Cheap DVD Players

Comment from J. Barlow
Time July 22, 2010 at 2:01 am

Review by J. Barlow for Samsung BD-C5500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
Rating:
I have had the Samsung BD-C5500 Blu-ray player for about a week now and I absolutely love it. It was very easy to setup and worked perfectly right out of the box. It’s smaller in size than the DVD player it is replacing but noticeably heavier. It starts up quickly and loads Blu-ray discs quickly too. The buttons on the front of the player are touch sensitive and don’t give the user any tactile feedback so sometimes it’s hard to tell if you have pushed them or not but at the same time they are cool and have a cutting-edge appeal. Some people have mentioned that they don’t care for the remote but I find it to be very adequate and easy to use. I like the larger size of the buttons since I have big hands. The remote seems to work well at different angles and distances as well. When I first hooked up the player it did a firmware update and about a week later it notified me that there was a newer firmware and again did an update. It’s comforting to see that Samsung is actively working to improve the device’s firmware by releasing updates frequently if needed. I didn’t know what issues/features the firmware updates were addressing because the UI on the player doesn’t really tell you but Samsung does list what the firmware updates change/fix on their website. The device didn’t have any problems connecting to my home network using a CAT-5 cable. It doesn’t bother me a bit that this player doesn’t support wi-fi out of the box. In my experience wi-fi is very susceptible to interference from other devices such as microwaves, cordless phones, and other wi-fi routers so using it to stream a high-definition movie could be problematic when you decide to pop some popcorn during the show or if someone calls you on your cordless phone. You’ll always get better streaming performance from CAT-5. Plus, it’s a lot cheaper than the players that do have wi-fi built in.

I have used this player to stream Netflix content from my Netflix instant queue. Before having this player we watched a lot of Netflix streaming content on our computer but watching it on the HDTV using this player has been a lot more convenient and sounds better on the home audio system than on the computer speakers. Streaming works very well and I haven’t seen it skip frames or stop to re-buffer the stream. It takes a little longer to buffer the stream at the beginning of playback than my computer does but after a 15-20 second wait it’s good to go so it’s not a big deal. I have spoken with people who stream Netflix through the PS3 or XBOX and they have told me it takes about the same amount of time to buffer on those systems and I would imagine other Blu-ray players that stream Netflix would have similar performance. Some of the Netflix streaming content will stream in 720p resolution which looks and sounds great. One thing to note is that this player will only see titles you have added to your Instant Queue on the Netflix website. You cannot use the player to browse for different content and add it to your queue. This has not been very bothersome to me but it might bother some people. I actually like the fact that I can put titles in the Instant Queue for my children to watch and they can’t browse around Netflix on the player and find adult content accidentally in the process.

Streaming music through Pandora has been great too. The Pandora app works well and has a good interface. You can give songs a thumbs up or thumbs down but only while the song is playing. It would be great if you could go back through the list of songs that have recently played and give them the thumbs up or thumbs down after they have played like you can on the Pandora website but that’s not the way it works sadly. The quality of the audio seems very good and the time it takes to buffer the music is not even noticeable. We have really enjoyed having a device capable of using Pandora connected to the home audio/theater system.

I used the Blockbuster service to rent a movie for my kids. The video/audio quality was excellent and I had no streaming problems but the price was a little absurd. The movies cost about $4 to rent and you only have access to watch the movie for 24 hours from the time you first start playing it. At that price I would expect that you would get to watch the title as much as you want for 5 days just like you would do if you physically rented a movie from a Blockbuster location. I don’t think I will be using the Blockbuster service very much unless there is a movie I really want to watch and I’m too tired/lazy to physically go to a Blockbuster and rent it.

Overall I feel like the device does a lot for how much I paid for it and is definitely worth the money. I have already recommended it to numerous friends and co-workers who have been looking to get a Blu-ray player. This is the first Blu-ray player I have owned and might possibly be the last since it’s so feature-rich and works so well.

Update 4/14/2010:

I have had this player for over a month now and I have received 4 firmware updates I think. With the firmware updates the device has only gotten better. The updates didn’t appear to add any new features but they have made the player more stable so it is less likely to freeze-up or stop working in other ways. Everything has been working flawlessly for me.

There is a new service called Vudu now that this player supports. I have not tried to use it yet but it appears to give you one free HD rental so that you can try the service. It looks similar to the Blockbuster streaming app. Most movies appear to have options to rent/buy the title in 3 different formats. HDX (1080p 5.1 Surround), HD (720p 5.1 Surround?), and SD (Standard Definition 480p and I’m not sure on the audio). I have watched a few trailers on Vudu and they stream fine but I haven’t tried actually streaming a movie from Vudu yet.

Comment from David N.
Time July 22, 2010 at 2:55 am

Review by David N. for Samsung BD-C5500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
Rating:
This is my first stand alone Blu-Ray player purchase. I also have a Playstation 3. Setup on the Samsung was fast and easy. Blu-Ray discs load up fast. I didn’t notice any difference in load speeds between this player and the Playstation 3. The quality of upconverting regular DVD’s to 1080p was decent. To access the internet features, I’m using an ethernet cable connected to an Actiontec Powerline Adapter. So far, I have streamed HD Netflix movies and checked out a few videos on Youtube. Both worked flawlessly. As another reviewer mentioned a bug regarding sound, I haven’t had that issue at all.

As of now, there aren’t many internet apps available. That’s not a big issue to me since the only ones I will use are Netlfix and Youtube. One issue I did have was using the AccuWeather App. Every time I went into the setup area to input my current location, the app would freeze (New York City weather is the default location). I tried this at least 5 plus times and the freezing issue didn’t go away. I had to power down the player and turn it back on every time the app would freeze.

Overall, I’m really happy with the Samsung BD-C5500. I would recommend this to anyone looking to purchase a Blu-Ray player. Besides the issue with the one application, everything has worked fine.

Comment from Aldo Toomepuu
Time July 22, 2010 at 3:53 am

Review by Aldo Toomepuu for Samsung BD-C5500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
Rating:
I am just a common consumer so I can’t really compare this to other Blu-Ray players. However, the C5500 starts up and loads fairly quickly. Setup was simple and the GUI is fairly easy. The blu-ray discs I played produced an excellent quality image on my TV. DVDs upscaling to 1080P was okay, about as good as you can hope for. Online features were sort of hit or miss. It was easy enough to setup Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, and Blockbuster. However, I could not get audio to work. Audio from Blu-ray, DVDs, and even from HD Netflix videos was fine, everything else was mute. I tried calling Samsung, but this is such a new product that the customer support can’t support it yet. They could only suggest waiting for a new firmware to come out.

I would strongly suggest for people considering this product to wait a month or two for Samsung to begin supporting this device properly. It looks like it will be an excellent product for the price… once the bugs are fixed in subsequent firmware updates.

Comment from Mike in San Diego
Time July 22, 2010 at 4:08 am

Review by Mike in San Diego for Samsung BD-C5500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
Rating:
I am very pleased with this unit. It worked just fine right out of the box. As someone who has worked in IT all my life, I expected at least some problems connecting to the streaming features. I was pleasantly surprised when the Netflix and Pandora interfaces worked without any setup problems whatsoever. And, by the way, the quality of the video and audio are stunning. Can’t find a reason not to give this unit five stars.

Comment from PK in PT
Time July 22, 2010 at 4:13 am

Review by PK in PT for Samsung BD-C5500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
Rating:
I have owned this device for about 1 month now.

The 3 reasons why I bought this was to take advantage of:

1 Blu-Ray player at a reasonable price

2 Online content (eg. Netflix, Vudu, YouTube, Pandora etc.)

3 Network video streaming from Windows Home Server (or any other Media Connect, DLNA ready streaming server, etc.)

Based upon the description, this unit would seem to cover all 3 of my goals.

HOWEVER! there are caveats, and failures along this path…

#1 yes it is a reasonable price for a BluRay player. However, prices are coming down for these players across the board, everywhere. If what you want is simply a BluRay player at a low cost, go elsewhere.

#2 yes, it is easy to set up, and access the internet to stream from the Netflix, etc. No worries here at all (assuming that your connection has sufficient bandwidth for video, and you know how to setup/correct your connection, etc., should they arise).

#3 Total Failure. On the outside of the box, the sales hype would lead you to believe (as I did) that this player was further enough along the line of the development path to support streaming content from your own in-house network, whatever it may be, including basic network shares, or more sophisticated media servers such as WHS, MMS, Niveus, etc. However, even with a Window Media Connect, DLNA enabled server this unit will not stream your content successfully.

Reasons why it fails:

The C5500 (or C6500, no difference between the units except for the inclusion of a WiFi connection) will not be able to maintain a connection–you will be able to connect the device and stream content, but the unit will not be able to maintain a connection to your source server.

Between 10 to 50 minutes into your stream, this unit will declare “network connection lost”. This, despite the fact that every single other device on your network is still connected, fully functional, and no log errors anywhere to help you correct this problem. This connection problem occurs regardless of whether you are using a wired or wireless connection (for wireless, you only have the option of purchasing the Samsung wireless connector, which is basically the difference in price between this unit and the C6500). Once this happens, all you can do is turn the unit off, turn it back on again, reconnect to your media streaming server, find your media, start it all over again, then find your place again for viewing. A long, tedious, unwanted procedure.

This unit is limited in the content it can play. Very limited. Especially audio.

The limitation on network connection sustainability plus content playability could be a firmware issue. Samsung has already released at least 1 firmware upgrade since this product’s release only a short while ago (this is a very new product, as of Q1 2010). However, for the price, and what is available as an alternative (with much higher playback quality), this unit fails for your home theatre streaming requirements.

Yet another reason why this device fails: it has a very short time span between being paused and going into device shut down. After a resume from shut down, you must renavigate to your content from square one. No bookmarking! This results in an unacceptable amount of time and remote control clicking just to get back to where you last left off: you must restart the device, locate your content, resume play, and then somehow find your last viewing spot in the content….

I do NOT recommend this product.