Samsung BDP1200 Master/Owner's Thread - Page 194

I think I had v2.4 (last updated July 4, 2008) (s/w: 080609.01_T22F_0924.07_XAA) and was ok in playing all blurays (even Forbidden Kingdom (with a messed up menu) and Prince Caspian(with audio issues)) until I got to Made of Honor. So, time for update. I read that you could not update over the LAN terminal, but I tried anyways. ;-) And guess what...it updated over the LAN!!!

I think I have v2.6 (s/w: 090415.01_T22F_0924.07_XAA). And yes, Made of Honor played without any issues. No audio sync issues, freezes, or timing sync issues (sometimes the time counter is slower than it should be). And the picture actually looks better when I played Shakira: Oral Fixation, and Flash Gordon (the one with Ornella Muti) and Highlander TV series (the one with Adrian Paul) look somewhat decent on SD.

I guess I am delaying in getting another Bluray player...

Guariche

I've been too lazy to go from 2.5 to 2.6. The other night my wife wanted to watch Bride Wars. It took me many tries of switching the player off and on, and my receiver off an on (admitedly they don't always play well together), but I finally got it going. The disc must have taken 3 minutes to get to the first preview. I almost gave up until a little "loading" icon finally appeared.

As little as I get a chance to watch movies, I'm still hanging in with the 1200 for a while. Last night I finally watched Dark Night, tradeoff for suffering through Bride Wars. I've owned the limited edition batpod set since it first came out, but haven't had a chance to view it. It played flawlessly and looked amazing.

I am shocked. Samsung is too lazy to post it!
I had to get someone to help me burn the image to CD as I do not know if my computer program does that.

Bond/From Russia plays fine on my s550. My 1200 has been in storage for 6 months so I cant add to that fact.

"The International" played perfectly.

Load time from close of tray to the red "Attention" image, 40 seconds. The menu was up in 20 seconds.

Regards.

I hope that isn't true. I'm downloading the update via the internet right now.

Watched Powder Blue and He's Just Not That Into You with version 2.6, no issues.

If you read the posts on this page, which are more recent than the one you quoted, you will know before trying.

I've been plagued with AV sync issues with this player since I bought it, across multiple firmware upgrades (currently at 2.6) and using different audio paths. The audio is ahead of the video; the degree varies based on the source material and the audio configuration. Which components should I change or replace?

My system:
Samsung BDP1200
LG 42LB5D LCD TV
Onkyo TX-SR503 Receiver

The closest sync I ever get is using the TV to decode audio over HDMI. But it's not quite right.

The worst is either using the BDP1200 to decode audio for multichannel analog output, or digital bitstreaming to the Onkyo TX-SR503. The problem occurs for both DVDs and Blu-ray disks. The problem occurs in both 30 fps and 24p modes. 24p is so bad I won't use it.

It's my understanding that the TV may be creating a video delay, but the player decoder and the receiver decoder don't delay the audio equally. Assuming there is no adjustment I can make in my current equipment, what would be the most cost effective way to fix this? Should I upgrade my receiver to one that can delay the audio as well as handle the newer audio codecs, or replace the player with one that is aware of video delay?

Thanks for any suggestions.
Steve

Gran Torino worked perfectly, just had to wait a bit and it loaded right up on the first try. I'm on FW 2.5 still.

My 2 year old BD-P1200 has for the most part served me well, despite it's known shortcomings. Thanxx to the Reon chip the picture quality of Blu-ray is excellent and the upconversion of my DVD library is very good.

In the past week, a pink haze clouds the picture on Netflix Blu-rays disks as well as my pristine Blu-ray Casino Royale or a THX DVD of Titanic.

I'm on F/W 2.5. My brother suggested going back to F/W 2.4 or even installing F/W 2.6 when it arrives (on order). My DirectTV HD is fine, so no problem with my Sony SXRD HDTV.

I suspect this is a failure in the electronics, but would welcome comments or suggestions for a fix.

The Panasonic BD-60 looks like the Blu-ray player to beat on the market today. Again, your comments please.

Jim

I have relegated by 1200 to the bedroom for dvd duties, for which it still does very well, as you note.

I think the Panny 60 is the best DEAL available, now just over $200, but the Oppo 83, at $500, is better: for BD they are comparable, but the Oppo is better at dvd upconversion; the Panny's not bad, just the Oppo as good as can be done, I believe. And the Oppo is MUCH faster, and has better customer support. (And it also has SACD and other audio features that are of no interest to me.)

I did spring for the Oppo, but as I said, the Panny is probably the best 'deal'.

Check the HDMI connection. Once when I moved my AVR slightly to get access, it caused the 1200 connection to come loose just slightly. Things still worked, but it had a pink tint on everything. Once I properly reseated the cable, the problem went away.

If that does not fix things, try component cables, just to see if that works.

Thanxx to Project 86 who reminded me of "troubleshooting 101" to check the cables. I felt it was like a "Hail Mary: pass, but gave it a shot and it worked to my great relief.

In my 61 years as an audiophile, and now a videophile, I can only recall once or twice where this ever solved my problem, but it sure did this morning and now there is no pink haze.

Last night I almost ordered the Panasonic and if the cable fix didn't work, right now I'd be online with Beach Camera ordering the Panasonic DMP-BD80 for $270. As I needed a coaxial digital input and the BD60 only had optical.

Has anyone had success playing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? I'm on F/W 2.5 and Netflix sent me two that wouldn't start. The second one looked new, so I settled for a DVD and that's when I noticed the pink haze. Due to the strange story line, I thought the director shot it with the haze. I'm waiting on F/W 2.6 but not sure if that will work either.

Despite the aggravation from time to time with the 1200, the Reon chip makes it all worthwhile for me. My Polk/Marantz receiver's capabilaties prevent me from decoding the "lossless" audio tracks, another big 1200 shortcoming.

Jim

Just a few pages back (post 5703 to be exact) a user reported that Benjamin Button would not play with FW 2.5 but playes fine with 2.6. A search of this thread would have found that for you. FW 2.6 has been out for a while - don't know what you are waiting for. http://www.samsung.com/us/support/do...ype=FM&vType=R

Regarding hi-rez audio, if you have an AVR that does the audio decoding, then the 1200 really doesn't have a "shortcoming" since you can bitstream via HDMI and have the AVR do the hi-rez audio decoding. It's all a matter of perspective as to where the "shortcoming" lies.

As I recall from much earlier in this thread, the 1200 does not have the capability of bitstreaming the blu-ray advanced audio formats, despite the fact that it has HDMI 1.3. It was a source of great disappointment to many earlier purchasers of this player.

No problem, here to help.


1200 does NOT handle the lossless audio like TrueHD or DTS-MA. Not via bitstreaming, not via decoding and sending as LPCM. The only lossless audio you can get is older BD titles that have PCM tracks. That being said, it's not a huge loss in practise; the TrueHD tracks end up as 640k Dolby Digital tracks, and the DTS-MA ends up as 1.5MB DTS core tracks. Both sound excellent.

Temporary brain infarction - I have 3 different BD players and forgot that the 1200 doesn't bitstream hi-rez audio. SORRY! Certainly don't want to spread bad info. Carry on....

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone on this thread for all the help and sympathy over the last 18 months. I'm not sorry I bought this machine, as even with its quirks and Samsung's inconsistent customer support it was a good buy at 299 and gave me many hours of pleasure (and a few of aggravation).

I jumped to the new OPPO BDP-83 just after Memorial Day. The promise of great upconversion, great BD PQ and navigation, SACD and DVD-A playback (I've got a significant investment in both formats), the ability to decode all the high-res audio formats and send them to the analog outs (meaning I don't have to upgrade the AVR), and the best customer service in the business made it worth the price. It really is an extraordinary player and an extraordinary company as well. I'm very impressed by the whole package.

The 1200 will be heading to the bedroom now. I'll check in from time to time, but I wanted to say "thanks, everyone" while it was fresh in my mind. Ciao!

Ditto. My 1200 has also gone to the BR, where it will mainly do dvd duty, which it of course does very well. And a new Oppo is in the main HT.

Gardo,

How would you rate the SD upconversion of the two machines?

Rick

I think the Oppos is somewhat better, but the 1200 is very good. Had the 1200 bitstreamed the hidef audio formats to my AVR I would probably have just stayed with it rather than getting the Oppo. Yes, the Oppo is MUCH faster, more reliable, and with MUCH, MUCH better customer support, but the most imp thing that the 1200 lacked was the inability to deal with the new hidef audio formats.

I'd say the Oppo is considerably better, though the 1200 is very fine in its own right. The experience of using the Oppo is a whole 'nother smoke. It's a pleasure to use, and the HD audio really transforms the experience for me.

So: considerably better upconversion, great BD PQ (better than the 1200 IMO), fast and responsive interface, great customer service, wonderful audio quality, and (very important to me) it also plays back SACD and DVD-A (and those very well indeed). Pretty much a slam dunk for me.

Thanks. I have no doubt that the OPPO is a fine machine. However, I have a huge collection of regular DVDs, so the upconversion capability is a bigger issue for me than some of the other features.

Rick

Hello Fellow 1200 Owners.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and retired the my much loved BD-P1200 bluray player to the family room, which the system in that room is no slouch! The 1200 will give that room another hi-def source other than the Fios HD/DVR STB.

Anyway, I purchased arguably the 2nd most maligned blueray player on the market, the Pioneer BDP-51FD. (2nd to the 1200, of course).

So far, I'm impressed with the 51FD. IMO, it does provide a slightly better picture with bluray. Not by much mind you, but there is an improvement. I haven't test the upconverting capability yet with standard DVD's. It has received many kudos for it's standard DVD performance, on par with the Samsung BD-P1200 and some have said it's better. Hard to believe of course, because my 1200 is a beast when it comes to standard DVD playback.

Now I could contribute the small margin of improvement to the fact that my 50" plasma is a Samsung and it's only 1366 x 768P (720P for those who aren't hip!). Not only is it not 1080P capable, you can't even force 1080P to the TV so it can downconvert the signal to 768P. And forget about 24fps! That's totally out of the question. Not to mention 60Hz! I couldn't even enjoy the 24fps with the 1200, but the Samsung can output 720P and the Pioneer will only output 1080i/60, and, although it can output 720P, it's only at 24fps. Bottom line, there's more video processing at the TV. The more processing the less PQ.!
I believe that if the Pioneer BDP-51FD could output 720P/60= less processing, the increase in picture quality would be at a higher margin. So that's saying a lot about the Pioneer video performance. Even with more processing due to the TV's limitations, the 51FD video quality is still slightly better than the Samsung. Pity!

Anyway, I've posted some photos so you can see the difference between the two players.

I like the Pioneer's tall profile.


Rear panels.


The BD-P1200's HDMI area is showing it's age!


I don't know if the thickness of the power cord makes a difference, but it damn sure looks impressive!


I still have a lot to learn about the Pioneer BDP-51FD and it's capabilities.
What I do know is that it has a lot to live up too! For me, the Samsung BD-P1200, despite it's hi-rez audio limitations, was an excellent performer and I'm proud to say I own one. I will continue to keep up with the 1200 thread as long as thread is alive, and will continue to post now and then. Especially being that it's with a different system, I'm anxious to see how it will perform on my 42" 720P LCD in the family room. Probably the same as on my 50" plasma! (duh!)

Regards.

I found another unplayable title: Mad Men Season 2.

I moved my player downstairs to my living room for occasional use. But every time I try a Bluray disc I feel like I am spinning the roulette wheel.

I've watched the first two episodes from the first disc of the Mad Men Season 2 series without any problems. I'm on firmware 2.6.

How can I determine the revision level of my firmware?
I downloaded the latest (090415) from Samsung and assumed that was the best one to be using.

Sounds like you have the latest. To check, go Menu, then Setup, then System Upgrade, then System Information. It should say: S/W:090415.01_T22F_0924.07_XAA.

I watched the third episode off the first disc last night. Had some significant macroblocking at the disc menu for the first time, but no problem once I chose an episode for viewing. I ejected and re-loaded the disc later to see if I could replicate the problem but I couldn't. Seemed to be transitory.

Have any of you done your own slideshow DVD of your family vacation and then played it on the Samsung BDP1200.

Here is my problem??

I am using NeroVision 3.0 with a Sony Drive... I create the slideshow and burn it no problem to a DVD. Then I can play that DVD on my computer and it works fine...

Take the DVD to the Samsung and it freezes on the second screen shot. I got out some of my old slideshows and same thing.

I think this is a Nero problem because I trialed a slideshow program and it worked OK... now you ask why do I not want that one well it costs 40 bucks... Call me cheap

Any ideas?? I have changed a the write type to all the different book type etc. still hangs.....

My fathers CD slideshow works OK on my samsung and he uses roxio. I can't get roxio to work on my computer.