'd have gone stand alone from the start. It looks so much nicer in my audio rack than the lumpy PS3.

Anyone have any trouble with any discs yet? That's the only thing that could turn me off to this player. I don't regret getting this over the Panasonic at all.

If you want to connect both wifi and memory to USB, can you use a USB hub on the back to keep from using the front USB port?

That's a good question... I wouldn't rule it out, but I wouldn't expect it either...

Just got mine at FS and was very disapointed to find out after I got it home that I needed a proprietery dongle to go wireless. I bought it with the intention of using the spare usb adapter that I had at home the sales rep did not inform me that it required a specific adapter. I am considering returning it but have no idea what to get instead cant seem to find any on the market that currently have wireless capability.

Why go wireless? Can't one connect an ethernet cable to something like a Netgear powerline adapter?

A little research goes a long way. Welcome to the forums, maybe it'll help you avoid mistakes like this in the future. I believe the 3600 comes with the dongle

Yes, I connected my 1600 using the powerline adapter and it works great. I have Netflix and it works much better than the wireless when you have a hardline.

I agree.

yes a little research does go a long way but i bought the unit more on impulse than anything was getting a new tv and i did all my research on it and was going to buy the sony bd 550 when i saw the samsung the info i got from the salesman was that i just needed a usb adapter for the wireless which i already had since i had moved my cpu from wireless to wired. as far as a netgear poweline adapter i know nothing about them and am not even sure i can access netflix from canada. the online connection is more for updates and bdlive content than net flix. ill look into the 3600 but i didnt see it availiable at FS.

I would rather buy this model over the LG BD370 that also does Netflix, except the family wants one that can do Netflix and YouTube like the BD370

Has anyone heard anything on Samsung adding YouTube support in the future.

I am looking for one that can do all 3, BlueRay, Netflix on Demand, and YouTube and I really like the Samsung brand over the LG brand (I also have a new Samsung Plasma).

Wireless USB adapter is useless without a proper driver to support it. I don't think you'd really expect Samsung to embedded million different wireless USB adapter drivers (as oppose to just the specific Samsung adapter) in the player, do you? There are many different wireless chipsets out there. Even with adapters using the same chipset, different manufacturers may design the hardware slightly differently. How do you propose Samsung, or any other player maker, to handle this?

From what have posted, the specific Samsung adapter will cost you $82. For that kind of money, you can buy any of those wireless gaming adapter or bridge out there. Those gaming adapters or wireless bridges convert wireless into wired Ethernet connection. So, no driver is needed. And it will work with any device that has an Ethernet port.

ok done some research and the netgear solution looks interesting but not cost effective since i have an existing wireless network. Also I would be concerned about power surges since you can not protect the line. As far as speed the power line doesn't seem to test any better than wireless n. I also looked into netflix and its streaming is not availiable in canda.

Do what foxbat said and look into a wireless ethernet bridge.

Powerline adapters easily allow you to have ethernet hardwired access anywhere you have an electrical outlet. In my main HT setup, I've got three DirecTV HD DVRs and a Panasonic BD55K Blu-Ray. I used a Netgear powerline adapter, the model that has 4 ports, and connected 4 short ethernet cables to it. From there each cable went to the aforementioned 4 devices, providing for hardwired Internet connectivity. The main Netgear adapter is then connected in my bedroom where my cable modem and router are located.

I just bought this BD player to relieve some of the BD stress from my PS3 but for some reason, I can't get Transformers to play?? For some reason, it just gets stuck on the Main Menu screen where Prime is holding the All Spark but the menu options does not display??

Any ideas??

It is probably stuck in BD-Live because you didn't plug in an external USB memorys stick. You either have to disable BD-Live in player setup or plug in a 1GB USB memory.

Thanks for the comment.

I think thats what it was. I had my 2gb usb flash in and bd-live on. When I booted up the TF BD. It looked like it was downloading cause my drive was flashing. Then the menu screen displayed but the options section didn't appear. So after of messing with the BD live settings, I removed the drive, shut it off then it worked.

So I ended up powering down, re-insert my drive and turned on the BD Live and it worked. Weird.

Anyways, I picked up the player fairly cheap and it is a great addition. I have not had a chance to try my entire collection to see if they work but the BD's mentioned that had problems (3:10 and underworld) worked fine in mine.

It was a bit misleading on the box about the wireless. It should've included a ***Samsung USB adapter needed (not included)*** disclaimer. But other than that so far so good. I like the size and look of the player. Can't wait to get home and watch more Blu's.

I bought an open box 1600 yesterday at BB for $259 - got it home and really liked everything but was a little less than satisfied with the build quality. Well, I read up on the LG BD370 and decided to give it a go. The build quality is better (IMO) on the LG and I also like that it didnt have a fan and was thus alot quieter in the room than the 1600. The deal breaker for me with the 370 was the remote and the picture quality with Netflix. The remote has a very cheap feel to it and you have to slide the botton top cover down to expose the controls for the TV like volume, video source, channel etc. I dont know to what extent the 370 is responsible for the PQ with streaming material but the picture was washed out and had a audio sync problem vs the 1600 which really had a very good picture on the same material that I watched on the LG. The quality bars were the same for both players and I switched back and forth to verify what I was seeing. I did the latest firmware update on the 370 before playing as well. The clincher was that HHG has a 20% sale coming up and had the 1600 in the flyer for 239.00. So I took the open box 1600 and the 370 back to BB - show them the HHG flyer and get a new 1600 for 239.00 less 10% for price match guarantee. Other things I like about the 1600 are the smaller footprint and how it turns the TV on when I power it on.

Now the P1600 is starting to become available for prices that make it a much better value than at $299 MSRP it's been stuck at since release. Still not the value the refurb P2550 is, but probably about as good as you can do locally NIB, especially for a Netflix capable player.

I got my bdp-1500 for dirt cheap 149.99 US with 3 free blu-rays a couple of months back... What advantages does this player have over the 1500? And what, if any, are the disadvantages?

I've heard this unit has a fan where the 1500 did not, but does that make it sound noisier? Does it really help with cooling? My 1500 is fanless and never gets hot or even warm...

Any info would be helpful, because I may want to upgrade in the living room and put the 1500 in the bedroom then.

Advantages are Netflix and Pandora and it's "wireless ready". The 1600 will decode or stream DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD but I think the 1500 will also do this with an upgrade(?).

I don't have a 1500 but I've read that the bottom of the unit gets very hot. I don't notice any excessive noise form the 1600 but then I have it in a equipment case.

I bought my 1600 on Sunday from Amazon for $259. I have a prime account so overnight shipping was only $3.99. After I bought mine the price shot up later in the day back to $292.00.

It arrived yesterday and within 30 min I had it up and running with Netflix and Pandora and was decoding DTS-MA and TrueHD to a Sony STR-DG820 from a couple od BR discs.

The picture looks great and everthing sems to be working perfectly. The only downside is that the remote for my STR-DG820 was able to control my old Sony BDP-S300 but it won't control the 1600 and the 1600 remote won't contol the 820.

I'm deciding on my first Blu-ray player. With the Samsungs, is it worth it to take the extended warranty? BB wants $30 for a 2yr plan on the 1600 and $80 for 4yrs on a 2550.