Samsung BD-C6500 Bluray Player------ - Page 2

The streaming sounds great, but the PC-only server app isn't much good in my house of Macs. Can it play MKVs from an external hard drive and, if so, what drive formats are supported? The manual doesn't mention FAT/NTFS. I'm ready to move on from our WDTV.

Could someone post some snaps of the interface?

I just installed one of the these players in out theater. It's a pretty solid device.

I selected this player to replace the PS3 in the theater room because: It starts up fast, it has analogue audio out (I love my HK too much to replace it at this point, it's a great amp), streams DNLA, Netflix and Pandora. Also my first ever DVD player back in the 90's was a Samsung 701 so I have a soft spot for the brand.

It boots up fast (faster than the start-up of my projector) and loads disks fast - as advertised.

The GUI is, well, not very stylish to be kind... but it works and is relatively easy to use. I wish I could figure out how to remove the Blockbuster app from the main menu though... NetFlix and Pandora being there is fine, as I use both of those services.

So far it's played pretty nearly every file from my DNLA NAS drive, avi's, xvids, divx, mov, mp4, avchd files etc. It did choke on the only MKV file I have on there, but then MKV files are such a pain I usually avoid them anyway.

There does seem to be a bug with playing back PAL based files, both from a network drive or some even from NetFlix. at 1080p the video framerate drops to what looks to be around 15, while the sound continues as normal. This also happened with the HD version of Wild China (a BBC documentary) on the NetFlix instant viewer. However if you change the resolution to 1080i they play back smoothly. This looks like the kind of problem they can fix with a firmware update.

Another slightly annoying bug is that if you want 24fps playback on movies (yes please!) the setting to turn it on will not stick (reverts to OFF when you turn off the player). I found out this happens if you leave the resolution setting on AUTO. If you select 1080p or 1080i then the 24fps will remain ON on a reboot. It also nicely auto-detects film from video and only applies the 24 mode when applicable.

Bluray picture and audio quality seems pretty much the same as my old PS3, except now I get better sound via analogue audio outs rather than optical TOSlink. I couldn't see much of a difference if any in the picture quality between them. The only feature from the PS3 I miss is 120x fast forward for those annoying disks that disable any other means of getting past the bluray ads and previews at the start of disks. 120x FF makes short work of them!

For the price this seems like a pretty nice player, it has a few bugs I had to figure out, and GUI is not impressive, but the unit as a whole works well.

Hi Krynos,
Have you tried streaming any high-def TS files from over-the-air captures? Any MKVs of standard-def material made with MakeMKV? From reading threads on the other new players, it sounds like they're still waiting for DLNA support from a future firmware update. Good to hear the Samsung has that from the start.

I only have the one MKV file to hand on my network. I don't know how it was made or what file types and codex were used.

I avoid MKV files as they only seem to work well if you are playing them back on a computer after messing with codex packs etc... I've not really have HTPC's in serious use at home for a couple of years, I mainly use DNLA network drives, and stream video to consoles (Xbox360 / PS3) or our Fios cable boxes or devices like this Samsung player.

And while some of the devices above do have some MKV support it's basic and seems to rely on the files inside being packaged using formats they can already playback. Where as it seems most people seem to use MKV to package odd file formats together to get around the limitations of certain devices. It's a confusing file format to be sure, or at least it is to me!

You're right, it's a container, so it can hold a variety of formats. MakeMKV just repackages VOBs so that you can transfer the full-quality file (no transcoding needed), audio and video. It's fast and lets you choose whatever files you want, though there's no menu support.

I didn't know about MKV maker... I have a media server full of all my DVD's ripped as straight video_ts folders (no menus etc) that I used to player over the network to an HTPC in the theater. I'll try packaging one up tonight with makeMKV and see if the Samsung can play it back. Would be nice if it could.

http://org.downloadcenter.samsung.co...0-XAC-0119.pdf

On page 12 of the instruction manual it talks about MKV files... I don't think my plan will work, but I'll give it a try.

>>> Update <<<<br />
Tried makeMKV to convert a DVD - not a supported file format on the C6500.

Does anyone use a bridge?

The Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300N Nfiniti Wireless-N Dual Band Ethernet Converter (Bridge). The Buffalo has 4 LAN ports so I like the idea that I can connect Ethernet to my TV, (future) Blu-Ray DVD player, and anything else I want.


Any tips, tricks, and thoughts would be great!

Thanks for checking, Krynos, that's a big disappointment for my personal setup. Your archives are .vob files? Thanks again.

I'm currently looking for a format to re-archive my DVD's on my DNLA drive. I'm looking for something with pretty much no loss from the DVD in terms of picture or sound, so nice picture - retain the 5.1 surround and is playable on this Samsung, Xbox360 and PS3 (also an HTPC but that will play just about anything.)

I'm excited to report that I got the 5500 to work with my Mac (Snow Leopard) as a DLNA server. I used elgato's EyeConnect (free month's trial, then $50). No additional configuration seems to be required. From the home menu, press D (list devices), and the Mac should come up. (If it doesn't right away, try stopping and starting EyeConnect.)

I wasn't able to get it to work with the 2009 models, although I'm not sure whether I just gave up too soon.

Sounds great, saraht. I wonder if Yazsoft's Playback app would also work.

So start with MakeMKV, use SmartLab's tsMuxeR to remux the streams into a TS file, then convert to MPEG with MPEG Streamclip. Multiple audio tracks are still there, plays fine on our WDTV. Only things it loses along the way, that I know of, are the chapter markers. It's more steps that one, obviously, but since there's no re-encoding, it's a matter of a minute or two and some extra hard drive space.

sasmsung has put up a bd-c6500 web page with specs:

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/t...etail&tab=spec

According to that spec page Wi-Fi is NOT built in. Confirmation from owners?

WiFi is definitely built in.

I just set my 6500 up yesterday. Very nice player. It is replacing my 2550 that died. I am using the built in WiFi, but am wondering if it is G or N. I have an N router and didn't see a spec listing the type of wireless this player has.

I noticed the spec sheet on Samsung's site says this player is wireless ready and adaptor is not included. Looks like a mistake on their part.

Has anyone seen Vudu (web app) since last weekend (2/21)?

from the manual...

Unit Keeps disconnecting from pc when streaming video wired or wireless and ideas how to fix just bought a new linksys wrt310n gigabit router..

Missed that. Thanks.

Found Out this thing will not hook wireless n only g ...sometimes movies play for 30sec sometimes 30 min sometimes not doing anything at all .keep getting portible device disconnected.. Going to try a different router and see if that makes a difference.. with the n hookup and streaming ...how is streaming for everyone else...

Fixed mkv recognition for streaming from pc ...now it recognizes my mkv files on my pc and they seem to be streaming fine ...i had pc share 1.5.2 found 2.33 will let u know if i still have streaming issues..

Does Samsung have something like Gracenote MusicId ?

I saw on another forum that this player can stream from Macs as well........maybe thats not true. Can someone confirm? Also, I hope that Vudu comes back online in mid March like someone said. With the price of this player on Amazon, this player seems like a real steal.

There is a DLNA server for Macs called EyeConnect from Elgato. It's free for 30-days and then it's audio only unless you pay $50.

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/main...onnect.en.html

Have come across a few MKV files that have played fine on both PC and WD TV player, but on the Samsung they are jittery, like frames are being dropped to keep up. Any ideas?

you can download the user manual from the Samsung website

I picked up a 5500 at Costco yesterday ($159.95) and was able to stream a few MPEG2 videos via EyeConnect. The quality looked pretty good, but navigating was a pain. I also tried some other formats from a PC running Tversity but wasn't able to get any of them to play successfully. I'll spend more time with it later today.