Samsung BD-D5500 3D Blu-ray player (October 2011 Home Theater magazine review)

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Samsung BD-D5500 3D Blu-ray player (October 2011 Home Theater magazine review)

This Samsung BD-D5500 for $160 list price for some reason does not offer any internal DTS-HD or DTS HD Master audio decoding. One needs to bitstream the audio to an A/V receiver that supports DTS-HD and DTS HD Master Audio decoding. This is a deal breaker for many consumers since DTS-HD and DTS HD Master audio decoding is a standard feature found on all modern 2010 and 2011 Blu-ray players to my knowledge except for the Samsung BD-D5500. Even a black Friday $39.99 Blu-ray player or a $79.99 Sony BDP-S185 Blu-ray player offers internal DTS-HD Master audio decoding. Another negative is this Samsung Blu-ray player as a cost cutting feature dropped 1GB of internal memory that is needed for BD-LIVE. Consumers need to purchase a 1GB or larger USB stick to use BD-LIVE since there is no internal memory to handle BD-LIVE. Like many other brands of Blu-ray players for 2011 there is no multichannel analog outputs on the Samsung. Also as per the AACS licensing agreements the component video output on all new 2011 Blu-ray players limit the component video outputs to 480i quality. Those that have older 720P and 1080i HDTV’s with no HDMI input or DVI input will need to purchase a new HDTV with a HDMI input if they want to watch Blu-rays in HD quality. Also it took 1 minute and 49 seconds for the Samsung BD-D5500 to load Star Wars II according to the Home Theater magazine review. That is very slow loading time.

A Panasonic DMP-BDT210 Blu-ray player according to CNET is the fastest Blu-ray player on the market for disc loading speed. The advantage of Sony Blu-ray players is that they all now play SACD’s and offer almost as fast as loading time as a Panasonic model.

The following are select quotes from the October 2011 Home Theater magazine review

“No multichannel analog-audio outputs”

“No DTS-HD decoding”

“However, it's lack of DTS-HD decoding is a significant drawback, which you can overcome by spending $40 more for the BD-D6500, $20 more for the Sony BDP-S480, or $10 less for the Panasonic DMP-BDT110.”

“However, loading the Inception Blu-ray took 59 seconds from closing the tray to the FBI warning, and Star Wars II took 1 minute 49 seconds! Hardly ultra-fast loading times.”

“The BD-D5500 provides all the standard outputs, including HDMI 1.4, component video, composite video, optical digital audio, and 2-channel analog audio. However, it does not provide a 5.1- or 7.1-channel analog-audio output—hey, Samsung had to leave something out at this price point!”

“Another feature omitted presumably to save money is 1GB of RAM for BD-Live, which you can add via one of the USB ports. More importantly, this player cannot decode DTS-HD Master Audio or High Resolution, only the core DTS bitstream. However, it can decode Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus, and it can send any bitstream (including DTS-HD) via HDMI to the AVR or pre/pro. That's fine as far as it goes, but if you send a DTS-HD bitstream to the AVR or pre/pro, you won't hear the seondary audio of PIP extras or button sounds. If your AVR or pre/pro can't accept the more advanced Dolby bitstreams, the player can re-encode them into DTS or Dolby Digital via HDMI or the optical output.”

**Click here to read the complete review at the Home Theater magazine website **