BD-UP5000 Universal Player Samsung [OFFICIAL OWNERS THREAD] & FAQ - Page 424

Midnight in Paris played (actually I am just finishing it up) without problems. Note that the DTS-HD soundtrack is a 3.0 mix and performed as expected.

It is a very good movie and hardly seems like a Woody Allen film (other than the heavy dialogue). For me his films are hit and miss. I have enjoyed his later work more than his early work. Highly recommended. I also liked the fact that there are many actors he has not used before cast in this one, rather than the same old actors he has used over the past while. I guess his fascination with Scarlett Johansson is over?

I can't get the DTS-HD MA track to work on the HD-DVD Chronos. The DD+ track seems fine but the DTS-HD seems to output nothing. Can someone else help me verify this one.

Cronos bd, not chronos but the criterion release of Guillmero del toros debut movie and mr. Popper's penguins both played without problems for me yesterday/early today.

The Ides of March and The Company Men both played without any trouble whatsoever. Both very good and recommended movies.

I forgot to post that Abduction played just dandy over the weekend for me. I'm not sure why I bothered, but it was just about the only thing available that I wanted to see or haven't seen in the store when I went late Saturday night.

Kludge,

Do you have the email contact for Samsung service? I have tried going through their normal support and it gets me nowhere. I want to push them for an answer on whether they are going to fix the Disney issues.

Thx.

Your only avenue is the support E-mail on their contact us web page. I can't give out the contacts that I have.

Don't bother or waste your time trying to push them. They are well aware of the issues, but don't seem to be capable or willing to fix them. However, all of you should continue to report problem discs, regardless.

Last communication I had from them was October 11th "As far as the titles reported, we will test them and if the issue is recreated then firmware will be written regardless of the type or age of player. We have numerous models and I believe that may explain the delay, but I assure you it is not forgotten."

It's time for me to ping them again and find out where they are at.

They are sure taking their time... and we know many of these playback issues can be replicated in mere seconds... so replicating the issue can't be the problem... they just keep putting this player on the back burner and hoping we go away I guess.

I hope this is a good sign. It's been a while since I trolled the Samsung site for updates. The BD-P1400 got an update early January and the BD-P1500 just before Christmas. Nothing for the p1000 or p1200 yet. All of those got updates early last year March/April and I was encouraged then, but nothing panned out for the 5k

Well my instinct tells me that since this is a much more complicated machine they probably don't have anyone in house that worked on the original code or can figure it out without breaking other things (which we have seen with Disney after 1.5 and now 1.6). Also half the player has been obsoleted, so that further complicates things. I know they are supporting their older players which is evidenced by the recent firmware updates for them. If I remember right the p1400 came out just before the 5k and the p1500 came out after the 5k was discontinued?

I'm not a Samsung apologist, just stating the facts. Looks like the p1600 got new firmware early last month also.

I agree that they probably don't do it in-house, but if the code was competently documented [HUGE caveat!] then the fact that HD-DVD has been static should not be a problem. As far as I can tell, none of the updates has caused problems with those playbacks.

I wonder if part of the delay has been the need to figure out what they broke in the 1.5 and 1.6 updates, then re-do the issues that they fixed with those releases. Again it may well be an issue of well documented the code is in those areas. If they outsource this and do not have the same people working on it, that would be a great drawback in figuring out the errors and correcting them. I doubt that any executive in charge of this work still has a BD-UP5000. Having it and wanting to use it fully would be a good motivator to kick some ass on the support team :-)

Actually there are several things with HD that recent updates have broke or have come back. The 24fps tearing issue with most VC-1 titles was fixed in 1.2 and came back in 1.3 > as far as I recall. I remember not having this issue with 1.2 (mostly because I didn't have a 24fps capable TV until around the time 1.3 came out) which is what I was stuck with for a few months before 1.3 came out and was shocked to see that problem on Transformers. Also many of the DDTHD issues that I now have with 1.6 were not present in earlier releases. You would have to search my comments on specifics for those. The Matrix and Top Gun are two that have issues and did not have back in the 1.3/1.4 days. Again old age has set in and I can't recall the specifics. Thank heaven for AVS, if it ever goes away I will completely forget all these things.

Having worked as a CIO at a network equipment manufacturer I am well aware that much firmware is never documented well except for in the heads and laptops of the engineers. It's one of the reasons that they make so much money and are hard to find. I'm sure things have changes in the 12 or so years since I was in that game, but still. Samsung does not outsource their firmware, that would be a disaster, but it is all developed in Korea so they still have the time/distance/language barrier issues that are sure to complicate things. I know what it would take to verify all these issues then have someone fix the problems and then do all the regression testing. There is no benefit to Sammy to do this other than making us happy and maybe saving a few sales here and there (and being compliant to their obligations being a BD player maker). It does however propose a significant cost to them to do this. Yes, they should and better or I will think way more than twice before I purchase another Samsung a/v product and especially a BD player. But I can sympathize with them. Good note on the executives, but even it they have them I doubt they have the time to run into the issues. Most would have dumped their HDs and gone BD and to 3D units long ago anyway. Our only hope is if there is any 5K enthusiasts left in the firmware team in Korea, which I doubt.

Interesting, I don't have all that many HD-DVD titles, a couple of dozen, and have been gradually picking up the BD release equivalents as they come out. Sorry to hear that the recent releases have also had HD-DVD issues :-( Samsung's unresponsiveness on the 5Ks issues did lead me to buy from other manufacturers as the BD part of the loaders failed in my two units. The 5K was their top-of-the-line unit when it was introduced, so I would have expected better long-term support.

Anyone rent Fright Night and get it to successfully play? I'm not having any luck, which really sucks. I get to the point where u select lanuage (doesn't matter which I select), and it basically hangs at the Touchstone Home Entertainment screen, almost like I didn't select anything, but the counter continues to run normally.

Yes it requires 1.4 to play. Same issue as bambi, incredibles, tron legacy and the lion king. I played it with one of my many new to me players that I downgraded. I also posted about this here and in the problem disc thread (which BTW is a great place to search when you run into issues). I have also reported this to Sammy. You should do the same. Phone call is best but you could try chat as well just make sure you get a case/ticket number which is not possible with email.

Thanks. I'm running 1.6, and will be contacting Samsung.

I gave up and trashed mine....bought a Panasonic DMP-BDT210...have had zero issues with ANY blu-ray.

Just had my first problem with a title not playing: The King's Speech. Two different discs, both from Netflix. The previews play fine, but when it goes to transition to the movie it just hangs up. Tried using skip, disc menu, FF, and pushing every button to get something to happen. Same results exactly on two separate discs.

What firmware update are you running. I watched a screener of that one before it released and never watched it on BD. I will pick it up one of these days and verify. Odd since most Starz/Anchor Bay titles have been fine. In fact I don't know of ANY Starz/Anchor Bay title that has had loading/playing issues. Audio is another story.

Just watched Daydream Nation and Puncture without any loading/playing difficulty...but both are DDTHD and I had 3 instances of audio cut-outs on Daydream at the first of suddenly loud scenes like many other DDTHD titles over the past couple years (doesn't seem to affect older movies) and one nasty instance on Puncture ~11 min. in when Mike's wife shoots a gun in the air. Switching to internal decode cleared up the issue with Puncture then I switched back to bitstream audiophile and all was well for the rest of the movie. I did not test internal on Daydream since I did not want to take the time, but I'm 99.9999% sure it wold be fine. The dropout on Puncture causes a unsync of the audio and it will cut in and out until you hit pause/play. Daydream BTW is a Starz/Anchor bay and loaded very slowly with lots of chunking and churning on load (one of the reasons that I did not test internal). On the other hand Puncture loaded very quickly (it's a First Look and those generally load quickly with little BS). I enjoyed both of these movies for different reasons. Both are worth at least a rental. I may buy Daydream since it is cheep online, I wouldn't mind seeing it again and I need a example of a non-action DDTHD disc that has dropouts on non-high action scenes (just sudden increases in loudness). Similar things happen on season one of The Waling Dead, but I would like to unload that set since it is still in demand and at a decent price. Despite the poor reviews of Daydream Nation that I read, I thought the movie deserved higher praise. It is a little pedestrian in spots, but I liked the fresh perspective on the story telling and there is some nice eye candy in there both of the female and male variety.

Too bad you could not verify if the audio stuttered (sorry bad pun). My sources indicate that one is DTS-HD MA, which is very odd since almost all of the Starz/Anchor bay titles I have rented/own are DDTHD.

No problems here. My local BB had a couple copies so I picked it up when I returned Puncture. Loads up and plays just fine.

My guess is you are not running 1.6? Remember if you are relying on the Ethernet connected Internet updates that stopped back with 1.3 if I remember right. The past several updates have been download to computer and burn CD ISO updates. Either that our your loader is shot.

If in doubt post your firmware versions here (while unit is on and tray ejected hold down the info button on the remote until the version screen comes up). I can tell you instantly if you are running the latest code.

BTW - you owe me $2.12 which is what it cost me to rent this ;-) no biggie I have wanted to watch it again since the screener I got was not the best PQ and SQ and had property of bla, bla, bla messages throughout it. It pissed me off that is was not a $.99 title, at BB new releases stay $1.99 for an entire year.

I remember seeing this one in the bargain bins during last summers pre Dish Network buyout of BB. I'm not sure why I did not buy it, probably was less than renting it ;-)

Oh BTW one other thing you can try. I noticed that after the previews there is a delay while the BD Java scripts load up and there is a symbol/idler on the screen. This is probably where you are getting hung up. If you ARE running 1.6 then you need to do a system reset/cold start and/or format persistent memory. To do a system reset hold the >| button on the front panel for several seconds until you see cold start on the display. It has to be done with the power on, with the tray empty and closed. For good measure after go into the system menu and format the BD persistent memory.

I should have searched here first. Dophin26 reported back in June that The King's Speech was fine (the move on BD not the actual King's Speech). I am however having some difficulty with getting results from the search here.

There must be something wrong with this movie. Often, only when Collin Firth speaks the audio seems to break up and skip, sorta like a stutter, but not quite.

I'm just being silly since my team lost the Super Bowl ;-( spanked by NY, again.

The only updates I've done are through the network attached to the player. If there are other other updates I can download, I'll definitely go there. I tried to do an update the other day after it wouldn't play and it said I had the latest version.

Please, send me in the right direction! I haven't been back to the forums in a while.

I think 1.3 was the last version I was able to get via direct network download on my player... I am pretty sure I had to download 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6 from the Samsung support site.

samsung.com/support/enter BD-UP5000/select the link/choose get downloads/select firmware and download both the update and the guides/burn the ISO image to a CD and follow the install/upgrade instructions.

Make sure you burn the ISO image to the CD with image burning software, not just stick the ISO file onto the CD with CD burning software as a data disc. You must burn an ISO since it is in a special format. That is the most common mistake made by folks and even Samsung themselves when you request a disc from them (which you may need to do if you can't burn a CD or have ISO burning software). PM me if you can't get this done or get the correct disc from Samsung. I have helped many others here out for just the cost of materials and shipping. If you are on a mac you can use Apple Disc Utility or Toast to burn the ISO. Not sure on the PC, but there is a program called ISO burn or something like that you can download for free.

Note that after this you will be on 1.6 and the following Disney movies will be unplayable; Bambi, The Incredibles, Tron Legacy, The Lion King and Fright Night. Those all require 1.4 and may play on 1.3, but I doubt it. You would be on 1.3 now if all you have done is the Ethernet/Internet updates. The following will play with workarounds found on the various 5K forums; Tangled, The Sorcerers Apprentice and Tron Classic. Those play fine in 1.4 also without workarounds. The following WILL NOT PLAY ON ANY RELEASE; Splice, Chaplin, Superman/Batman Apocalypse, An American Carol, Thir13en Ghosts (US WB release UK import is ok), and many, many Disney DVDs released in the past year+ that will not play (all of which do on 1.4 except for The Lion King). Also Bubble on HD still does not play.

If you need the image for 1.4 you will need to hunt around here or ask. I think it might have been posted on a server that has now been shut down by the US government? I can help you out if you need it and want to play any of the unplayable Disney BDs or DVDs.

There are also a bunch of minor issues and annoyances, but most can be avoided by; always viewing DTS-HD MA titles in 24fps, not 60fps and using internal player decode for DDTHD titles. Also keeping the Ethernet cable or Internet connection off while viewing HD-DVD (esp. those that have Web Enabled content).

I'm starting to think I'm mentally challenged. I downloaded the file from Samsung, then I downloaded two different ISO burners (PowerISO and UltraISO). I burned three discs, and got the same error on the Sammy every time: cannot be played.

I've unzipped the file, and thought it was easy enough once I burned it to disc... Is there any special type of thing I need to pick to save it as?

Did you use a cd-r? If not that would explain it. Once you unzip the ISO file and end up with a file with an ISO extension all you need to do is burn the image. I'm traveling and don't have access to a disk otherwise I could tell you what the contents of the disc is supposed to be. However if you have a file on the disk with a .ISO extension then you burned a data cd with just the file and did not burn the ISO image to the disk, if that makes any sense. When I get back to ny room later I will burn a phantom disk image on my laptop and let you know the file that ends up there. Or possibly someone else will beat me to the punch.

There is one other possibility. I have a loader that won't take a cd-r update. I have to use cd-r/w with that one. Also stay with name brand media verbatim and Sony have always worked best for me but I have used memorex on occasion to update these.

I'll have to pick some up. I think these are just CD-R. Not sure of the brand as it doesn't say.