5000 to be discontinued in May! - Page 5

Why do you want HD DVD "totally killed"? Why can't others that own HD DVD's have an opportunity to watch them. I am PURPLE and take offense that my collection of great HD DVD's should be made worthless.

The 5000 is a piece of junk? Really? Are you trolling?

My 5000 has played every Blu-Ray and HD-DVD DVD that I have put in it. Admittedly, there have been a few quirks here and there, but nothing I could not work around. I also have not tried the really troublesome discs (Yuma, Sunshine), but the 5000's limitations in that respect are disc authoring issues.

So, let's sum up:
- disc authoring issues are resolvable by firmware
- the hi-def audio codecs are resolvable by firmware

Oops, this means with a little patience we have a player that will be competitive with standalone Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players except that my player can play all 3 formats (incl. SD).

This means, at worst, I have a player to last me the next few years which will allow me to watch ANY movie in any format until Blu-Ray finally supersedes all. Where is the downside?

That's just it. There are quirks here and there with nearly every movie you try and play on the 5000. It makes it unjustifiable for the $$$$ Samsung is getting for these things.

And firmware? 1 Firmware update since it's release and we've been hearing about another one for weeks now. I really doubt Broadcom will be able to get this thing to decode/stream hi-res audio. I would just like for somebody to be able to solve the audio drop out problems and get this thing to play Sunshine.

The first statement is simply not true across the board. With the exception of Sunshine, I've had no problems playing any disks in any of the formats. None. In the case of Sunshine, it played flawlessly as long as you simply started it and let it play without pause, FF or reverse. That said, others have not been so lucky and so it appears that there are lot of lemons out there.

My only complaint is Samsung's less than speedy release of firmware updates and their near silence about their plans/support for the player. However, this is nothing new as this is the way Samsung operates. I knew it going in and so it comes as no surprise.

And despite the wailing about the cost, this is not an expensive nor high-end player. In fact it's cheap for a first (and now likely the last) generation dual format player. At this point, there are no high end high def. players. The upcoming Denon will be the first high end high def player. Hopefully other high end manufacturers (e.g., Meridian, Esoteric, Krell, Cary) will start producing them at some point.

If you avoid a lemon, video wise this is the best high def. player out there at the moment. Once / if the advance codecs are enabled, it will be the best player period.

Murrayb, so the audio dropout problem on DVDs using Dolby Digital is nonexistent for you? Are you using Bitstream over HDMI?

Not running audio over HDMI; HDMI for video only, straight to the tv. Using both a coaxial digital out and the analog outs into my pre/pro. I've experimented with both Bitstream Audiophile and PCM and have had no audio dropouts with either setting.

I don't think that the problems are due to "lemons" -- I think they're due to specific differences in the way people are setting up and using the player. I think that the patterns are complex and are eluding us.

Larry

We need to factor in the possibility that in at least some cases, some people may not be noticing this issue. I'm not saying that this IS happening -- I'm completely open to the idea that some units are not having this issue due to various reasons. I'm simply saying that we should CONSIDER the possibility that due to the specific nature of this issue, it can potentially go by unnoticed, and that we need to therefore use care when gathering evidence and looking for patterns.

In my experience, if the volume is not very high or if there are any distractions in the room (other sounds, etc.), it would not be hard to miss these dropouts -- they're not always all that obvious. I think that the speed of the processor is also a factor -- if the process is extremely fast in recognizing and decoding the stream, the dropout will be VERY short.

I know that I've heard these dropouts numerous times when my wife didn't notice them at all, so I've witnessed first hand that some people will not necessarily notice them.

Larry

Model year changes occur every several years, not every several months!

And we should also consider the possibility that there are little green men.

In all seriousness, having seen this written about as an issue, I've tried to pay particular attention when watching movies on this player. Just finished watching Elizabeth The Golden Age in SD and, again, no audio drop outs.

Okay, meanwhile I'm using HDMI through an Onkyo 605 for both audio and video, so we've certainly got differentiation here. I may try the same titles ("Gattaca" and TMNT HD DVD) that exhibit audio dropouts using coax out to see if they're still present.


I agree that if such dropouts occur in particularly silent sections of the film, they can be inconspicuous.

"There are quirks here and there with nearly every movie you try" - You must be mistaken as I have had minimal problems as stated.

"1 Firmware update since it's release" - Remember the engineering effort involved, hence, firmware updates don't come every week.

"I really doubt Broadcom will be able to get this thing to decode/stream hi-res audio" - you make this comment based on what? Unfortunately, your comments are derived from all the other whiners in this thread. If Broadcom sold a chipset with a defined functionality, that functionality will come. I doubt Broadcom sold vapourware to Samsung who magically bought this vapourware based on Broadcom's good name and then they in turn sold this vapourware to us? Wait for the May update. Only 2.5 months to go!!

And we get back to Sunshine. We know that is a problem disc. Why bring it up AGAIN?