Official Samsung BD-P1600 Owners/master thread - Page 101

I agree, and interesting that the choice is 3 times the cost of the Sammy...

I don't think that there should be so many problems with any player but it is entry level and usually priced below $100.

I am no expert on BluRay but this format with all of it's extras sure seems fraught with troubles...

No. There nothing worse than preparing to enjoy a movie and the player fails, or have the player act up during viewing. Correction, worse is when your proudly demonstrating your home theater set-up, and the player craps out on you. It's not the player that looks cheesy then.

I'm just disappointed. I guess I should say that Samsung software QA testing is very poor for turning out such bad firmware updates w/o apparently doing sufficient regression testing. The constant revising of BD profile standards don't help either.

To be fair, my P1600 has been almost perfect for 9 months in the area of playing different BD movies. It's the firmware and bad support responsiveness that have me steamed. I had hoped that Samsung had finally figured out how to update their firmware at this late stage in the game.

This is a consumer appliance in my mind and shouldn't require constant tinkering to make it do it's primary role - play Bluray movies. I could forgive Samsung development if Netflix or Pandora didn't work quite right, but it's base function is now crippled for quite a few BD titles.

This player will be relegated to a DVD player when my Oppo arrives. Hopefully, firmware version 2.10 will be released soon and correct these issues.

True, but there seems to be plenty of people here who are happy with their 1600. So, just because you, me and a few others have had problems, it doesn't mean it's a POS.

Actually I'm having trouble with both my 1600 and 3600, and when they act up, one of the things that comes to mind (and sometimes out of my mouth) is "what a POS".

Only double the cost - I found an open box deal on Amazon.

Same here. But I would call it a bad batch, but not a POS. Many people here are very happy with their Samsung players, so it just proves there are good batches out there. Unfortunately, we didn't get them.

In fairness, the loading time (when working) is excellent, and the image fairly good.

I just tested District 9 on my 1600 with 2.09 and it works perfectly. Got right to the menu (after skipping approximately 34 unwanted previews, of course) and selected "Play" and it started right up.

I think that either MrHT is right and there are simply different batches of these things (perhaps based on different components or manufacturing methods/locations), or one of the myriad of settings on the player is causing them to behave differently with the same discs on the same firmware.

We've seen things like BD Live or the presence or absence of a thumb drive affect playback for some people on certain discs. There are so many variables, compounded by the different components we're all connecting to, that it's tough to narrow it down.

I'm one of those folks MrHT mentioned who is perfectly happy with the 1600 (knock on wood), so I either got lucky and got one from a good batch or I'm just using a lucky combination of settings and components.

One thing is certain though: the BD technology overall has serious problems. Years ago how many times did anyone have to update firmware on a DVD player just so a new DVD release would play? How many screens that said "Depending on your player's capabilities this DVD could take 2 to 3 minutes to load" did you see when watching DVDs?

If BD never becomes as popular and common as DVD the movie studios have no one to blame but themselves. They're cramming BD-Live garbage and extra features only a handful of people give a darn about into their releases which is causing these playback problems and necessitating firmware updates -- something the average user does not want to be (and shouldn't be) hassled with. It's frustrating to watch as a fan of the A/V quality of BD.

Thanks for the update, RedZeppelin. I'll see if I can force it to the menu after the FBI warning. Though I suspect you are correct about the different builds of the P1600. Mine is likely an older build since I got it at BB as an open box special.

Cheers!

Mine was definitely an old batch. I got it in May 2009. And I believe the 1600 came out in March 2009. So, I probably got one of the first batches released.

I suspect Samsung found certain things wrong with first batches and they fixed them on newer batches. And I suspect that's why my Sony player (which I bought to replace the 1600) works fine. I got one of the last batches. It came out in early 2009 (like the 1600) and I only bought it last February 2010. So, I'm guess with Blu-ray, it's best to get a player after it's been out for quite some time. Because these brands tend to release electronics not knowing what bugs they have and then later on, they fix them.

Mine has been stable, but then again I am still catching up on the older titles!

So do we know what the 'batch' dates are?

Mine was built: 2009.05

It's just a guess, Al. I could be wrong....

Checked Samsung's website.They updated the firmware for BD-P1600 dated Aug. 05 2010.

I downloaded it but filename is named "BEv2.09_100519_BDP1600_XAA_ISO" (for USB). This is the same firmware I downloaded last May.
Shouldn't it be named "...100805.... "?

Wonder now if I'm going to upgrade my firmware.

You guys are lucky that Samsung is still releasing firmware updates on this player. You know... the last firmware update for my Sony player was last October 2009!!

It looks like they finally pulled version 2.09 for the US (what took them so long?). What's there now is version 2.08 from March (BEv2.08_100319_BDP1600_XAA.zip), not 2.09 as you said. It's certainly not the 2.10 we were hoping for.

The Global support site has also pulled 2.09 (for the US only) but still lists 2.10 for Korea:
w w w . t i n y u r l.com/26yx8eb (take out the spaces)

What a mess!

I just looked at the US web site, and it shows 2.09, released May 31, 2010. Where did you see an 8/5 date?

Perhaps it was just a temporary glitch on the site which has since been corrected.

It's odd that we're all seeing different things on the US support site. I see 2.08 with a release date of 8/5 (although the file name indicates that it's the one from March).

Richard

Hey that's not too bad, the Canadian site has only posted v2.07 so far...

Same here....

Unsurprisingly, the 1590 support site also shows 2.08 with 8/5.

I'm betting Samsung has been able to confirm the issues with 2.09 and have rolled back to 2.08. The question now is for those who have 2.09 installed, will the player be able to go back to 2.08?

If what you say is true, Samsung will likley suggest that when they release the next firmware, that you move forward to that level.

I just got off chat with Samsung support and they said exactly what you predicted. They don't want you to down-grade your firmware to 2.08 if you already have 2.09 installed.

I also mentioned that 2.10 is already available on their Korean site, which support claims no knowledge of.

Don't believe everything Samsung support tells you. SEVERAL times in this thread, it's been proven that what they say is total BS.

I was just on the CNet Samsung forums and the Samsung support guy (HD_Tech) there is telling everyone to try to down-grade to 2.08. I think I'll believe him instead. I'll try to down-grade when I get home.

In the mean time, if anyone here has success with the down-grade, please post your details!

Cheers!

Wow. I don't mind risking a firmware upgrade even when I'm not having problems with playback, but no way am I going to risk a downgrade when I'm not having problems. The fewer firmware flashes the better. I'll wait for 2.10 to be available via the network update (and then find out what that breaks -- heh) and pray that I don't buy a movie that doesn't work with 2.09 in the meantime.

But hopefully for those of you experiencing major issues the downgrade will correct them. Best of luck.

What's so strange is that 2.09 has been the best firmware for me to date. It's amazing that what fixes some players breaks others.

Well, I just attempted to down-grade to 2.08 w/o success. The player won't even execute the flash due to 2.08 being older. I guess I'm waiting for 2.10 too.

Oh well.

At least my Oppo BDP 80 arrived today. Everything plays just fine from my library now.

Sorry to hear that your Samsung player is not working properly. But I'm glad that you got a player that works.

Also true for my 1590C.