Samsung BDP1200 Master/Owner's Thread - Page 190

The Day the Earth Stood Still 2008

WARNING
Your Blu-ray Player requires an update in order to play this disc.

Firmware 2.5

List says it should play though?????

It was reported that it worked fine with 2.5. See above. Another reason why I could not take it anymore.

That is good to know. I will be testing it heavily this weekend. The price was just too good to pass. My wife is trying to convince me to keep the 1200 for the kids. Maybe I'll give that a try for a few months to see how it works since I would not have courage to sell it to anyone.

I will certainly keep my 1200 when I get a new player this summer or fall. It will be great as a dvd player, having never had an issue for dvd's, and is very fast loading them. It's only BD that has been finicky, and of course it lacks the ability to pass the hidef audio formats.

Looks like I'll be upgrade shortly, and using the 1200 mainly as a dvd player at a vacation home, with light Bluray duties.

My BD-P1200 is in the closet and if there is ever a firmware update that makes the player worth using, I will decide whether to sell it or hook it back up at that time. Otherwise it will sit there and ultimately end up in a garage sale.

Chris

Picked up a 1500 tonight, staying with Samsung is risky, but I did buy it at Costco as insurance.

I'll take the 1200 to my family's cabin in Tahoe, it'll mainly be used as an Upconverting SD DVD player with occassional Bluray. Won't be taking full advantage of it, it'll be hooked up to a Optoma H77 720p projector mated with 92" Screen but will still be a nice upgrade as I have no HD source up there now.

4:3 DVDs are distorted, some other DVDs freeze for split a second on chapter changes. IMHO, the 1200 is barely usable for DVDs.

I am glad to see you and Cash jumped and went with Sony. I have had my
s550 since 1st week of January and NOT 1 GLITCH! Loving my Sony.

The 1200 is in it's box waiting to take a cryogenic nap with 1 of my vintage G.I. Joe's...

Groundhog Day plays on rev. 2.2.

This disc is like a gulp of fresh spring water: a simple four-button menu, no animations. Almost like a regular DVD, only the menu is on top of the video. ALL FREAKING BLU-RAY DISCS SHOULD HAVE MENU SYSTEM AS SIMPLE AS THIS ONE.

4:3 DVD's are distorted? Many player and display combinations will stretch upscaled 4:3 DVD's, I am sure more do than don't. If that happens, play the DVD at 480p and let the display scale and 4:3 DVD's will not be stretched. I didn't observe the chapter issue with the original firmware and haven't noticed it with the most recent firmware but I haven't used the player much due to the other issues and that annoying fractional second pause at chapter breaks might still be an issue.

Chris

I purchased the BD-P1200 and Sony BDP-S1 on the same day, Sears closeouts, and the BDP-S1 always received timely firmware updates and has played every disc I have tried. I needed to downsize due to space requirements and have just replaced the BDP-S1 in the bedroom system but the difference between Sony and Samsung players has been glaring from the start. The BDP-S1 is actually a Pioneer designed and manufactured player, I don't recall the Pioneer clone model number, but the hefty build probably means it will last a lot longer than the tiny player that replaced it. The BDP-BX1 does more and performs great despite the small size but Sony players have been great from day 1.

Chris

Why should I care about other crappy player/display combinations? Also, why my upscaling DVD player has no problem with regular DVDs and upscales them to 1080p, but the 1200 cannot? The player is buggy as hell.

Went to Best Buy to get myself a new washer/dryer, was told that I could get 18 months of financing on the combo. I could pay these off in two months, but I figured, what the hell, might as well put a PS3 on there and get out of Samsung hell. I've had a copy of Zach and Miri staring me in the face for two months and I'm tired of it. I want a player that can actually play movies, not a company that just makes excuses!


I agree completely. This is an upscaling player... no way I should have to downgrade it to 480p just to get basic functionality. Yet, this player can't display a 4:3 DVD properly, and Samsung has the nerve to say my TV is faulty.

I'm retiring the Samsung to the bedroom, until that too gets a better player. I might drop in here from time to time just to see if it ever gets new firmware.

Watched Closer yesterday with 2.4. Got a sign indicating 'Angle' two or three times, and lost the subtitles at some point. Had to go back to the disc menu to get them back. The remote and the pop up menu were ineffective for that.

From another place on the Internet:


We bet on the wrong horse, darn!

Which firmware has the best bluray playback??

I got mine with 2.4, played movies pretty good, usually loaded on first try, hardly any freezing.

Upgrade to 2.5, played first few movies fine, now takes numerous times to load disc, if it'll play at all, and hardly a movie plays without freezing at least once....

Is my player just dying or is this a firmware problem???

Where can I find 2.4 so I can downgrade and test???

2.5 works fine with mine; haven't had the problems you describe.

Any verify if X-Men & X-Men X2 work on the player ?

If yes, what version of FW?

Anyone been able to play Be Kind Rewind on the 1200? I'm not able to get past the menu screen. The screen appears but no options are selectable.

Both work great on 2.5 firmware.

I did a while back when I was using FW 2.4 and it worked fine. I have not tried again with 2.5 though.

I watched The Wrestler using firm ware version 2.5 with no problems. A little slow to load.

The Reader and What Doesn't Kill You ok w/2.5

I watched The Spirit using firm ware version 2.5 with no problems.

Rented Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and got a freeze. Cleaned the disc and the error repeated at the same point. No blemishes aparent in the disc.

FW 2.4

The main feature on The Princess Bride wouldn't play with firmware version 2.4. Even though the previews and menu looked fine, nothing happened when I pressed "play movie".

I've had good luck updating all previous versions of firmware using the internet, but for some reason this time I kept getting a message saying I had the latest version--which I knew wasn't true. Anyway, to make a long story short I burned a CD and upgraded to version 2.5, now the movie plays fine.

I share the sentiments of several people here who write of buying a new player, but I have to say when this one works, it is a stellar player. A bit slow, yes, but upscaling of SD is much better than most other players.

Watched Star Trek TOS season one with v2.4. and had freeze up issues. I Switched to v2.5 and the freeze up issues went away, but now getting lip-sync issues at the end of the alternate angle scene (point where there done showing the ship and go back to the movie). There are two ways to get the audio back into the correct sync again. The first is to pause the movie, then press play to continue. The second way is to Switch the audio to English 2.0 at the start of each show (as it defaults back to 7.1 DTS HD). This seems to work.

Hopefully the next firmware release to v2.6 will solve this issue.

You understand that some displays have a mode that can properly format 4:3 DVD when the BD-P1200 scales? I would guess Samsung makes some that will but I am sure Samsung makes some that won't. The ones that will usually have an aspect button on the remote and can toggle through different settings to get it right. I had a Philips 1080i CRT that could do it so I guess Samsung believes that it is the display's fault that it expects a 720 or 1080 signal to be formatted for a 16x9 display and automatically stretches it.

Of all the serious problems with this player, I find it odd that this issue which would be about number 100 on the list of problems for me is one that gets several complaints here. It isn't a bug, it is just the way the player is, you won't see the ability to pillarbox upscaled 4:3 DVD's listed as a feature. The player won't handle Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA but that isn't a bug either, it is a much more serious shortcoming than the 4:3 DVD handling.

It isn't a very good player, you won't get any argument from me, there are many bugs and many shortcomings in features. This issue is a minor shortcoming.

Chris

Chris,

You're right, it isn't a bug. It's the way the software engineers at Samsung chose to program the player, based on the assumption that everyone has a TV that will pillarbox 16:9 material. Many DVD players have a setting to output 4:3 as "full" or "normal", even $100 upconverting players from Walmart. Why can't/won't Samsung?

Speaking for myself, the reason the 4:3 stretch was a big issue with me was simply that I would have kept this as a player for SD DVD only due to the Reon, and bought something else for BD.

Brian

Edit-
PS, I Agree with GodsLabRat that it's insulting when tech support says the problem is with your TV, or your TV is incompatible. Add that to my list of reasons to not buy another Samsung, poor customer service.