The Samsung BD-P1500 Review Thread

[Edh63]

Originally Posted by Edh63

So, are you saying that you like the 1500 thus far? Is it meeting your standards? Would you recommend it? Have you had to update any FW out of the box? Are you pleased with the aesthetics? How loud is the load tray when ejecting the disk? How many seconds does the tray take to load?

Do tell.

So?

[timer00]

Originally Posted by Edh63

So, are you saying that you like the 1500 thus far? Is it meeting your standards? Would you recommend it? Have you had to update any FW out of the box? Are you pleased with the aesthetics? How loud is the load tray when ejecting the disk? How many seconds does the tray take to load?

Do tell.

From it being my first standalone player I like it a lot. I didn't want to get another 40gig PS3 to have the drive crap out in 4-5 months like mine did. I only had 2 games for the PS3 that I hardly ever played and I never play online don't have the time with wife and 3 kids. You don't need to update out of the box, its reported that updates will come this year for DTS-HD and maybe MA decoding along with the update to make it 2.0 Live which I don't care too much about.

It looks simple and clean for me as much as I like the electronics with millions of buttons on the front to make it look complicated and expensive. The tray make some noises when it does eject but after that its quiet as a mouse not any louder reading disks then my 40 gig PS3 was.

I have watched so far

The Descent
Juno
Eight Below
The Guardian
MI III
I Am Legend

since I got the Samsung and in general they all load pretty fast (30 secs to main menu) I didn't specifically measure any times but feeling wise from when I put them in the PS3 it was maybe 5-10 secs slower which isn't bad. Haven't tried the infamous Die Hard 4 or FF4ROSS yet that I have I'll have to do them and post real times.



Edit: I can confirm that I listened to TrueHD on I am Legend and got the 5.1 uncompressed PCM from Eight Below and both sounded great. I can finally listen to the some of the HD tracks !! woohoo

Supposedly it can send DTS-HD (NOT DTS-MA) via LPCM to my receiver but I don't have any movies that supposedly use that codec. I am hoping eventually for a firmware update to get decoding of DTS-MA but we'll see that way if they discontinue using uncompressed PCM in blus I can still get the HD soundtracks.

Reference Links
http://www.idoblu.co.uk/page2%20Blu-ray%20Players.html -- Shows what Blu Players can decode and bitstream what codecs.

http://mysite.verizon.net/ruvic/bluray-audio.htm -- Shows what movies display what codecs.

Doctor Strange
House of 1000 Corpses
The Condemned
The War Within

all use DTS-HD (NOT MA) so the fact the 1500 decodes DTS-HD and sends it via LPCM isn't a huge deal most of the good movies are DTS-MA

[Edh63]

Overall, it sounds like you're pretty happy with it. I was in BB yesterday trying to find out if they're carrying the 1500 here in San Antonio yet, they aren't, and tried Wally World also, they don't, so I can see the actual unit up close and personal.

I'm 93% certain I'll be purchasing one but I wanted to get someone's opinion about it first. It should show up here late May/early June, so I've got some time to continue to read reviews by peeps like you. Please continue to post up here and report anything you may find bad or good about the 1500. It'll help others looking to purchase this unit. I feel Samsung may have finally hit an infield home run with this player. I say infield home run because they've had to run hard and fast to get around the issues with the 1000 and 1200. I'll most likely sell my 1400 to a work associate and replace it with the 1500.

Thanks for your research and time posting here about it.

[Woody]

Originally Posted by Edh63

Overall, it sounds like you're pretty happy with it. I was in BB yesterday trying to find out if they're carrying the 1500 here in San Antonio yet, they aren't, and tried Wally World also, they don't, so I can see the actual unit up close and personal.

I'm 93% certain I'll be purchasing one but I wanted to get someone's opinion about it first. It should show up here late May/early June, so I've got some time to continue to read reviews by peeps like you. Please continue to post up here and report anything you may find bad or good about the 1500. It'll help others looking to purchase this unit. I feel Samsung may have finally hit an infield home run with this player. I say infield home run because they've had to run hard and fast to get around the issues with the 1000 and 1200. I'll most likely sell my 1400 to a work associate and replace it with the 1500.

Thanks for your research and time posting here about it.

I believe you mean an "inside-the-park home run". Not sure if an "infield home run" has ever occurred.

PS: I agree this may be a player that I purchase.

[Edh63]

Originally Posted by Woody

I believe you mean an "inside-the-park home run". Not sure if an "infield home run" has ever occurred.

PS: I agree this may be a player that I purchase.

I stand corrected, Mr. Speaker.

[Woody]

Originally Posted by Edh63

I stand corrected, Mr. Speaker.

That little dude with the bat looks pissed.

[Edh63]

Originally Posted by Woody

That little dude with the bat looks pissed.

He's all show. I thought it went well with the baseball theme working here.

[texas1824]

Bestbuy.com lists the 1500 as being available at the Best Buy on Agora Parkway in Selma, TX.

[Edh63]

Originally Posted by texas1824

Bestbuy.com lists the 1500 as being available at the Best Buy on Agora Parkway in Selma, TX.

Man, that's right down the road from me. I had stopped by the BB in "The Rim" at La Cantera on I10 and they didn't have any there. I was really assuming that they weren't available yet in SA.

Do you live in San Antonio? I actually live in New Braunfels, Rockwall Ranch. Thanks for the heads-up on this. I'm still thinking of waiting just a bit longer before purchasing a 1500 so I can read more feedback here. My 1400 is working perfectly fine and I would hate to trade it for a player that will perform poorly. It doesn't look like the 1500 is going to do this but, I want to be very sure before I purchase.

Thanks again for the info.

[texas1824]

You're welcome.

Actually, I'm in Converse. It says they're at three locations now. I assume that within a day or so they'll be at all the BB locations around San Antonio.

[philmctim]

I ordered one from BB at the weekend, should be in tonight. I'll post a review once I play around with it. I probably won't have any Blu-Ray discs to play until the weekend.

[ack_bak]

Originally Posted by philmctim

I ordered one from BB at the weekend, should be in tonight. I'll post a review once I play around with it. I probably won't have any Blu-Ray discs to play until the weekend.

I don't know how you can stand to wait Do you have a Best Buy near you? They have some decent titles right now on sale 2 movies for $30?

[philmctim]

I don't buy movies as a rule - got my Netflix and there's little I want to watch over again.

This should tell you that the review you'll get is from an Average Joe

[ack_bak]

Originally Posted by philmctim

I don't buy movies as a rule - got my Netflix and there's little I want to watch over again.

This should tell you that the review you'll get is from an Average Joe

Fair enough. Blockbuster also carries Blu-Ray as well in store and via the web. They are the same price as DVD for renting new releases (at least in my area). So if you do get impatient you can always rent a Blu-Ray there.

[timer00]

Tested Die Hard 4 and FF4 ROSS last night. Counted from disc in tray to FBI Warning screen 1 minute 7 secs for both. Casino Royale and almost every other non fox movie takes about 30-35 secs.

I even tried Die Hard 4 with the disc already in the drive and from turn on to FBI
screen same general time 1 minute 4-7 secs.

There is one annoying thing about the 1500 is that it uses the same remote as the 1400 in general.. no back light among other things but it gets the job done.

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by timer00

Tested Die Hard 4 and FF4 ROSS last night. Counted from disc in tray to FBI Warning screen 1 minute 7 secs for both. Casino Royale and almost every other non fox movie takes about 30-35 secs.

I even tried Die Hard 4 with the disc already in the drive and from turn on to FBI
screen same general time 1 minute 4-7 secs.

There is one annoying thing about the 1500 is that it uses the same remote as the 1400 in general.. no back light among other things but it gets the job done.

Seem pretty much the same as the BD30... Superbad takes 65sec on mine to Close Tray to 1frs Screen.... witch is not bad because it takes about 50 sec on a PS3

[Edh63]

Originally Posted by timer00

Tested Die Hard 4 and FF4 ROSS last night. Counted from disc in tray to FBI Warning screen 1 minute 7 secs for both. Casino Royale and almost every other non fox movie takes about 30-35 secs.

I even tried Die Hard 4 with the disc already in the drive and from turn on to FBI
screen same general time 1 minute 4-7 secs.

There is one annoying thing about the 1500 is that it uses the same remote as the 1400 in general.. no back light among other things but it gets the job done.

I'm using the Harmony 890 remote. Great remote for all my tech needs.

[inline]

Does anyone find it odd it's being sold and isn't on the Sammy web page?

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/t...o&type=blu_ray

(sorry for the long link).

Someone was mentioning above that they thought this machine would be upgradable in the future to live-2.0. Where is this info? Not on blu-ray.com, that I can see, and not on Samsungs page. I thought it didn't have a SD reader? So you'd have to leave a usb stick in all the time? Well maybe I guess....

FYI, to clear it up, the point of 2.0 analog outputs is to listen to your movies on your tv's built-in stereo speakers. So it just converts the 5.0 or 7.0, etc to 2.0 for that purpose... you'd still get sound regardless which format the sound was on the disc.

The reason that 5.0 or 7.0 analog output would be nice is for the 90% of us that don't want to upgrade their old dolby digital/DTS 5.0 receivers that won't play the newer audio digitally - so in this case you'd use 5 RCA cables and let the BD player do the decoding (and in better BD models you could enter in your speaker distances and levels since your receiver would just be passing along the signal unprocessed).

This player won't do that. So you'll be roped into buying a new Receiver that supports that new HD audio formats... min $400+ expense. But it's probably worth it from all accounts.

-Kevin

[HDPlasma]

Originally Posted by texas1824

Hi. I'm new. I've decided to enter the BD world with the 1500 when it's available. I have one question. Does the 1500 have coaxial digital audio output or just optical toslink? Everything I've been reading so far has siad it had both. However when I looked at the Best Buy Website it didn't mention it and I didn't see it on the photo of the back?

The specs indicate it has both Optical and Coax audio outputs.

[HDPlasma]

Originally Posted by Edh63

I'm using the Harmony 890 remote. Great remote for all my tech needs.

I have a Harmony myself and they work great but if you don't have a fancy programmable remote, the Samsung Blu-ray players don't play nice with the ones that require remote code inputs. There just doesn't seem to be a code for the Samsung Blu-ray players.

My 1200 can't even be controlled by my Samsung LCD TV remote.
I have to use the AnyNet+ function in order to control it using the LCD TV remote.