BD-UP5000 Universal Player Samsung [OFFICIAL OWNERS THREAD] & FAQ - Page 231

The amount of memory is still unknown...best educated guess is 512MB.

I know there are alot of issues with this player but, I am so impressed with the picture quality on BD an DVDs, that I am willing to give up my BD30 when or if the updates satisfies my needs. Is anyone using this player strictly as a Blu Ray player? This is what I plan to do with the Sammy.

While I posted over in the Review area.. maybe somebody with a Samsung BD-UP5000 can answer the following about the two ""National Treasure"" movies on BluRay.. do they have selectable "NON Dolby TrueHD" 5.1 audio tracks? Due to the TrueHD bug??
--David

Nope. Mine's mostly SD DVDs and HD DVDs with just a couple of blurays though. Prices of bluray discs shot back up recently. The only thing I have on order is national treasure 1 and 2 cuz it's less than 20 bucks each shipped no tax.

Do you think the price of this player will go back up after the firmware upgrade?

Maybe. If it at least bitstreams trueHD and other high def audio, and since it's discontinued, I think the difficulty to find this player would cause the market price of it to go up. I still think the best thing about it is the REON chip and it's dual format capability.

National Treasure should not be restricted by the TrueHD limitation because it is encoded with PCM (uncompressed) audio. The sequel, though, looks to be another case of a studio (Disney this time) moving towards lossless audio and you will likely be stuck with 2-channel TrueHD audio. Hopefully, the firmware update will hit before the new Paramount/Disney TrueHD titles hit.

You are right with the REON and I wish I did not sell off my HD DVD collection

Hey ChicagoTC, are you still with us? Do you happen to recall the interface for the optical drive? Is it that strange flat wire, or does that hide something normal like SATA beneath it?

It doesn't really matter to me right now, but down the line I'm sure I'll want BD-R/BD-RE capability. If I could swap the drive out with a PC SATA drive, that'd be swell.

Thanks. It just sounded like some level of Samsung Support has said 2 weeks, no?


Thanks. Why the 17th in particular?


It depends if you want the analogue outputs and the HQV Reon upscaler. Both the LG and Sammy Combos have roughly the same amount of problem discs and audio/video drop out issues. I think the latter point is correct.

The LG can be made SD DVD Region Free and is switchable between BD Regions A, B or C. The Sammy cannot do this. Personally I'd still get an LG even if the Sammy firmware was released, for the reasons I've just mentioned.

It depends what you want from the player, if you don't import discs the fact it supports all DVD and BD regions isn't exactly useful (to me it's very useful). Both are very similar, presuming Sammy release their firmware too. Right "now" the LG easily wins.

If the firmware offers the bitstreaming and profile 1.1 would it be considered the best Blu Ray player?

Stand alone blu-ray player I would say no. Then again I wouldnt get this player if all I was looking for was Blu-ray only playback. The only reason I have this player is that I have a collection of 100+ HD DVDs and many more SD DVDs. This player makes it easy for me and the boss (which is VERY important to me). If I only wanted a Blu-ray player I would go for a stand alone (Panny BD50 or something simmilar....)

As far as the Dual formats goes it all matters what your cup of tea is...In the end its personal preference and what you are will to deal with. I would recommend both players depending on the needs of the end user.

What about standalone player with the best upscaling for SD and BD playback?

Its a matter of choice, I have read that people are very happy with the LGs upscaling ability, others have said that Samsung beats it. The Denon DVD-3800BDCI has the Realta chip for upscalling which is this chips "big brother"....I havent taken a look over at the threads for the Denon though so I do not know how they are doing......The Denon is also MUCH more money.

FOr the money this isnt really a bad player for where it is in its life cycle. There are those that will disagree with me, but this is just my opinion. There are a few players in the future that might match this players ability, but will lack some other feature....

You also have the choice to use separates (upscaling DVD and standalone Blu-ray). For me this isnt an option as I just dont have the room currently and want to save myself from telling people which movie goes where everytime they use it.

If you want the advanced audio codecs now then go for the LG, if you feel safe in waiting until the end of the month the Samsung might match or beat the LGs offerings (time will tell). I only say this because the Sammy offers the possibility of 7.1 analogs passing the advanced codecs.... I stress possibility as no one knows that the actual plans are yet.

Well, mid May has been a pretty strong suggestion up until now and they have traditionally released firmwares for the 5000 on Friday/Saturday (depending on your worldwide location). This is simply the closest Friday to the mid May time period and also wishful thinking on my part.

This hasn't been my experience. My 5k is set to Bitstream (Audiophile) and I play Uncompressed 5.1 PCM tracks all the time. I've never seen the player send these tracks as 2.0 PCM. As a matter of fact, it sends them as PCM 7.1, but I'm guessing that the back two channels are silent.

Yes, but you're using HDMI as opposed to optical, correct? I think that's the given scenario in which he was explaining the cons...

Oh, okay. Thanks for the clarification.

Has anyone figured out how to use the Resume-Play function?

Does it work the same when watching Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies?

PS: Just rented and watched 3:10 to Yuma, this has to have
been the best sounding movie I've watched to date on my 5000!

The first movie that I could actually hear destinct sound
coming from each of my 7.1 rear speakers. And my Yamaha
receiver came-up with some long Dolby decode messages I've
never seen before. Excellent!

Resume-play works fine for BD and SD, but it doesn't work for HD DVD. You can create a bookmark though on HD DVDs to quickly jump back to where you were.

I keep forgetting about the Resume Play button, but I've noticed that some BDs are authored to automatically resume. I can pause, power off, power on, and the disc resumes at the same spot.

Doug

Where did the rumor get started that Samsung released new firmware traditionally on Friday/Saturday? This is the update history for the 5000:

1.0 -- January 17 (Thursday)
1.1 -- February 29 (Friday)
1.2 -- March 10 (Monday)

I think we have to add predictions about Samsung's anticipated release date to the speculation dung heap along with all the other predictions about this company. I hope the rumors about May are right. But I'm not going to bet one way or the other on it.

1.2 was a quick fix to the 1.1 showstopping network mistake. This was an example of Samsung showing responsiveness to customers (a rare site to behold it would seem with Samsung!). 1.0 is a bit of a haze to me but the end of the week seems to be the general trend here. I'll even say broaden it to cover the 15th-17th to lessen the annoyance to you.

In any case, until now there has not been as much of a consensus from various web and tier 1 and 2 techs on the immediacy of a firmware release for the 5000.

Not to quibble, but I am amused. You're throwing Monday March 10 out of your 3-point trend based on the nature of the firmware fix? What tarot card did that come off of?

The one that appeared in my mailbox in the form of a firmware upgrade disc after I called to complain. There was purportedly no difference between 1.1 and 1.2 besides the re-enabling of DHCP in any case. It's only a hunch but 1.2 did not have the appearance of an upgrade that addressed anything besides squashing a previously created bug. I will grant that past release schedules don't necessarily guarantee this will come at the end of the week but it would seem that the 5000 schedule has generally not matched that of the other models.

If you refresh the page (I made some edits), you'll see I included a 3-day spread...if they end up releasing a significant fix that adds new functionality or fixes longstanding bugs or disc playback problems on a Monday for the 5000, I will gladly eat crow.

I think I first posted the Friday hypothesis. Most companies have a set release schedule. My company uses Friday as well. If it's an enhancement to our online systems, releasing it on Friday evening lessens impact to the users if a problem is found.

Samsung probably has a similar schedule. The March 10 fix was not a normal enhancement; it was a heartbeat fix, as Vinnie said.

Go ahead and be amused, but IT tries to maintain some standards and set methods these days.

Doug

Edit: I believe the first FW update was dated 1/17, but was actually posted to the Samsung website on Friday, 1/18.

Why are we even arguing about dates. It's just a guesstimate. :P Let's just all patiently wait until May 31st to be conservative and not get our hopes up then.

Nope, it was the 17th. I downloaded it right after I got home from an unusual day at work.

Edit: Microsoft generally uses a Tuesday schedule for its operating systems. Since it's bigger than most companies, should we use Tuesday? Wait a minute!! Tuesday is the next business day in the trend! It has to be Tuesday!

Second that! I'm just having a little fun poking holes at a "scientific" examination of what is actually pure guesswork.

Has anybody checked the alignment of the stars? Maybe that has something to do with it!

I'm kind of screwed for getting my new processor for the new codec's right now anyway. Just saw this morning that Emotiva is still waiting on the new chips from Cirrus Logic and is now saying late summer to early fall for the new UMC-1. This is holding up countless manufacturers that are trying to release processors/receivers that will use this chip. Makes you wonder what's going on? Too many changing spec's? Just can't get it to work right?

At least if the firmware comes I would actually be able to get the 5.1 DD core out of the TrueHD track! It will be so great when this is all settled!!!!!