Official Samsung BD-C5500 master owner's thread

Could you comment a little more on the file format playback on USB. More specifically XviD (w/MP3 audio and AC3 audio) and MKV? How is the scanning on MKVs? Have you tried the back USB port to plug in a flash drive or portable hard drive? I have a Philips DVD player that plays XviD from USB, but has no hi-def support (obviously). I would like to get a Blu-ray player that plays back MKVs nicely.

I also noticed this at Costco today while I was picking up some stuff, noticed it didn't include the USB dongle.........you must have had that already?

I have one of these too and so far it seems okay for .mkv, it plays some well that have x264 encoding for video and both DTS and AC3 work for audio. You have to set it (by pushing a button on the remote) for it to upscale 720p mkv's to 1080, but then it stores the setting. I havent tried 1080p mkv. It doesn't play every 720p MKV right tho, haven't figured out why, the ones that dont play right skip like crazy (but play fine on my old pc). It doesnt seem to allow me to play subtitles (that are embedded in the mkv). Other issues I've had are hanging on some of the internet stuff, like blockbuster for example, I can select it but nothing happens, have to power off the player, that's not worked at all for me. It forces 480i on component if HDMI is plugged in as soon as you get past the startup screen, even if only using HDMI for audio. I haven't tried a BD on it yet.

Just to clarify, the HD mkv's I've played are on DVD-R. I also tried a couple mkv clips from a usb flashdrive on the floor model at the store before I bought it. I also tested xvid avi's with mp3 or ac3 the they seemed to worked fine, but aren't high def, havent tried HD avi yet but that isn't important to me, I ripped all my HDDVDs to x.264 matroska anyways.

I didn't even know I could play thru the network, I do have some avi and mkv on my computer in a shared folder that's accessible from other windows pcs... dont see anything in the player menu for opening shared folders tho, I guess I'll have to check the manual to figure that one out... unless hdtvman can tell me?

The Samsung BD-6500 thread here (sorry can't post the URL, since I'm new) also has a lot of information on on the 5500. It should also have much of the same information, like the post above, except it doesn't have the integrated wireless and 7.1 surround sound.

I'm thinking of getting the 5500 at Best Buy soon because I have a coupon, reward points, and a gift card. Hopefully, I can test out and post my findings here.

Mine works just fine with a variety of MKVs 720p/1080p, AC3/DTS off the Seagate HDD hooked up to front USB. The only problem so far, it doesn't recognize embedded subtitles. Im going to try external SRTs tonight and see what happens... If anyone tried that already pls let me know!

Thanks for the post phluid. I checked my mkv that was jerky, and sure enough, its one I put two audio tracks (original language and english dub)... player lets me select the audio track correctly, but video is jerky.

I hadn't actually turned the thing on in a while, when I did it, there was a new firmware available... so installed that first... so guess they haven't addressed that issue yet. Forgot to check if embedded subtitles in mkv are working yet.

I also just purchased this blu-ray player from Costco (3/15/10). I have played one blu-ray disc, Star Trek and have had one issue. After watching a few minutes of previews, I stopped it, then started it again, and the system froze and was not responsive to the remote--except the power button. Once I restarted the unit, the movie played without a problem.

A bigger concern is that this player is having issues with standard DVDs. I've had issues playing 2 out of 4 of my kids' DVDs. Some have moderate scratches on them... Could this be the problem? I believe they play fine on my standard DVD player. Also, on one of them, it seemed that the blu-ray player skipped one of the chapters.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Would a firmware update remedy this issue? I've checked the Samsung site for updates but only found one for the BD-P1000.

Thanks for your help!

hmm... external SRTs didn't work either... is there a specific convention that has to be followed when naming SRT file? mine just had the same name as MKV file yet player refused to recognize it showing a popup 'subtitles are not available' when i pressed Subtitles button... should SRT be encoded in UTF-8 or any other encoding? the good thing is that even though rear USB is marked for Wireless Adapter it still works as normal USB and when I attached a HDD to it the drive got recognized with no problem...

FYI, to play files thru your network that are on a windows drive, you can install PC Share Manager. Samsung makes it hard to find on their website, but if you click this link:

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/de...sub_class_cd=P

then go to software, it's there, PC Share Manager version 2.33. After install, you need to run it to select which directories to share by dragging them, and authorize your BD player to access them by selecting share and set device policy (with your bd player on) and enabling the player. You can also set the software to run automatically when windows boots. It won't actually work until you exit the config software, I think it builds a database at that time.

I first tried version 1.52 and it would list any matroska (but did list avi, mp3, and tp). The tp's (mpeg-2 transport streams recorded from my hdtv tuner card) started to play then I got a message about the network disconnected (forgot exactly). I couldn't upgrade to 2.33, I had to uninstall 1.52 then install 2.33, which does play matroska and transport streams fine.

On the player it kinda mixes up my folders even when I try the folder view and doesnt seem to do subdirs right, so I suggest not sharing your whole drive but instead share only directories that contain media and no subdirs if your hard drive is organized the way you want to see them on the player. Eventually I think I can find everything, but certainly not as simple as I'd like, you gotta click thru lotsa things to actually get to your shared folders, and no list view at all.

One complaint I have about this player is it's difficult to get discs out... gotta reach underneath the disc tray and poke it up, cuz if you try to grab it from the top (even using the recess they provided) I end up scraping the disc on the tray and I'm afraid I'm gunna scratch it. Is that just me?

If you guys want to play mkvs with embedded subtitles-just get a Western Digitial TV Live.

I just picked up one of today at Costco to replace my Samsung 1500 (which will be relocated to the bedroom). My big gripe is that has no local storage, though the Samsung website said it has 1 GB.

I plugged a 1 GB USB thumbdrive into the back USB connector that's labeled for the wireless dongle and it works. I did have to go into the data management settings and select the drive, but it seems to be a normal USB port.

I also plugged a 500 GB WD HDD into the front and it played all the avi and mkv files that I tried so far. I like the faster loading time than with the 1500. Will be curious to see if it gets as hot as the 1500 does.

The manual mentions Google Maps as an example in the Internet@TV section, but I haven't found that so far. YouTube worked well, didn't try any of the other apps yet.

does it play bluray dvds, by any chance?

so... the further research revealed an interesting thing... subtitles for MKVs are supported!!!
at least external UTF-8 encoded SRTs... but for some reason they are only available for MKVs that contain video stream encoded with H264 codec... if video stream is encoded with FFMPEG (which majority of my collection was) then player doesn't recognize subtitles neither embedded nor external yet it plays the file with no problem... tried vudu tonight as well... worked awesome... watched Surrogates in HD - no problem whatsoever...

After setting up that pc share manager last night, I tried watching a divx movie that was on my computers hard drive thru the network last night. After navigating thru a billion things to get to my shared folder and starting the movie, 40 minutes into the movie it told me something about portable device disconnected and kicked me back to the player menu. Well, I wasn't using a portable device that I know of and my network is hardwired. So I navigated back to the movie I was watching, and discovered fast forward doesnt work (and chapter skip goes to the next file). I set an egg timer and let it play thru to about where I was and did something else in the meantime. When it finally got there, and I hit pause so I could finish the other thing I was doing before returning to the movie. About 10 minutes later I was ready to watch, but by then the player had returned to the main menu again. I wasn't about to wait 40 minutes again so I gave up.

As far as I'm concerned, having those three problems the first time I tried to watch something thru the network pretty much makes playing stuff thru the network unusable. I'm glad this wasn't a feature I bought it for or I'd be really annoyed, cuz based on that experience it's not usable in that manner.

I'd be interested to hear anyone elses success/failure stories trying to play an entire movie from their pc thru the network.

I emailed Samsung, asking about the BD data management being greyed out in the menu unless I have a thumb drive attached. Here is the response I got:

Dear Samsung Customer,

Thank you for contacting Samsung Electronics.

With reference to your email, we understand you notice that the Blu-ray Player BD-C5500 model has an inbuilt
1 GB local storage. However, the BD data Management option is greyed out unless you plug in a USB Thumb
drive. You want to know if the only difference between the model numbers BD-C5500C and BD-C5500 is
that the model BD-C5500C is included with HDMI cable.

Please note that the BD data Management may not be highlighted if the free space on the internal memory is
low. And so, the BD data Management option is greyed out until a 1 GB USB drive is connected.

The only difference between the Blu-ray Player models BD-C5500 and BD-C5500C is that the model BD-
C5500C is supplied with the HDMI cable and BD-C5500 is not.

If you require any further information, please feel free to contact us.


Thank you,

Samsung Online support.

I guess there must be some built-in memory, because the internet apps and such that are downloaded have to go somewhere. But I find it hard to believe that the basic apps take up nearly a gig of memory.

Can anyone else confirm that they have 1 GB of local storage, and if so, how do you tell how much is free?

I'm wondering if my player has a problem, since if I put in a BD disc (say Ponyo for example) without the thumbdrive, I see a message saying that the disc has updated data available, but requires local storage, and that I don't have any.

Thanks,
Eric

stupid me! i haven't noticed a typo in the name of SRT file while playing MKV with video stream encoded with FFMPEG! once i changed the name accordingly, voila subtitles became available... so i can confirm that external SRTs are recognized by the player this is also true when MKV file is played off the DVD+R DL disc which i had tested last night...
embedded ones were not recognized under any conditions which is sorta sad but i can definitely live without it

I'm hoping someone in this thread can give me some help as this unit is driving me crazy.

I just picked up the BD-C5500 and no matter what I do I cant get it to connect with my Windows 7 PC. I've tried everything I can possibly think of.

The network connection is fine, plugged into a Linksys router for the network and the player is connecting to the internet fine as when I first turned it on I got the Firmware update.

From my windows box I can ping the IP for the BD-C5500 unit with no problems. For some reason it just wont recognize any of my shares or anything. I've tried setting up standard share folders, I've tried the Samsung PC Share utility, nothing.

No firewalls are involved so I'm lost. I've been running SageTV on this PC and streaming it through a MediaMVP unit to my old television and that locates the network and server just fine so I know I'm open to network traffic.

Anyone have any ideas of some things I can try or some step by step settings as this is really becoming frustrating. I can play from a USB drive, I can cannot network this with Windows 7.....

Sorry, I'm cross posting this, but I just realized there was a separate thread for this player, which I got at Costco......

Does anyone that is good with networking have any ideas or settings on what I need to do?

I'm having a hell of a time getting this thing to connect to the internet/network. The player picked up the network the very first time I plugged it in and all the available apps loaded just fine, but now the connection, when turning the player on, is sporadic at best. I am wired BTW.

After turning my player off, I turned it back on again and tried to go to Netflix and Pandora but the player said no network connection is available. I unplugged the player, then the switch, and finally the modem to no avail. I might do this 3 or 4 times and then it will finally get an IP address and work.

I used the "Auto" setting in the network setup at first. I've tried setting a static IP on my PC and the player, as well as an open DNS. When I do that it gets to the ping test and tells me it can't find the network again.

I just went back to all "auto" settings on the player and the PC and it worked.

Any help to get this thing to connect consistently would be great. If not, it's going back.

Thanks,
Rob

I'm using WinXP, so maybe it's related. There's a new version of the share manager, version 4.03, maybe try that? http://www.samsung.com/us/support/de...sub_class_cd=P Unfortunately I havent tried the new version yet because you can't upgrade from a previous version, gotta uninstall the old version, which requires a reboot, and I can't reboot tonight cuz my dvr software is recording.

After you installed pc share manager, did you #1 share folders #2 enable device (your bd player) #3 set it to run with windows #4 exit the share manager software? I had to do all that before I could see anything from the bdplayer for both the previous versions of pc share manager I tried, and on the bdplayer you gotta list devices and select your computer.

In the Samsung PC Share Manager I have shared folders and updated it but I cannot Set Device Policy as no device ever appears in the list.

So far, the BD Player Is Seeing the Network
Is receiving an IP from the DHCP server (Or I can set it myself)
Is accessing the Internet for updates and BD-Live content.

For some reason it just will not connect with my Windows 7 PC using shared folders, media player streaming, Samsung Share Manager or any other method I can think of trying.

I'm thinking about just returning the player to the store tomorrow as I dont think it works with Windows 7


UPDATE: Ok, Not sure if this will help but I have an XP box here as well. I loaded the Samsung Share software on it, setup the shared folders and got the same thing. Under the "Set Device Policy" section I am still not seeing the BD player and it doesnt seem to recognize the XP standard shares as well.

Something on my Router maybe although I cant think what?! I am using a Linksys Router.
All computers on my home network and the BD player are set with correct IP, Subnet, Gateway, DNS (Using the 192. range)

Does anyone know if the BD-C5500 has upconversion of the Allshare feature?

Also whats the Netflix interface like - do you have to use the web to maintain the Instant queue or can you browse instant content directly from the BD player?

[EDIT] looks like you manage queue on web then access from BD player.

That's correct.

According to Samsung website the 5500 has 1Gb of local storage. But has been mentioned in the 6500 thread that it does not.

Can anyone with 5500 confirm?

The 5500 does not have 1Gb of local storage. You have to add it by using a USB flash drive.

Just had following dialog with Samsung.


Now I know the reps are not always accurate so I guess will find out when I purchase it...... not a big deal as got a 2Gb USB left over from my previous BD-P1500.