Just bought Samsung bdp-2550

[bruss01]

Spotted on sale at Best Buy today for $349 so I went for it.

Our DVD player went belly-up earlier this year and we have been getting by, using the XBOX 360. Kind of a pain, but still usable. So I have been shopping around. This model fit my needs because it has dedicated hardware upscaling of standard DVD's. We have a substantial DVD collection so this sounded like it might be a good feature to have.

I was disappointed that there was no S-video connection. It does have composite video (3 rca type plugs) for video and stereo audio. I would love to be able to take advantage of the more advanced audio and video capabilities of this unit but that will happen when we upgrade our TV. Right now we have a 26" Panasonic purchased in 1998, kind of a dinosaur in ways but to be honest it has been a great set. To this day, there is nothing "wrong" with it. I'm kind of at a loss what to do with it since it is functionally and cosmetically perfect (well a little dusty but that's to be expected). Maybe there is a market for it somewhere? I don't really have room to store it and I can't picture it going to the dump in perfect working order.

The old TV has multiple video inputs - coax, RCA video, composite and S-video. The coax connection was in use by our SAT system dvr, the S-video was our former DVD player, the XBOX was on the composite. The RCA video was left unused. So when I did the setup today I had to unplug the S-video to the old DVD, and swap the XBOX over to RCA video (haven't tested that yet, hoping it works). That left the composite connection open to attach the new blu player. When we get the new TV the player and the XBOX should both be able to use HDMI cables and open up a whole new world of resolution. I'm really looking forward to THAT.

We watched two blu disks tonight, Iron Man and Sleeping Beauty. Both played perfectly. I also played part of a DVD (Constantine) just to be sure that standard DVD playing worked as well. The picture was beyond reproach in the 480i mode that our TV supports. I'm sure we will have even more enjoyment out of this unit when we are able to upgrade the TV (soon I hope).

I did have an issue when setting up - apparently the default resolution of the player is 480p, and this made two reddish samsung background screens appear on the TV, side by side. There was nothing regarding this in the manual nor in the FAQ. I just tried it because it was there and got lucky with 480i, which is the lowest resolution. Kind of funny because when we bought the TV we were told it was "HD Ready" and it's amusing to think that 480i was once considered HD.

We use sub-titles frequently because we like to keep the volume reasonable but still get all the dialogue when characters are whispering, mumbling or trampled by sound effects. We were able to use this feature successfully with no issues on both disks.

We also have picked up two other blu disks, Twister and Narnia. We will probably watch those later this week. I'll comment here on any problems or difficulties.

[Blu Titan]

Congratulations on your new purchase. Narnia is a great disc...5/5 PQ

[Semp1]

480i was never considered HD it has and will always be SD and 480p was at most considered enhanced definition...But you did buy a good player hopefully you'll be able to take advantage of it soon...

[bruss01]

Watched Twister last night - man what an adrenaline rush. Forgot how intense some parts of it are. BTW no problems at all with the playback or quality.

[bruss01]

Read something disturbing in the user manual... says it will not play CD-ROM? That's kinda hard to believe... you mean I can't pop in my CD with 100 MP3 Christmas songs and a playlist, and just rock Christmas eve and Christmas morning away? That just seems fundamentally wrong somehow. In fact I don't believe it. I will have to pop in a disk and see for myself.

[bruss01]

Ok, just got around to trying the experiment. Apparently Samsung DID anticipate people wanting to listen to music on this device, since an audio cd played perfectly fine when inserted into the disk bay. However, apparently they did NOT make the leap to the fact that MP3 is currently the most popular music format, since a CD-ROM disk containing MP3's failed to play or even display, just "cannot read disk". IMHO Samsung missed an obvious opportunity here. Shame, shame...

Also, I am annoyed by the flashing samsung logo that blinks all over the tv screen while music is playing. They couldn't have come up with a better screensaver? Or let the user choose from an assortment of screensavers? Really, what would that have added to the cost of the unit... $3 - $5? Someone that price sensitive would just buy a 1500, wouldn't they? Hope this is addressed in a firmware update. The current screensaver is very distracting and annoying.

[Stephan.klose]

Samsung Players generally don't play MP3.. A lot of other Player don't do that either btw..

[Stephan.klose]

BTW: What's the difference between the Samsung Bd-P 2550 (which is not available in Europe) and the BD-P 2500?

[bruss01]

Originally Posted by Stephan.klose

BTW: What's the difference between the Samsung Bd-P 2550 (which is not available in Europe) and the BD-P 2500?

Not sure at the moment... It may have to do with the upconvert chip... sorry I can't recall at the moment, but when I was comparing it seemed like significant enough to talk me into the 2550.

All right, we had a glitch the other night. On two separate standard def movies (DVD) we experienced a problem. Playback always worked fine until the end of a chapter (scene) and then would hang at the end of the scene without progressing to the next scene. If you FF through the chapter break and then RW to where you were, it progresses naturally. Sort of like a horse who won't jump a hedge if he doesn't know what's on the other side, but once you show him he's fine with jumping. We were running the original-out-of-the-box firmware BTW. Yesterday I downloaded the most recent firmware from Samsung and now this no longer appears to be a problem anymore. I did notice that there are buttons on the boot-up screen for netflix and pandora - I'm assuming there's some kind of corporate co-op venture going on there.

BTW now we finally got our HD TV set up (Samsung ln52a750) and the PQ is amazing on BD's but the upconvert quality on SD DVD's is WOW! I have tried 21st century movies, 21st century TV on DVD, and so on back to Twilight Zone episodes that were shot in the early 60's. This BD player does an amazing job with ALL of them. I would say it is NEAR BD quality on all my DVD's tried so far. We still have SD satelite TV so I have to say there is a huge diff in PQ from SD TV to BD, but very little from upconverted DVD to BD using this BD player. I'm very VERY happy with my selection of this unit to be our disk player, despite the fact that it won't read CD-ROM media.

[crazyBLUE]

2 GOOD buys !! Enjoy the new setup I DO !!!

[Cirrussusan]

Originally Posted by Stephan.klose

BTW: What's the difference between the Samsung Bd-P 2550 (which is not available in Europe) and the BD-P 2500?

I was reading at the Samsung website the differences between the 2. The 2550 streams Pandora, (I think is music), as well as Netflix. 2500 just does Netflix. It was recommended if the price was the same get the 2550, otherwise 2500 will be just as good.

[HOME THEATRE ADDICT!]

I was wondering why there isnt any 2500/2550 thread???

[Mike_LV]

Just wondering if someone can fill me in on BD-P2550. I have a BD-P1400 and I am thinking of getting second player, but the extremely slow loading time drives me insane. I surely like the Netflix feature on 2550, but what the loading time? Is it any faster?

[dberiro]

santa (me ;-) just bought this for me. it was an open box item so it was quite discounted, the only thing missing was the manual. i didnt think it was a big deal when i couldn't find the manual, im pretty tech saavy. so i hooked up my hdmi from my tv to my clable box the blue ray through hdmi to tv. no big deal, and no other cables. well now it does not work, the screen is blank. (so much for being saavy) anyone have any suggestions? btw the tv is a pioneer elite

[Jamoctopus]

Congrats

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by dberiro

the screen is blank. (so much for being saavy) anyone have any suggestions? btw the tv is a pioneer elite

did you change the input of the TV to whatever HDMI input you connected it to?

...gotta get the dumb questions out of the way first!

[ack_bak]

Originally Posted by crackinhedz

did you change the input of the TV to whatever HDMI input you connected it to?

...gotta get the dumb questions out of the way first!

Very true. And he may also want to hook up some composite cables into the TV and ensure that the player is configured for HDMI. The previous owner may have set it to something else.

[bigpapy]

any one know if this player internally decode all HDFormats like DTS HD Master?

[ack_bak]

Originally Posted by bigpapy

any one know if this player internally decode all HDFormats like DTS HD Master?

It decodes everything but DTS-HD-MA internally (it will bitstream DTS-HD-MA). Samsung is supposed to issue a firmware update for this player to decode DTS-HD-MA internally soon.

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by dberiro

i didnt think it was a big deal when i couldn't find the manual, im pretty tech saavy. so i hooked up my hdmi from my tv to my clable box the blue ray through hdmi to tv. no big deal, and no other cables. well now it does not work, the screen is blank. (so much for being saavy) anyone have any suggestions? btw the tv is a pioneer elite

Did you try the manufacturer's website? They often have user manuals you can download.