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Product Description
Fast Performance, Quality Entertainment With a lightning fast 15-second disc load and 15-second boot-up time, the BD-C6500 is one of the quickest Blu-ray players in the market giving consumers more time to relax and enjoy their favorite movies in high-definition. The player features enhanced Blu-ray disc playback using Samsungs Adaptive Servo Technology (AST). All of this is packaged in a slim and sleek design.
Features:
- Slim Design (39mm)
- WiFi Built-in
- Internet@TV
- BD-Live (Profile 2.0), 1GB local storage
- 1 HDMI , 1 USB
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Customer rating:
Doesn’t work on all blue rays, even with firmware update. Plus, it almost damaged my TV
Customer rating:
I have been trying blu-ray players because my DVD player of 10 years finally died. I have an old set up and am looking at slowly replacing components (i.e. new TV when mine finally dies.) I have an older Toshiba tube TV, and the aspect ratio is a little wide, but not 16:9. I tried to separate out what was due to the player vs. player/ghetto TV interaction.
Player: 3 stars
What I liked:
1) The picture seemed decent- I did notice that it was of better quality than my DVD player, and wasn’t expecting to notice a difference since I don’t have an HD TV.
2) Connecting to the internet was super easy. I’m not tech savvy, so, that says a lot. I used the WPS option. When you are on the screen where you type in all that subnet mask/IP address/ DNS stuff, you will see “WPS” at the bottom next to a red rectangle. You then press WPS button on your router and the red key on your remote and bingo, you’re in. I couldn’t connect it directly to a modem and didn’t try ethernet-router, just the wireless. (I have Comcast, if that matters to anyone). Of course, none of this was mentioned in the player manual, I found it in the router manual and figured it out from there (again, not tech-savvy, so a major accomplishment in my book!).
3) Despite the other issues with Netflix streaming (outlined below), once a movie started playing (on the Comcast mid-grade internet connection) I had no issues with it having to buffer repeatedly or anything like that.
What I didn’t like:
Player:
1) Noisy. If there is a disc in the tray, you’re going to hear a lot of different types of noises going on. I think it’s normal (everyone has complained about it), but was alarming nonetheless as that’s what my DVD player did before it died.
2) It says it automatically detects your TV settings and adjusts. Perhaps this is the case for a new HDTV, I don’t know. But it sure wasn’t for the older tube TV.
3) Also, after using it, it seemed kind of warm. I have it raised an inch off the surface to try to ventilate better. Recommend you make sure it’s well ventilated.
4) Netflix/Samsung issue: When you get into your queue, you can literally only see movies from your INSTANT queue, you can’t see the full library of instant movies or the streaming movies in your regular queue, like you can on a computer or Xbox. This is annoying, especially if you’re only computer is a laptop and it happens to not be at home at the moment. Add the movies ahead of time!
Player-Ghetto TV interaction: 2 stars
1) I plugged the player into the component jacks, didn’t work. After 30 minutes and no help from the user manual, I finally tried the composite jack and had poor quality, but could at least see the screen and go change the settings to a 480p resolution(it defaulted to 480i). I could then go to the component jacks and the picture was good.
2) Because I don’t have the 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio, it didn’t matter what I set it on, it seemed that the top 2 inches of the screen was cut off. I played with a variety of ratio and full screen settings with no success.
3)Blockbuster: Couldn’t get it to boot up, it seemed to be stuck permanently on a loading screen and the only way out was to shut off the blu-ray. Seems like it might be resolved by a firmware update?
4) Netflix/Ghetto TV problem: if you have a 480p television, you have to use the composite jack- there’s no using it with the component jack, you can’t see it at all!. With the composite, the colors don’t line up. It seems to work better if you shut it down, plug into the composite and start up. The movie quality was better, but looks like you are watching it through a screen.
Due to the last two reasons, I’m returning it and getting a cheaper player. Bottom line: If you got a ghetto set up like mine, you may want to think about the cheaper Sony player (which worked fine, but I wanted to check out the Netflix Streaming).
Customer rating:
I purchased 2 of these units for my house; one for the upstairs bedroom and one for the living room downstairs in anticipation of my 50″ Panasonic Plasma that is being delivered next week. The one for the bedroom is being hooked up to my Panasonic 32″ Viera HDTV.
Out of the box was an easy install. Was able to configure the wireless without any issues and connect to my home network (which obviously needed to be upgraded from Wireless G to Wireless N). Netflix works good, only thing is I’m not happy with fast forwarding or rewinding within Netflix, but that may be a learning curve. YouTube seems OK, but haven’t played too much with it. Vudu doesn’t appear to be up and running as of yet for Samsung, but another reviewer stated he read that Samsung is pulling that app. I don’t know what the status of that is. USA Today is an OK feature. I don’t think I’ll be using that one much. AccuWeather is AWFUL. I don’t know if it’s my unit or not. It is set to use New York and Celsius as defaults. I am able to change the Celsius setting back to Fahrenheit without a problem, but when I try to change the region from New York, the system completely freezes. Only way to get out of this is to power the system off. Tried it a few times, but the same result.
I called Samsung’s customer support about this. The first rep couldn’t fix the problem, so she escalated me to second tier help. The second tier person could not help me (sounded like she was reading from a script) and opened yet a new case for the “product specialist”. This “product specialist” is supposed to call me back within 48 hours, so we’ll see. I hear that Samsung’s support is not very good, but I’ll give them a chance to see.
There’s another feature where you can share a folder(s) on your computer wirelessly and play it on the unit. I had put far too many folders in, but it was working OK. I decided to delete out the folders and create on called Samsung share and copy whatever files I wanted in to there. For some reason, it isn’t working now. Probably something I did, but I’ll update my review on that once I get it figured out.
Next step: Go out an buy my first Blu Ray disc.
The player seems to be good, but I want to see what Samsung’s support does for the AccuWeather issue and how the Blu Ray disc actually plays. Only giving 3 stars right now, could be changing when we see what unfolds.
To be continued…
Customer rating:
The image quality is great on this product, but I bought this one because the WIFI was built in. However, so far I have not been able to connect to the net. I used the MAC address and entered a WEP key to no avail. I have had no trouble setting up other devices on my network, so these difficulties are quite a surprise. Even more inconvenient is the WEP key entry. The player is not saving the WEP key and it is a real pain, as you might imagine, to retype using a remote. The biggest problem I have is with the online customer service representative: Shaina J. Shaina told me to have the “router vendor send me another WEP key.” This was only one of Shaina’s inane and inaccurate comments. After a 15 minute typed conversation, I was no closer than I had been before and Shaina gave me the toll free number to technical support.
This product may not be able to be push-button given the number of variables during setup, but there is absolutely no excuse for staffing a technical support desk with someone lacking as much knowledge as Shaina and not allowing them to escalate calls.
Customer rating:
I just received this product yesterday. So far I am just finding it to be an average looking blu-ray player with average features. I am a little frustrated since the internet TV feature is not working. I believe that Samsung might have not yet activated this feature on their end, since I found another report of this problem in an internet forum. If you are looking for a player similar to an OPPO then this is probably not the device. It’s all about the implementation, and I believe Samsung took a conservative approach in this case. Once again, Amazon’s service was wonderful……
Update 2.20.2010
The application store is now working; therefore, I have changed my rating for this product.
Update 2.21.2010
I had a chance to use this player a little more. This player is sometimes noisy even when I am using the internet TV feature while having a disk inside the player. Samsung just decided to remove the Vudu application from their app store. The funny thing is that they also deleted the application from my player without even asking me. In addition, the graphics that they used in their user interface look outdated. I have to say that I am not a happy camper at this time and hopefully things will improve as soon as they start supporting this device more. Also, Samsung’s technical support was not really helpful. I have now lowered my rating for this product due to new developments.