BD-UP5000 Universal Player Samsung [OFFICIAL OWNERS THREAD] & FAQ - Page 417

Loaded up 1.6 and all my problems are indeed gone. Star Wars, Moulin Rouge, X-Men First Class and indeed, even Avatar run just fine.

I'm glad. I really don't want to hate this player. It was amazing how much frustration I put up with in my old one because I loved the picture so much.

I own Bambi, the Incredibles, and Tron Legacy... all unplayable Disney movies under 1.6 (but Kludge has tested and they would be playable if I rolled back to 1.4).

There are other movies for which no fix exists (Chaplin and Superman/Batman Apocalypse comes to mind) I also remember that Disney's Tangled didn't play either but I didn't buy that one yet and won't until they fix the playback with this player.

At least I can have a Star Wars weekend!

The other problem ones you did not mention are Splice and Thir13en Ghosts (both WB releases).

Tangled plays fine, you just have to press stop when it gets stuck on the Disney Castle screen, then press menu to get it going again. Same trick works for The Sorcerers Apprentice and Tron classic.

And don't forget the many recent Disney DVDs that won't play.

I didn't remember Thir13en Ghosts... and forgot about Splice (semantics, but I really forgot about Splice, but don't think I knew about Ghosts)...

I also forgot the workaround for some Disney movies, since those all happen to be ones I didn't buy, though I want Tron Classic and may want Tangled if I ever get around to watching it off the DVR.

I wasn't even thinking about the DVD problems either... I haven't ran into any of those, probably because most of the DVDs I would run into are older ones that should be fine... I don't buy too many new DVDs except for a few TV shows I like that aren't releasing Blu-rays for some reason.

I've answered my own question: O Brother Where Art Thou plays flawlessly as well.

Okay. Just got my hands on this set and am surfing around the discs to see how things go. So far, disc 9 bonus features plays but has a long load time on the doc Star Warriors. I had to load it twice from Main Menu for it to work. On same disc, "Star Wars Spoofs" plays with little load time but the video is occasionally "jumpy" like it's skipping frames or something. Anyone else have this?

So far the original Disc 4 Ep. IV A New Hope is absolutely brilliant! It loaded up quickly and looks and sounds great. Blown away at PQ. None of the issues I found on Disc 9.

edit: running latest FW

Ya splice was the first bad wb to be detected. I found ghosts the hard way buying the double feature with house of wax that plays fine. I had to import the redcoat version of that one that plays fine. You may have some of the bad Disney dvds in combo packs. Many of the ones released in the past year play the bd but the dvd won't. Examples are sorsorers apprentice, disneys Christmas carol and a few others. I haven't checked all mine yet since I have no interest in playing a dvd when I have the bd.

I do have Christmas Carol... but haven't watched it yet... it might be a whole 'nother Christmas since it originally came out and still haven't watched it yet

You're right, though... I don't have kids or anything, so as long as the Blu-ray plays I haven't even bothered to check the DVDs to see if they work.

FYi... for posterity, I figured it was time to contact Samsung via eMail support again since I have done so before. I might have not fully explained things (like I know there is a workaround for Tangled) but the gyst was that I own a bunch of unplayable movies and know of some others and have some with audio issues too... and would like to know what's up...

Here's a copy of what I sent:

"I have been patiently awaiting an update for my BD-UP5000 since many new release Blu-ray movies (and some DVDs too) have been unplayable. I understood that Samsung would provide firmware updates as new movies in the Blu-ray format come out that require them.

So far I own the following unplayable movies: Bambi, The Incredibles, Superman/Batman Apocalypse, Tron Legacy

I am also aware of the following movies being unplayable so I cannot yet purchase them: Chaplin, Splice, Tangled, Thirteen Ghosts

Additionally, while the following movies play, they have serious audio dropout issues under certain configurations (especially 60fps mode or LPCM output): Iron Man 2, Megamind, Shrek: The Whole Story, Toy Story 3, Up!, The Walking Dead Season 1

I have mostly been very happy with my Samsung player, so much so that I bought a Samsung HDTV to go with it... but I am finding the lack of updates and increasing number of new movies that do not play to be frustrating.

Please advise as to the status of a firmware update that will address the above issues.

Thank you in advance."

Nice letter, but you are waisting your time. All you will get is a standard canned response to update your firmware to the latest, do a system reset etc. That's all I have got in response to any E-mail I have sent. They will also say to contact them on the phone if things continue and/or contact them to send your player in for repair.

You must call them in person on the phone and even if you do that you will get no reliable information. You should call them and open a level one ticket and ask to be escalated to 2nd level support and get a support ticket opened there as well. They only really track the 2nd level calls and those are the ones that count. I would guess that very few of you have taken things this far assuming that an E-mail, call or chat is enough but I assure you that chats, E-mails and 1st level calls get tossed or otherwise pawned off. It is only calls that count and 2nd and higher ones. In my case since I am a pest (I call at least once a month for status on my ticket for Bambi opened in May) that they toss my stuff as well.

Every once in a while I will do a chat and see if there is any new information, which there never is. I was told 2-3 months ago that a update would be released in a few weeks. Others have been told the same thing.

I have even escalated to ECR (Executive customer relations) 2-3 times in the past year and have gotten nowhere with them either. They know so little at that level about the players, technology and issues that they are worthless. I have been promised many times that they would get back to me on status and no one ever E-mails or calls me back. They have both my Google voice number and my E-mail and I have never been contacted.

The only time I was contacted was when I discovered there were ~20 or so older movies broken by 1.5. That intrigued them enough and they found it "interesting" and decided to investigate and correct the problems. I was able to also get UFO Showtime and a couple other issues addressed then as well. I have the E-mail but not the phone number of the person I worked with, but they never write back either and as I recall the call I received from them was from a blocked number so I was never able to capture that. Though I do have the main number for that facility, but they have since disconnected it. BTW - the call back I received was in response to a 2nd level ticket and I was sent there because there were so many Fox movies that no longer played after the Avatar "fix" That was back in the day that they actually cared to support this player. Now I get the distinct feeling and reaction from their support personnel that they don't care and do not intend to do anything about these movies that don't play.

Yeah... much like resistance is to the Borg, so is emailing to Samsung...

But every once in a while I like to update the list of broken movies and send a message that way just to test the waters.

I fully expect the canned response, but you never know. Maybe I'll catch someone by surprise.

Ya, it at least makes you feel good to let off some steam once in a while, until the next movie does not play.

BTW - you haven't given us a Star Wars playability report yet. I assume you have been watching/playing the discs. I have to wait until later this week since my set will not come in until Tuesday. It's been in the area since Friday, but since UPS does not work on the weekend and it has to be handed off from them to USPS there is an extra delay, but well worth the wait for the low cost of the set. I don't know why B&N didn't send these out earlier or at least use USPS, who for now at least still work and deliver on Saturdays without a major premium.

I've had problems with the Star Wars discs in both of my players, but I think that this is due to the B-D parts of the loaders beginning to go on the fritz. The problems don't occur at the same time spots in the two players and I'm seeing problems with some other discs. So far no problems with HD-DVD or DVD discs, which of course use the other lasers.

Since reasonably priced loaders appear to be nonexistent or at least very scarce, I'll probably get another brand B-D player for my next one. I've told Samsung that lack of proper support would cost them sales. I'd like to get an Oppo BDP-93 but have not yet rationalized to myself the $ at this time.

When I get in the mood I'll open up the 5000s and try cleaning them, but they will mainly be used for HD-DVD playback. I am gradually seeing the HD-DVD only releases which I have get supplanted by B-D releases of those titles.

Re the Star Wars discs - My Panasonic DMP-BP35K (originally purchased for use in the bedroom ) has played Star Wars Episodes IV-VI without any problems at all.

My schedule has been off because I actually had stayed up all night Thurs/Friday... so I ended up falling asleep Friday evening and then Saturday was football... and now more football...

But I did watch A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back last night.

I am of course watching in 24fps mode and also bitstream audiophile and both of those movies played just fine and no audio problems either for me.

What I did have, though... with A New Hope... the first time I put it in, it never got to the menu. At some point it just locked up on a black screen... I had to eject and try again. Then, after watching the movie, it didn't go back to the menu (black screen again) and I had to eject and try again.

Not sure what is going on there since I had nothing similar with the Empire disc.

On the plus side... there are ZERO extras on the movie discs do far... so no real need to go back to the menu anyway... Well, technically there is the commentary track extra, but you can change that within the movie audio without going back to the menu.

That reminds me. I was going to ask what order folks were going to watch the episodes in. I think I am going to start with episode I since I have never watched them that way. I have watched IV-VI several times, but back in the day the new ones did not exist so I haven't taken the opportunity to watch them in story order. Also that way you can leave the best for last, or actually 2nd to last. I don't think I watched the originals after the new ones started releasing and those I saw in the theater and also watched on DVD at one point or another.

And I just realized that i will be a while before I get around to watching them now anyway since I will have a ton of DVR crap to clean out this week and that always sets me back when I travel.

I know that the 5000 does not play BD-R discs, unlike my other Samsung players. Does anyone know whether this is a hardware or a software issue (i.e., could Samsung fix it if they wanted to)?

Rick

I'm pretty sure that this is a limitation of the loader/laser, but may be a limitation of the loader firmware or player firmware. Anyhow, if it is possible I will buy you a steak dinner at Ruth Chris IF you can get Samsung to fix it ;-)

Hanna loaded and played without difficulty.

I'm watching in the order they released... it feels more natural to me that way.

I have always viewed these prequels more like flashbacks... since they came out later and are built to lead up to events in the earlier movies... as opposed to IF they had been released chronologically in sequence before those original movies.

I (and others) have made a case, though... that you could watch them as 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6 and it might flow well as a story that way.


That is starting to be an issue for me... as I have new shows starting already and more coming this week... and I DVRed a couple of new shows (Ringer, Secret Circle) to try and see if I like them.

So my DVR needs to be watched a little before I fill that up and have to make decisions!

Since the positive votes on playback were in... I went ahead and picked up X-Men First Class since it dropped to $17.99 today at Best Buy. I also picked up Breakfast Club finally since it was $9.99

For the 1st viewing I am going 451236. Doing it this way pretty much preserves the surprises and storyline.

Interesting. Having never thought about this before, some research reveals 4 main approaches and I have added a couple I thought of
1 - Episodic
2 - Chronological
3 - The prequels as a flashback, that's the 451236 mentioned by others.
4 - interleaving of the old and new 142536
5 - Interleaving starting with 4 which seems more appropriate 415263
and finally one which if I were to interleave I would prefer since always starting with episode 4 seems appropriate but ending with 6 instead of 3 I think would be better;
6 - 415236

I think either #6 or #3 will be how I do them. Probably #6 since I want to see one of the old and one of the new right off and it's only a minor tweak from #3 putting 1 before 5. The storyline remains pretty much in tact and you get the bonus of being able to contrast the coming of age of both Luke and Anakin and provides an interesting twist when 5 comes along with it's revelations. It's been a while since I have seen any of these so I'm not exactly sure what happens in each episode, just that they happen in either the old or the new.

I guess you could toss all the discs in the air and watch in the order they fall also ;-)

Return of the Jedi played without issues tonight... so I'm halfway through the set (not counting the bonus discs)

5 down, Jedi to go, so far the only issue I've had was an audio dropout and some pixellation on Empire when the Falcon first arrives at Cloud City. I run 24 fps and bitstream the audio. I didn't look at the disc, perhaps it's dirty.

The one thing I have noticed, and I'm sure I'm going to be pilloried for this, but I think the PQ is way nicer on the prequels than the original trilogy. I know some prefer the graininess that some older films have, but I don't like it, and it's much more obvious on episodes 4 and 5. As I said, I have not yet watched 6. I realize these movies are older, but some older movies look great on Blu- Patton is coming to mind. Searchers on HD DVD provides another example.

Interesting recommendations on viewing order- never really thought about it. Not sure there are any surprises in the plots at this point, but it would be kind of cool to play with how the story unfolds. It's just a huge time committment to go through all these movies together.

Sounds like a worthy challenge. My expectations aren't too high, but I'll see what I can do.

Rick

For what it's worth... this canned reply from Samsung seems a little different from the last time I received a canned reply... and while it may or may not mean anything "soon" it is the kind of response that could be used against them later if they decided to drop support for the player:

"Thank you for contacting Samsung Electronics.

We understand that you can not get the latest movies discs play on he Blu-ray player.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

We have already forwarded a request to the product development team related to this. Our
development team is working on this to release the firmware update soon to fix the play back issues.

We appreciate your patience during this time.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you. "

Just curious, has anyone tried the SW discs on a 1.4 machine?

If you take a look back you'll see that DrJohn tried (and failed) on 1.3... which made sense.

I don't know if anyone has tried on 1.4... One would think that you would need the same fix that was for Avatar to play Star Wars.. which should mean 1.5 or 1.6 since 1.6 is 1.5 with some of the stuff they broke put back.

I doubt 1.4 would work.

They are sure not to play on anything prior to 1.5. I might try them just for fun the next time I have to bring my project/play unit up from storage in the basement to watch a Disney that does not play on 1.6.

Well I guess that blows my Tron/Star Wars double feature night.

"Now, everyone take a 20 minute bathroom break while I flash the firmware real quick!"

I think last time I timed it was only like 8 min. to flash, but then you have to flash back.

If you have time in one night to watch all the Star Wars AND the TRONs you have way more time on your hands (and a different clock) than I have ;-)