The war may be over, but the garbage continues...

[ADWyatt]

BD's victory will mean eventual mass acceptance of the hi-def DVD format, but it may be a long time before it means the production of high-quality players, at least so far as Samsung is concerned.

My BD-P1200 died before Thanksgiving in a rather unique way. After Samsung sent me an update disc for my 1200 (which it seems to require every time a new movie is released), I followed the usual procedures, but this time the machine ate the disc. The on-screen update message was displayed for two hours before I finally decided to eject the disc. (Yes, I would be stupid enough to wait that long.) It wouldn't eject. Tried to turn the unit off and on. It wouldn't turn off. I finally unplugged it, and when I plugged it back in, it still refused to eject the disc.

I contacted Samsung's tech center, of course, and sent the unit in the day after Thanksgiving. I'm still waiting for them to get around to repairing it.

I called them more than two weeks ago, asking them if they had forgotten about me. No, they hadn't, but they told me they didn't have any repair parts in their main repair center, and would have to have them sent from Japan. The parts should arrive any day now.

Called them last week. The parts are in. We'll have that repaired for you tomorrow, I was assured, and you'll get it in a few days.

Called them yesterday. They haven't started repairing it yet. But they decided now to give me the highest possible priority. We're calling you back immediately on this--stay by the phone--and your repair order is getting done immediately, almost as we speak.

It's Friday night now, as I type this. Of course, they didn't call me. Nor has anyone at Samsung even begun to start repairing my unit. Needless to say, I will never, but never, but NEVER buy another Samsung product again. The players are cheap, worthless garbage, and the tech service borders on non-existence.

And HD-DVD? My Toshiba HD-A1 did indeed malfunction shortly after I bought it, to the point where I had to send it to the Toshiba repair center. And the time it took to get it back from the moment I mailed it in? Three days.