BD-UP5000 Universal Player Samsung [OFFICIAL OWNERS THREAD] & FAQ - Page 376

For the 3-4 people that still own this player and care ;-)

Please, please, please call, chat, E-mail Sammy with any of the movies you own that are not playing now. I'm doing all I can to pester them to get this to be a high priority and don't want to let the pressure off. They need to hear from EVERYONE that is having problems. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so to say.

I'm confident that we will see a release. It may take weeks or months, but we will get it.

Personally I have chatted and E-mailed the new titles I found Sunday and had them added to my ticket and have been in contact with other folks I know at Sammy to get this addressed. At least the issues are in their "Knowledge Base" at this point, so reporting should be fairly pain-free. I'm attaching a recent chat thread as an example. I haven't called and won't until a few more weeks pass. Takes too much time and I get sick of going through all the steps and frustration.

info: Please wait for a Samsung Agent to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Vega P'
Vega P: Hello, I am a Samsung Technical Support representative. How may I assist you today?
Mr.Kludge: hey Vega, hows it going today?
Mr.Kludge: I'm the owner of (2) two Samsung BD-UP5000 combo Blu-Ray/HD-DVD players
Vega P: I am fine. Thank you.
Vega P: Please go ahead with your queries.
Mr.Kludge: One is running the new 1.5 aka "Avatar" firmware. The other I have running the older 1.4 since there are several older movies that don't play on the new 1.5 firmware
Mr.Kludge: I would like to add 7 movies that don't play to my current open case/ticket...hold on and I will get that case number...
Mr.Kludge: case (redacted)
Mr.Kludge: I have already reported Sunshine and Pirates of the Caribbean: At the Worlds End AKA Pirates 3 as having issues
Mr.Kludge: I have now found the following to also not play (same problem as Sunshine). The movies get stuck in a background video loop that plays while the menu is up, but the menu items never draw therefore you can never watch the movie
Mr.Kludge: The movies are; I Robot, Man on Fire, Speed, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Die Hard 1-3
Mr.Kludge: Note that the last is 3 movies, the entire original Die Hard series, SANS Die Hard 4 (Live Free, Die Hard)
Mr.Kludge: please either add those movies, or open a new case for these.
Mr.Kludge: I'm contacting you to get this officially in the queue for testing.
Mr.Kludge: Note that all these movies play fine in my player that is running the older 1.4 firmware
Vega P: Are the discs that you are not able to play are regular DVD discs or the Blu-ray discs ?
Mr.Kludge: they are all BDs
Mr.Kludge: DVDs, HDs and all my other BDs (that I have tried so far) are ok
Mr.Kludge: so far that is
Vega P: Does the same issue persist with all the Blu-ray discs that you try to play on the Blu-ray player ?
Mr.Kludge: something in the 1.5 Avatar firmware broke all these movies. There is one more reported as not working; Cast Away, but I don't own that one. It has a different problem and gets stuck on a blank screen prior to any type of menu. Since i don't own it, I'm not reporting it.
Mr.Kludge: nope, other BDs are fine
Mr.Kludge: As I said they play on 1.4 but not 1.5
Mr.Kludge: I have reset the player, power restarted etc.
Vega P: Have you tried resetting both the Blu-ray players and checked ?
Mr.Kludge: also extensive testing with both firmware was performed on both players.
Mr.Kludge: yup, I've had these for a couple years, know all the tricks
Mr.Kludge: each time I had a problem with a movie I reset just to be sure
Mr.Kludge: it's a firmware problem for sure
Mr.Kludge: All of the movies are FOX titles except for Pirates 3
Mr.Kludge: There are many other FOX titles that I own that I verified to play on Sunday
Mr.Kludge: Movies that are affected start at the release of Speed back in 2006 and then stop in early 2008 right after I Robot was released
Vega P: As per the information you have provided, the issue seems to occcur only when playing some particular discs on the Blu-ray player, I will surely notify this to my concern department and our engineers will work on this, and once the firmware is released it will be listed on the website for downloading. Please be patient until the next firmware version is released.
Mr.Kludge: Most of them released late 2007 (Christmas releases) and then around March/April 2008 movies are good again
Vega P: Alright.
Mr.Kludge: great, thanks, just wanted to get it reported.
Mr.Kludge: and added to my case or a new one created.
Mr.Kludge: I am aware that you have a form or something that you list these things on and then forward to engineering?
Vega P: Sure, I will report this issue. You're welcome. Can I be any further assistance ?
Mr.Kludge: Nope, and yes I will be patient. Want them to take their time on the next one since it looks like the Avatar update got out the door too early?
Mr.Kludge: l8r
Vega P: I can understand, I am sure that these issues will be addressed this time.
Mr.Kludge: hopefully :-)
Vega P: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
Mr.Kludge: nope, good for now

More like a dog with a bone. Actually I'm an obsessive/Compulsive dog with a really addicting bone Fortunately I'm not obsessive about the things I am compulsive about and vise versa.

Actually how about a hardly used Sony BDP-S300 in trade complete with HDMI cable, Spidy 3 and maybe a couple random BDs thrown in for good measure?

My post from yesterday shows that they are aware of a problem with 1.5, so it is good to keep the heat on them about this issue.

Reminds me of an old saying, if you yell into a coffee cup for seven years you will generate one millivolt of electricity. I've been on their ass for a fix for performance issues with 24p since day one. They don't care about this player, Java is a pain in the ass to rewrite because it has to be done from scratch. And anytime you upgrade using Java coding there will always be something a miss. And to add more flame on the fire they have rewrite/reverse the HDI coding into Java also.

The PC has come along ways and all I do these days is just archive my rentals into the PC. Never have to insert a disc and I can play all my movies in series for a serious marathon.
The PC has no 24p issues.
Ripping out previews going straight to menu.
Don't have to wait for over a year for CE company's like Samsung to write new FW's. (what a JOKE)
Managed archived Genre is the only way to go these days.
SW players get the updates on a general bases unlike Samsung players.
PC at this point super seeds any SA Sammy player PQ is on par with any SA player with W7 and a good GPU that can handle loosless.

I decided not to invest in SA BD players I'll just stick with my PC and break out my XA-2 for just HD DVD. You can't beat Toshiba's players for HD DVD and using MS's HDi. The only reason for doing this is because certain French titles in HD DVD only the HDI coding will generate the subtitles. My PC even fails to do this even though it is written with HDi
The 5k just sits gathering dust most of the time. I don't even bother with this player when a new BD release is out at the local video store 1.50 rentals. Since I've been renting from this store I have yet to buy another BD title at retail prices a dollar fifty really spoils you.

It's a workable solution but it's not for everyone since it involves ripping, data storage and software solutions. :P I've only kept the 5000 for the novelty since it was my first HD standalone (never really invested in DVD). The Oppo has been a Godsend overall.

Sent you a PM.

Well I am pleased with 1.5 so far. First of all - I had the same issue reported earlier - loaded 1.5 (disc sent from samsung) froze on "CD_UP" - "Don't run off player" screen - waited 1.5 hours and unplugges system. I am glad everyone else reported this - made me feel better.

Avatar plays perfectly - and seriously - WOW - picutre looks GREAT!!

I am very pleased with load times - as mentioned by someone else - the BD's seem to load faster.

I am esepcially ploeased because (as some may remember) I could NOT play Toy Story 1 on 1.3 - now it plays perfectly. I also could NOT play Max Payne on 1.3 - now plays perfectly. Tried Day after tomorrow and a few other Fox titles - they appear to be okay at first glance. I lent out my I robot so I can't test that. Tried to load POTC 3 and it wouldn't even get to the Skull - it just stayed on the ship in the ocean picture. Honestly I am happier that Toy Story and Avatar play. 1.4 REALLY REALLY screws up my player so I had to stick with 1.3 before.

For now I am very pleased - I will keep posting updates as I watch more titles.

BTW - I did not experience this ever with any previous release or with the 3-4 1.5 updates I have done so far. No lockups at all. I recommend clearing persistent memory, system reset and then power reset (power button, not plug, though that would be a good measure as well) before any update or regress back. I can't say I have followed that every time and did not at all on my two current players the 1st time, but they had both been reset and/or flashed recently anyhow.

I updated (2) 5000's with firmware I burned to a CDR using Image Burn and had no freeze up issues on either. Both took about 4 minutes each.

Just a thought for some of you reporting the lock up issues.... Are you actually REMOVING the CDR after the tray first spits open after reading the firmware update and confirming its valid??

You are supposed to REMOVE it. If you are leaving in the tray which then recloses after the update is complete, maybe this is the issue??

Nope, definitely removed. I had never experienced such a lockup on any of the previous updates (and I've had the player since the beginning). I did not, however, reset the firmware prior to upgrading as recommended by Kludge. It's of no great concern anyway, as the update took in spite of the lockup and didn't occur until after the update.

Waited just over an hour and shut the unit off.
Turned on and checked firmware version and it didn't update, still at v1.3.
Trying again.

2nd attempt failed as well.
Going to burn another disk and try again.



Looks like the second attempt worked, but I had to unplug to reset.

I keep reading folks on the board upgrading to 1.5 for Avatar, and then reverting back to 1.4 or 1.3 to be compatible with older BRDs. How do you do that? I thought Samsung's firmware updates are not backwards compatible, meaning once you install 1.5, you can't go back and reinstall 1.4 or 1.3. I remember doing that when 1.4 came out and I had some problems, and I cannot revert back to the 1.3 firmware and Samsung customer service also advised the same.

Those on the board that are "flipping" back and forth firmware releases please let me know how you do that.

Thanks.

There is no problem flashing to older versions. I have done it all the way back to 1.2 and then progressed forwards when I was diagnosing the HD UFO:Showtime, which has never played, to my knowledge, on this player. That was back in the heyday of 1.4. I have had no problem going back to 1.4 on my spare player. Haven't regressed my main one back yet since I still have not watched Avatar in it's entirety. Seems I got sidetracked with all of these older moves that don't play. I intend to do that once I have watched it. Presently I have the spare running 1.4 in a semi-permanent temporary hookup since I am still testing differences between the 1.5 and 1.4. I keep thinking that more movies will be discovered, so I want at least one machine running the new bad firmware. I got sick of getting the spare out of the basement and it's box every other day. After a time while we await a fix, I will probably regress the main and bump the spare to 1.5, but might just wait until I get my 3rd unit, which should be running 1.5 already and use that for 1.5 testing and then bump the main to 1.4 when it arrives. Then I would have a spare running both 1.5 and 1.4 and my main player should be able to play anything in my collection sans Hancock, which so far is the only movie that has any major benefit with 1.5 except playability with Avatar (and the audio drops can be eliminated by having the player decode). I haven't ran into any other recent Fox releases that I am interested that don't play on 1.4. That I'm sure won't be the case for long. There are some other minor benefits to running 1.5, but it breaks more than it fixes at this point. All other disc issues have workarounds.

I did notice that the loader code stays the same as the upgraded code with 1.5 when you downgrade to 1.4. I don't recall how things act when you go back to 1.3 or 1.2 or earlier since I did not know how to determine the loader code version back then. It is possible that there may be problems with 1.3 and 1.2 with the new loader code. Someone that has trouble with 1.4 and had to regress back to 1.3 can comment on that. Personally I don't have a need to go back that far since I did not have issues with 1.4 and it fixes a bunch of moves that don't play on 1.3

You are working from low level techs. at Sammy support. They don't understand this unit and are just touting the standard bull. The reality is that 100% of the main firmware is flashed when you install any version. Apparently it is smart enough to keep the loader code at the latest version even if you go back. Not sure if that is by design, or it is just a happy accident. Regardless you want your loader code to be the latest, that is just code for the drive itself and in the best case improves things and is unlikely to cause further problems. The same is the case with the LG BH200. The loader/driver code stays at the latest and you can regress back to an earlier version. Of course YMmV and it is always possible to toast your unit during a flash, but regressing should not be the reason.

I highly recommend a system reset, followed by a persistent memory clear and a full power plug reset before and after any f/w update with this player. Personally I just system reset if it has not been done recently, do a power cycle and flash it. I only system reset again after the flash, if I run into weirdness. When I flashed over the weekend again, I did not do anything special before, but I did system reset it after, just for good measure.

I'm sure all this is not sanctioned by Sammy, so don't hold me responsible if you brick your unit. Good thing we can flash back or we would be screwed by Avatar. That would truly suck to update to 1.5 and then have 12 or more movies that won't play anymore, and may never play again.

I forgot to say, to go back and forth, just grab your old CD you burned and follow the same process you did to upgrade to 1.5.

Somewhere in the list is a post of a link(s) that have the older code. Not sure if anyone archived 1.4. Now that it is off the Sammy site I will archive it. I have access to 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 in case you need an image I can make it available to you. Just PM me and I will let you know where you can get it from.

That may be the main reason that Sammy support says you can't go back, since they only post the latest firmware. I'm sure you could get it, IF you whined enough.

So I sent my 1.4 off to someone else so do not have it. On another forum a Samsung tech. was saying it is not wise to regress to an earlier fw. So who do you trust? This is all BS as far is I see it.

Sounds like BS to me. I have not heard of any problems going back and fourth. There is the occasional player that won't take 1.4 and some instances where players have been bricked, probably since they had other problems, bad media, burn, improper procedures etc. I have never gave it a second thought and has been essential for this player for one reason or another. What else are you supposed to do when they FUBAR firmware and screw up. I suppose there may come a time when I do run into a problem, but have not done this often, and only when necessary.

This used to also be common practice with the Tosh HD players. I have a disc that assists in going back to I think 1.3 (might have been 2.0, 3.4 etc.) on my A35 since they put a trap in to prevent you from going back at one point and there were some troubles with the newer firmwares in that player until 3.0-4.0 came out.

If you need a 1.4 image, hunt around in the forum. I recall someone posting a link, but it might have been for just the older firmwares. I intend to post it on my server, but it is not in a good state right now and I will need to make an image, zip it up and post it when I have some free time. I might have the downloaded image lying around on a computer somewhere. I have just been working from my old original 1.4 CD I burned long ago when it first came out. Right now it is time to watch LOST.

I could burn you a copy and mail it to you. Let me know via PM if you need that. Otherwise in a few days when I can locate the image I will post it.

I purchased Avatar but before I unsealed it I read here about the problems with 1.5 so I returned it. I've had 1.3 for some time and I have several of the disks that won't play on 1.5.

I know have a new laptop. Does anyone know if Avatar will play on a computer that has an internal Blu Ray (burner/player) drive or does all this fireware nightmare also apply to computers?

Thanks for your input?

Although manufacturers offer f/w updates for PC BD reader/writers, updates for new protections and other issues is usually handled by updates to the software players. I have an Acer notebook [Aspire 8940G-6865] with std. Blu-ray, and I have received frequent updates to the player software [Acer version supplied by Cyberlink].

Thanks for the offer Mr. Kludge but I will wait and see what comes of this whole mess. If things do not work out for a fix, then I will just hop on board the Oppo ship and not worry about this Samsung fiasco.

Quick question. Has anyone verified the following titles for playability in 1.5? I own sealed copes of a few (just remembered about PotA yesterday) and picked up a few yesterday for cheep, but many I have on DTheater and really not that interested in owning them on BD. Wondering if I need to open and try or just return them.

-Behind Enemy Lines
-Courage Under Fire
-Me, Myself and Irene
-High Crimes
-Unfaithful
-The complete original Planet of the Apes franchise (mine is sealed and put away). I did verify the 2001 Danny Elfman one and it is ok.
-Butch and Sundance
-Ice Age
-Mr. Magoroum....
-Wall Street
-The Simpsons Movie
-Entrapment
-Men of Honor
-Kiss The Dragon
-League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

These are all ones within the problem window that I have not been able to verify. There are a couple exceptions (Courage... and Unfaithful are probably ok since they are much newer).

Vinnie, you check any of these? I only paid attention ones you mentioned that I currently own.

I am writing a letter to the Samsung USA presidents office for various reasons. Foremost being to find out what the ongoing commitment is to this player. It will determine what I do long term with BD. I'm not interested in buying a new BD player ever. So if there won't be further support and it is going to be this much of a hassle every time, then I'm just going to stop buying BDs all together and use other alternatives. Probably keep my players since they are still good for almost my entire collection using 1.4 and my vast HD and DVD collection.

Mr. K, I have the first Apes BD (original movie, not the sequels). I'll check it when I get a chance and report back.

Doug

I don't own any of those to check...and giving up on BD because of Samdung? Isn't that like cutting off your nose to spite your face? This player's not worth denying oneself the best HD presentation to be obtained in the HT.

Actually I'm not giving up on BD because of just this issue. I have enough movies that I could watch one or two every week for the rest of my life and never get through the collection. I never intended to really get into BD anyhow, just been a nice side benefit. Keep meaning to stop buying, but I keep running into library reference titles I want to own. There are not that many movies left to be released that I care to own and I haven't been impressed by most of what Hollywood has to offer these days. Since I have on demand HD premium channel content with cable, I've been watching most stuff that looks ok on it since I really don't care if I have to wait. Avatar was the 1st recent release of a 'new" movie I have purchased right at release for a long time and I've been paying for it ever since. I wanted to be able to see and own it on BD due to the "eye candy" of the movie.

It's been over a month since I even watched and movie on optical disc (or DTheater for that matter) all the way through. Once the TV goes into the summer season and I'm not watching so much, I will have a little time for 1-2 movies a week again, maybe.

That would be great. Actually those are way outside of the zone of problem titles and I expect them to play. Please let me know if it has the "Advanced Menu Features" banner on it. I suspect it does not. I have never looked at those titles since my wife gave me the set back when it was released for Christmas one year, but I put it away and forgot about it until I was searching Fox titles the other day. Since it is buried and sealed, it's going to stay that way IF and until I get in an Apes mood.

I'm still searching for a title that does not have the AMF banner that does not play.

Forgot to mention that the reason I am asking about these titles is so I have a comprehensive list of the impact to put in my letter to Sammy brass. I would also like to get a count of folks that have ran into these issues, owns affected titles, or was planning on owning said titles and being able to play on their Sammy player.

At this point I'm not just a "squeaky wheel" I'm probably close to a cease and deist request from them. If I had more time, I would call/E-mail and chat every single day until a fix is released (or at least acknowledged or announced). I'm 99% sure it will happen, just when is the question.

There are many more movies within the problem window identified, but I've only asked about the ones I have a slight or big interest in. Vinnie's posts have been helpful since he lists many that I don't have (and many I'm not interested in having). Sadly I forgot his mention of Daredevil and I opened mine. I have DD on Dtheater and ended up with it on BD as part of a double disc package that I think I sold off the extra title (might have been Donnie Darko, but don't recall). I keep meaning to sell of my DTheater titles that I now have on BD, but glad I have not yet given this new problem.

I have the Simpson's movie and will try it but probably not today. It shows that it has the Smart Menu Technology on the back. I have never played it before so will open it up and give it a whirl.