BD-UP5000 Universal Player Samsung [OFFICIAL OWNERS THREAD] & FAQ - Page 415

With the cheapest price being around $80 right now for the Star Wars Saga... I don't think it unreasonable to feel like our $400+ player from just a few years ago should be able to play it.

I shouldn't have to spend $100 to buy a new Blu-ray player to play an $80 movie set every couple of years.

To be clear Star Wars is a Fox release and is sure to have new DRM and other tricks to try to foil copying. I supose if I can never play them on the 5k I can unload the set online then just download the mkv rips and watch them that way.

Victor, could you post which discs are having issues on other players so we know what to look for and not be surprised when we get our sets either from the store or in the mail. Maybe a quick list of brands and players that are reporting issues would help also esp. if any of them are Samsung players.

I did a little googleing but there is not much out there, yet. At this point I just hope all the movie discs play and if the bonus discs do not then that would be ok for a time. I won't get around to watching these for some time anyhow. I bet that the problem discs are movie discs and probably in episodes IV-VI with my luck.

It's mostly UK reports now. If you take a look as the star wars thread over at avforums you should get some hits.

$80 is way too much. I pre-ordered mine from B&N with a discount code for only $44.79 for the complete set of 6 movies + 3 bonus discs.

Yeiks, and I just realized that all the B&N advance purchases I have made have had issues; Bambi, Tron 2-movie collection and now possibly Star Wars. That is a very strange coincidence. I did not keep the Tron 5-disc collection, but unloaded it since I was able to buy the 2 movies individually for a better price and did not care about the 3D and digital copies of Tron Legacy, but gained a DVD copy of classic. I only paid $24.79 for that one. Anyhow, I digress.

Still, I agree with your point. I'm thinking now that the inability to play Star Wars, if that is the case, might spur Samsung to finally update this beast. But I would not hold my breath too long :-O

OIC, those crazy brits, probably struggling with the "Queens English" dubs so they can understand what is going on ;-)

Ok, that will give me something to do this week if and when I get bored and have nothing else to do. It's going to kill me to wait several days until I have a chance to check out the discs. The rest of you will probably beat me to the punch.

Lol not I. Ordered from BN so mine isn't due to ship until the release date. For me though I am patient enough to wait. Especially since I just ordered a BIC F12 which my better half got me for my Birthday. From the looks of it it's not every disc and is mostly sound dropouts. It appears to be the same issue people were having with XMen 1st class. Turning off Internet features though fixed that particular disc.

I missed out on that... plus I'm not a Barnes & Noble member so I couldn't have used all the coupon codes that were available...

I have some RewardZone certs to burn AND right now Best Buy has a deal where if you spend $100 on TV shows you can get a $25 gift card... so I'm thinking of doing that to get a couple of new Blu-ray seasons I wanted, then use about $55 of RewardZone certs against the $79.99 price so that for about $130 I can get Star Wars + Supernatural + either House or Fringe... which averaged out is like $43 per set OR I can divide it out so my TV sets are cheaper if that makes me feel better

I feel I would be fine paying $60 for the 6 Star Wars movies... which isn't the deal some got... but I would be essentially bundling that with getting Fringe and Supernatural for $35 each.

Yeah, it hasn't happened yet... and I do want to watch these... but IF they didn't play, that might force Samsung's hand more than the other stuff has up to this point.

They responded pretty quickly to Avatar... so I can only imagine the pressure if Star Wars won't play!

Ya, not to take us further off topic, but that's a little rich for my blood for TV box sets. I tend to wait and pick them up used either locally or online. I generally only buy them in cases where I have discovered a new show I missed or one I just did not watch for some reason. Sometimes waiting for them to come in the mail from BB and NF is a bother and easier to buy them cheep, then resale them and turn a profit. I have a good track record of this, did it with; True Blood, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, SGU and a few others. In the case of Breaking Bad I was able to get season 1 and 2 new for ~$10 each, watch them and then unload them for more than double what I paid. I had seen the episodes, but not on BD uncut and my son wanted to get caught up in the middle of season 3 when it was endlessly re-ran earlier this year. I have collected select seasons of Battlestar and those you can get dirt cheep right after they release (demo sets I think) and was able to pick up the complete Lost BD set for ~$100 which was a great deal for a 100% intact in excellent condition used set (with none of the goodies open) of that. I still have a few TV box sets lying around that have not sold, I haven't got around to listing yet, or haven't watched; SG:U season 1, Heroes season 1, The Walking Dead, Vampire Chronicles season 1 etc.

For the most part I prefer to DVR or watch TV OnDemand rather than on BD, however the overall experience, VQ and SQ are far superior on BD. I will be picking up SG:U season 2 for just that reason and Lost and Battlestar look fantastic on BD. Other than those few shows I don't want to own TV shows I have already seen.

Fringe is another show that shines on.Blu-ray. Now that that have added lossless audio it should be even better.

Interesting. I happened to do some digging into firmware updates on older Samsung players and the p1200 did get an update on Dec. 6th of last year. The front page says that 2.9 was released 4/2010, but they must have forgot to change the date.

That pretty much leaves only the 5k that has not had an update in over a year (at least from the p2500 series back to the p1000). Almost all of them except for the p1000 got one 4/2010, 12/2010 and 4/2011 the p1000 just got the two April releases and the p1200 is missing this years 4/2010 update.

What the heck is the deal with the 5k that they refuse to at least provide annual or biannual updates. Why are we penalized that our player has HD-DVD functionality that has now been abandoned by the industry. Should that alone exempt Samsung from providing updates? I think not.

Come on Samsung, support the buyers of your most expensive disc player to date!

Hmmm...I did not know those were released by WB. I would have assumed since the show is on Fox that they would be releasing them, until I remembered that TV is a whole lot different game than movies. Also I did not know the 1st two seasons were only DD. One source says that season 3 is DD another says DTS-HD MA and I'm also seeing folks complaining that season 3 is still lossy audio and not DTS-HD MA? So which is it?

From the review it says DTSMA for the US release. S01 and S02 were DD, but "above average" DD tracks. I haven't seen any complaints as of yet of only having DD when the packaging and reviews said DTSMA.

The Blu-ray stats database shows them as 640K DD which is much better than most DD streams you will run into, but far from the best. Still better than anything you will hear on TV signals. It also shows season 3 with DTS-HD MA so I'm not sure what the complaints are about. They were early on after the announcement, so maybe folks assumed that it would still be DD.

One of these days when I don't have a major backlog of stuff to watch I might catch that show on BD. I don't think I saw season 1 and maybe season to in HD.

Do yourself a favor and watch this show in HD it's one of those shows that deserves to be seen in HD.

I actually have watched all the episodes of seasons 1-3 in HD on cable. I got my full 1080p HD DLP projection Sammy in the Spring of 2008 and upgraded to HD service sometime in the fall of that year.

I just haven't watched them on BD yet.

Yes, a show I would not like to watch in SD.

guess I'm glad I'm boycotting those Star Wars discs, hehe.

Oh you Star Wars purists ;-) so there is another resounding "noooooooooo..."

do anyone know if this uses the same laser assembly as the hd-xa2 (PHR-803T or DT0811)?

I am thinking of buying one but with all the loader failures I would like to know I can get laser parts.

There is no way it is the same as the HD only players since it's a combo loader and does both BD AND HD. I've looked at plenty of the assemblies and the lasers are all one part. Also the failures are usually not the lasers or the assembly, but other components and the tracking mechanism that goes south. I wish I new more about how to repair the loaders since I could probably revive several of the dead and marginal ones I have in a box in the basement.

I am currently planning on picking Star Wars up Friday with the creative spending of certificates plan... part 1 comes tomorrow to buy TV shows... then part 2 happens Friday...

I am hoping they play, because if they don't... who knows when it might be... but then, the fear is without a major failure with this player we might be already forgotten.

Watched Thor last night and it played flawlessly. Anyone tried O Brother Where Art Thou?

Started watching Thor and while it played beautifully, it did not decode the audio correctly and stayed in 5.1 as opposed to 7.1. But I think that particular issue is already well documented.

Using which audio setting? bitstream or PCM? It's DTS HD-MA 7.1 and it should output correctly with bitstream audiophile using HDMI, but will only decode the core DTS 5.1 if you have it set to PCM. I have yet to see a 7.1 DTS-HD or DD THD not output correctly to my AVR.

Thanks... I had my fingers crossed. I picked Thor up yesterday (along with Fringe S3 and Supernatural S6) and was hoping Thor would be ok because I really want to watch it.

Was able to pick up the Star Wars set today- I guess the Navy Exchange screwed up and put them out early.

Unfortunately BD UP5000 owners get the lovely red and yellow screen saying we need an update. Sigh.

On a more positive note, I was able to A-B the old DVD with the BD. Put the DVD in the 5000 and the BD in my PS3 and the difference is jaw-dropping. Magnificent detail and color. Anyone out there that claims they can't tell the difference between up-res DVD and HD couldn't possibly be that blind.

Folks who are boycotting this set due to Lucas' meddling and greed are missing out on some of the best blu rays available.

If that's the case and Samsung doesn't put an update so we can play the movie, I'm moving on to a different player. They are too cheap these days to just sit on out thumbs and hope we can play discs for.the.next few years.

I don't blame you. The only reason I'm not infuriated is because I have the PS3 on the same system, and I don't think a disc exists that a PS3 won't play. My only problem is I hate that the PS3 doesn't have a numeric display, so I can't look and see at an instant how much time has elapsed. Considering that I think the 5000 is the absolute best up-res player out there for the rest of my DVD collection, I won't be getting rid of it. I also own an HD XA2 and I find the image from the 5000 more pleasing. I actually went through 4 players to find a 5000 that worked reliably, and now that I have a good one it's the default player unless the update screen comes up.

Have you ever had any other FOX disc issues?

I never had that issue with any FOX discs... but I know some people had that at first and it wasn't a firmware issue but a hardware issue and people had to send their receivers in for repair.

I guess what I'm wondering is... if it is possible for that failure to be rearing its head again even if you previously had no issues.

Meanwhile... did you try the usual suspects like clearing the persistent cache and such?

And you are running 1.6? Correct? Please get this reported to Samsung ASAP if you have not already. If you can give me more detail as to what the update screen says and when it comes up I will report it through my channels as well.

I was expecting this, and won't be opening up my set IF and WHEN I get it from B&N next week until we get some more reports.

It would also help if those of you on the thread that hope to ever play this call/E-mail/Chat etc. Samsung to get a bunch or trouble reports rolling. You might want to wait until Friday/Saturday since it does not release till then, but getting this in before the weekend will speed things up.

I can't see how they would not release an update for a major release like this. Everyone and their dog (except for the crazy Star Wars purists snobs out there) will be buying this.

I guess I might have to steel my mothers Pioneer earlier than I had planned on if I decide to watch it and an update never comes? Got an old Sony in the basement, but it doesn't bitstream or decode DTS-HD.