BD-UP5000 Universal Player Samsung [OFFICIAL OWNERS THREAD] & FAQ - Page 431

What were we supposed to expect, that he was suicidal? The previews always gave it away that there was something more complicated happening in the background.

Well I never saw or read anything about it. I got an offer for free screening tix which we did not go for. I mentioned it to my son but he did not want to go so we bagged it. I had just watched another show about someone on a ledge and didn't want to subject myself to that again. I can't even remember the movie. It was a BD rental from BB and I'm sure I posted a playability report.

I generally don't watch trailers on rentals and we only recently started going back to the theater since in our new area there is an older theater renovated by Cinemark that has $4 matinee prices for new releases. Plus there has been a bunch of movies we have wanted to see this Summer; Avengers, Moonrise Kingdom, Spiderman, Dark Knight..., Men in Black III, Bourne Legacy, and several others I can't remember. It's actually been a pretty decent year for Summer movies. Better than last year or the past 5-10 years actually. Nothing great or earth shattering (other than Avengers and Dark Knight. We also enjoyed the Bourne re-boot.

$4, nice. I haven't been to the theater in at least a year. I tend to watch the trailers on rentals (unless it's something I've already seen or know I have zero interest), which is why I was spoiled to speak regarding the plot of that title.

Surprise. High Fidelity (Touchstone/Disney) does not load on 1.6 and gets stuck at the Touchstone logo screen line Fright Night and a few others. It is playing fine on my new Yammy. I did not and will not bother to try it on 1.4, even-though my 1.4 version player is sitting right next to the Yammy. I'm sure it plays on 1.4 just fine. My guess is that many of the other recent Disney/Touchstones will also have the problem. There are a bunch so I won't mention them. I own Phenomenon but have not tried it yet.

Good, Samsung doesn't deserve anymore of your debugging.

The Lorax and Jaws both loaded and played fine for me yesterday.

I forgot to mention that the new 7.1 soundtrack is quite amazing on Jaws. I am for sure going to buy this one. Any Spielberg collection is not complete without this one.

I keep forgetting to post that Get the Gringo loaded and played fine for me the other day. It was a beat up rental from BB and it did get stuck a little a sputter on a scratch during chapter 20 about 1'14" into the movie. I am sure it was the damaged disc that caused this. I liked the movie enough to pick up a cheep used copy online that I hope to receive in the mil soon and I will check that section again.

I see that v1.6 seems to be causing more issues than it fixes. Is 1.4 still available online anywhere? Samsungs page only directs to 1.6 and links to a good copy of 1.4 are apparently prtty scarce

The kids want to start watching Disney Blu's and 1.6 aint gonne cut it!

That all depends on what you want to watch. It is pretty random, but getting more common that 1.4 is needed for just about any Disney/Touchstone/Hollywood etc. I own a bunch of new Disney/Buena Vista releases, but haven't gotten around to trying them. Grosse Pointe, Rescuers, Pocahontas, Aristocats, High Fidelity that I already reported, Adventures in Babysitting, Phenomenon, and there is a whole bunch more released since June. I can't recall if I tried John Carter, have owned it for months and haven't got to it yet. Also tons and tons of Disney DVDs refuse to play, so if you are in a pinch and can only find the old crappy SD for your kids to watch you are SOL without 1.4.

I would think that if you downgraded you would run into many more newer releases that won't play with 1.4.

1.4 is not available "officially" online. Perhaps someone here can host it? I used to run my own server, but took it down when I moved. Also a ton of the free file sharing sites have been shut down or limited. I have the file if someone needs it to host, but it is too large to E-mail. If someone has a way that I can stick it somewhere I can do that. I do recall someone posting not too long ago that they were out there somewhere. If you need me to burn you a copy or provide you you with one of my many 1.4 firmware discs, let me know and I can mail you off a disc. I've done that for several folks, $5 PayPal/Cash etc. is what I have to charge for my time and materials. Just PM me and we can git 'er done.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed showed up in our mail last week when I was out on a business trip despite it being like 8-9 down in my queue. I had already watched a little of it on one of the premium channels. Anyhow, I ran into all the problems reported with it by someone else a while back. Mostly the DD THD issue but when I first inserted the disc my player chunked and chunked and then spit it out saying that it could not be played so I gave it a good cleaning. I had only lightly wiped it off before. There was some visible damage to the disc. Somewhere in the middle of the movie it had a hiccup for about half a min. reading around some damage. Also the menu was sputtering with the audio cutting in and out, but I did get the disc to start and when it went back to the menu it was mostly ok.

Over the weekend I also watched Bernie. This is a Millennium release and they have been popping out mostly DDTHD for quite some time. The disc played just fine but had plenty of parts where the audio cut in and out in scenes with lots of music, action or loudness/volume that is higher than the rest of the movie. I need to remember to switch to PCM and internal decode of DDTHD or use the Yammy for these. The Yammy is still not installed and I have to plug in the power and switch the HDMI from my Roku and I don't have my Harmony set up for it yet either so I generally always still use the 5K unless the disc won't play.

I have been having spotty results as of late with my 5K and I am wondering if the loader might be failing. It could just be bad discs in the mail. I bought Get the Gringo for cheep and haven't tried it yet to see if it craps out where the rental did.

I rent and watch ~2-3 discs a week lately, but since I moved I have been busy so maybe only 4-5 per. month. The only problem ones I have ran into in the last couple of months are Get the Gringo and Alice Creed, both mailers from BB so I might be ok. Last time I started having spotty problems the loader died. In this case if I grab a disc in my collection that I know plays it is always ok and it is just the rental that has problems. It refusing to play Alice Creed the other day alarmed me since I have played and own many Starz/Anchor Bay releases and rarely if ever have issues with them. It would be understandable for the smaller studios to have lesser pressing quality? I just remembered that Gringo was a store rental but was way beat up and dirty. I have noticed that the newer Fox releases esp. TV series like SAMCRO take forever to load and the loader churns and chunks a a lot. Season 3 of SoA was especially annoying, but no issues after it loaded up. I watched season 4 on cable DVR before season 5 started so I don't know if it gets worse as time goes on. I don't recall season 1 or season 2 being as slow as season 3.

mr. kludge,
I appreciate the offer..but I was able to find an .iso of 1.4 and successfully rolled my 5K back.
I have Tron, Tron Legacy and Avatar to run through this weekend. Were any of these "known problem discs"

David

GFY

You will want to watch in this order. Tron classic (unless you wish to view the new before the old, I suggest the old before the new), then Tron: Legacy, then upgrade back to 1.6 for Avatar. Both Tron's play fine under 1.4, but to play Classic Tron, you will get stuck at the Disney castle, have to hit stop twice then 'Disc Menu' to get the movie going. Under 1.4 it will play without any bull. Tron: Legacy will not play running 1.6 and will get hopelessly stuck at the castle screen. Any released version of Avatar will only play on 1.5 forward. And a note you never want to run 1.5 anyway since there are some couple dozen older Fox movies that will not play on 1.5, but do on 1.6. Those will get stuck on with 'menu' on the display at some point and won't proceed. And obviously there are movies newer than Avatar that require 1.6. If you plan your viewing then you can watch with the fewest number of roll-backs and upgrades. Note that the following movies will not play under any release. There are also an undetermined number of other movies I have not tested that may or may not play that were released around the same time as these:
-Splice
-Thir13en Ghosts. Only the US WB release in the combo pack with House of Wax which plays fine. The UK release loads and plays
-Superman/Batman Apocalypse
-Chaplin
-An American Carol

The recent movie Intruders did not load up on 1.6, but I did not try 1.4. YMMV

Note the trend with WB releases and the timeframe (look up the release dates on highdefdigest if you run into an older WB movie that won't play) There are sure to be more that don't play that no one has tried or reported yet. Also eventhough Chaplin is Lionsgate, it was mastered by WB and has the exact same problem as the other WB titles. An American Carol is mystery, but there are sure to be more Vivindi discs that don't play. They are an ultra small studio with mostly crappy not even 'B' movies so probably not an issue.

Generally if you run into a Disney BD or DVD that won't play rolling back to 1.4 will fix it. I haven't heard yet of a newer one that won't load at all unless you are in 1.6. It seems to be a common bug in the newer 1.6 code to fix older Fox titles that causes this issue. One of the PotC movies I recall the 3rd @ the worlds end would not play on 1.5 but on 1.4 and that is probably where the bug was introduced. You all can blame me for that one. Had I not found it when 1.5 released then all the other new ones would probably play and maybe PotC 3 would not. Who knows?

It was reported by someone either here or on the problem discs thread that Alvin and the Chipmunks The Squeekel would not load and play? It was waiting for me today when I got home and I tried it without trouble. It did take an enormous amount of time to load. I promptly took it to the store and exchanged it for Cabin in the Woods before the store got rented out for the weekend. BB has been having system problems and they have been randomly sending me things deep down in my queue despite there are around a dozen "available" movies in my queue before them and I am on queue order preference. I only put that one in there to test it as I have already sorta watched it on OnDemand.

Hi everyone,

I'm also having the Disney's issues previously commented on the forum with my 5K player.

I have reported them to a Samsung agent in a chat, too.

The agent told me that she will report the issues to the development team, and a firmware upgrade will come as a result.

Sinceresly, I doubt that after two years of no support by Samsung, they will come with an update to fix those issues

We will see...

Regards

Ya, don't hold your breath. I have been reporting (or was up until this Spring) each and every issue in a very formal standard process way that the folks internal to Samsung do (actually using their own or a similar process their support folks use) as well as calling to get status on my ticket that has been open since Bambi released long ago and the unplayable Disney discs started cropping up with 1.6. Before that there were a few you could just hit stop twice then hit disc menu to get them to run. At the time we did not know about the Disney DVD issue. Anyhow the issue has been beat to death and I have been promised many times that a new firmware was forthcoming.

My suggestion is a blitz of CALLS to Samsung support on this issue, if you all ever want to see an update. Chatting, E-mail and the like will do nothing. You need to call, have it escalated to 2nd level support and have both a 1st level and 2nd level ticket opened (which I think a 1st level can just be marked as a 2nd level.

Last time I checked all of the other older Sammy players have updates later then the 5K. There may be one or two that don't. I also see reports of Disney issues on some of there other players from time to time, esp. the ones that are contemporary to the 5k and share similar BD code.

Both Safe and Cabin in the Woods loaded and played for me yesterday without any trouble at all. The only problem I had was that tCitW was only DD5.1 and it took me a while to realize that Lionsgate has now decided with new release movies in the rental market will lack lossless audio, forcing you to buy the movie to get the whole HD video AND audio experience. So don't fall into the same trap I did thinking that this player is having an issue with the disc. If you rent it then you are only going to get DD5.1. People have been talking this movie up quite a bit, however, other than being very different and having a somewhat predictable, but shocking and somewhat interesting plot twist at the end, it's not that great of a movie. It does have a great soundtrack that would benefit from lossless DTS HD MA 7.1 sound. It is worth renting, but IMOHO not worth owning at todays prices. Maybe if you could find a used, with lossless, for say $5-10.

Safe on the other hand I was rather impressed by, also Lionsgate, but has a lossless 7.1 soundtrack even on the rental (at least at RedBox). Was much better than I though it would be and I only rented it due to a trailer on another disc I recently rented that was not even a Lionsgate (I think it was one of the many Millennium releases I have watched recently?). RB sent out free coded yday and that was about the only thing I wanted to rent at the time. I was expecting a cheep knock-off of Mercury Rising, but it is a pretty good Stathum action flick with plenty of character development (almost as much as The Transporter). It is actually a rip-off of most of the Mercury Rising plot, but as we know Hollywood long ago ran out of new ideas.

Not sure if this is good news or not, but I submitted a bunch of disc reports through supposed "official" channels today and then thought I would call in to check on my trouble ticket from March of LAST year (related to the Disney issues and I have been adding titles to it since then). After some frustration in having to explain some things for like the BILLIONTH time. This was after I had been screened through 1st level to actual technical support (a new process that I have not ran into before, I might add) I actually got them to research some things and actually call me back, twice, once not too long after I called to verify that, yes they know about the issues and no there is no new firmware available, duh, but that they are in fact working on the issue, or at least think that they are. Then later this evening I got a call from and even higher level of support in the BD player repair department letting me know that they are escalating this and I was assured that it would be resolved. I have heard all this before, but the difference now is that they are actually calling me back and proactively working on the issue.

Today was the 1st time that I had really gave them it about my frustration and that I was not going to purchase another Sammy product again, if I can help it. I was offered an exchange of my 5K for another Sammy BD player. I told them, that no I was not interested having some 500 HDs that would not be able to play. I should take them up on the offer on all 5 of my players and just unload them on eBay, but I suspect that my players in whole or parted out would be worth more than the sub $100 players that they would send me. Besides they would not have the superior upscaling and HD-dvd capability of the 5K. Besides I have and have access to several more modern players, and I don't much care for or need all the new fangled capabilities.

Anyhow, it has been many, many months since I last called them. It seems that they have a better commitment to CS than they had before? I suspect that this will go nowhere and they the US support folks will hit a brick wall with their firmware engineers in Korea, but you never know. They did tell me specifically that they were escalating this to Korea and I haven't ever heard that before, other than they took note about the issues and said they would send it along. I know how the process works having detected and got the couple dozen Fox titles working again after 1.5 for Avatar killed them. The person that called me back this evening I have spoke to before on the 1st level support number, so this could all be a smokescreen and I'm not even getting as deep into Sammy support than I had in the past. Or maybe that person has been promoted? I had it out with everyone that I spoke to today that I have had a ticket open for some 18 months and thought that was unusual since the unplayable discs are escalating.

Even-though I have a spakin' new Yammy player at my disposal I prefer to play movies with the 5K. I kinda like keeping things and old tech going as long as possible. Maybe a miracle will happen and we can get some of the issues resolved. It would be nice to increase the resale value of my collection of 5Ks.

These are good news mr.kludge

I hope that Samsung will reward all your testing efforts by providing an update for our 5k's!

Regards

Unfortunately, this is exactly what we have heard since users started encountering problems with the latest firmware, shortly after it became available. Many, many people have reported these problems. My best guess is that there will never be another firmware update for the player... :--(

I just bought The Avengers BluRay today and wasn't able to watch it, due to the fact that there hasn't been a firmware update for my 5k since June 11 2010!!! After spending some time on the phone with CS at Samsung and researching the issue on the net........I realized that private calls to CS wouldn't be enough. These private calls don't threaten their business......public outcry DOES! I decided to "Like" them on Facebook and then posted a public message about my issue and their lack of support in over 2yrs, on this machine. It appears to be doing something already, since I got a very quick (seemingly concerned) response. I also commented on the fact that I was very unhappy about the lack of BD-R and BD-RE playback, since we are in an HD era and I store my HD home movies on this type of media and to block it.......is just wrong! Let's see if it goes anywhere........

Screw the update, what I want it my life back. I really don't need the update, got other options, but not everyone does.

Ya, I did the Facebook and Twitter thing already. Once they realize that you have a 5K that is half antiquated tech, they fade back into the woodwork. The calls back to me yday were somewhat encouraging, however.

I am curious what firmware you are running and if you tried to roll back to 1.4? I have heard rumors that The Avengers being a wildly popular movie that they updated some DRM code for it, but you never know. I might stop by Blockbuster and see if they have a copy since I have a free rental anyhow. I won't have time to watch, but I can verify if it will play at all. Did you try the regular workarounds?

Congrat's on the phone call! I am running the latest fw and no I have not. I wasn't aware of any tricks or workarounds, since this is the first time I have had any issues with it. I will refuse, if they try to replace my 5k with a newer player.....just make fw to resolve the current issues. I can't believe that this is such an issue for them to fix! :|

Hi again!

For those who are facing problems with the Avengers (I had already reported this issue to Samsung, too), you probably would like to rollback to 1.4.

Mine is working flawlessly after that...

Regards!

Wow, as an ex-owner, I'm still lurking. This is the most action on this thread in what feels like years. I'm rooting for you all to get an update (but half-expecting it to break something else if it ever does indeed come).

Thanks for reporting this. All my local BBs were rented out on BD yday after work, so I am unable to play. Plenty of DVDs though. I already saw the movie, so no need to watch it, but I will pick up a cheep used copy like I have been with all the other blockbuster movies that have scads of rentals out there.

Did anyone happen to try the stop, stop, menu trick with 1.6? As of late that has not been working with the newer ones, I assume they all require 1.4. At least you are not 100% shot out.

Try hitting stop twice then "disc menu" from the remote. If you can't stop the movie when it gets stuck at the Disney logo or castle, then you are out of luck and have to roll back to 1.4.

yup and yup. If and when they do update only the cosmos knows what else they will break based on what old antiquated code tree they dig up. I do know that they are very proactive correcting those issues right after a release as they have been quicker with that than anything else in history with this player.

There isn't a Disney logo or Castle for the Avengers movie, but I did try to do it on the only ("A") screen that appears and gets stuck on.......I got nothing. Where is this iso available, so I can roll mine back to 1.4 as well? Thanks for the help guys and I hope all these inquiries to Samsung actually do something....it's well overdue for some attention.