Customer Reviews: Read 98 more reviews...
 Fine, basic player June 5, 2008
Kevin Moore (Natick, MA USA)
216 out of 223 found this review helpful
I've been using this for 2 weeks now, and it's my first blu-ray player (no PS3). The good stuff: Excellent look, not too loud, amazing picture and sound. Working ethernet and USB port. (I haven't had to download any firmware or code updates, but I'm sure it'll work fine.)
Operations: No fan noise, no noise while playing, but during menu & loading, you hear some track-seeking which is audible at 10'... nothing offensive, though. I just noticed last night, after my 5th blu-ray a little flicker in in the bottom center of the screen during the credits of Juno... not sure if it's a bad disc or a player having a problem. It was repeatable, and the disc seemed clean. Lastly, the load time, eject time, etc seems just fine. Not instant or as fast a nice DVD player, but not noticably slow. I've heard alot about slow disc-loading, and if it is a problem on other players - it's not a problem on this one. Lastly, sometimes when you click on a menu instead of pausing, the screen with show a "progress-bar" for 2-4 seconds while the next manu loads, which isn't completely kosher, but doesn't bother me.
The so-so stuff: I'm giving this 5-stars because it's near-perfect at what it's designed to do for it's price, but it's not perfect. One reason to get a mid- to lower-cost player is to (duh) save money... if you're someone who has an older receiver that doesn't decode the two new DD and DTS formats, and (probably) doesn't decode multi-channel PCM, this player isn't for you. It only has stereo-out analog RCA plugs, not 5.1 or 7.1 analog outputs.
That means you can't bypass your receivers pre-amp to play the newer audio formats and let the blu-ray player decode them. My old Receiver (which I used the player with for a week) only decoded DD 5.1 (no DTS, and only 2-channel PCM to 48khz). This player lets you send a PCM stream to your receiver from an internally decoded DTS 5.1 signal, but this didn't work for me... as my player can't receive 5.1 PCM streams, it only saw it as 2-channel. At least the player lets you downsample 96khz PCM to 48khz, so that I at least got sound (Golden Compass only has DTS 5.1 or DTS HD Master).
With my new receiver, all formats work perfectly, all bitstreamed.
Some people perhaps are holding off for new receivers because they don't want to connect through the player's analog RCA 5.1/7.1 connectors - but this is probably mis-information. What you want to avoid is taking digital sound, converting it to analog, then back to digital, then back to analog... don't worry - you wouldn't be doing this. Basically you would be doing all your processing in the player digitally, then once it is sent out through the pre-outs to the receiver you'd bypass the receiver's processing and it would go straight to the amplifier (which is of course analog anyway).
So my conclusion for thos people with older (but good) receivers - this blu-ray player won't save you any money. The best savings would be to pay a little more for a player with 5.1 analog outputs and continue to use your existing receiver.
-Kevin Moore
Natick, MA
I like it! August 4, 2008
James R. McDonald (South Carolina)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
The only thing that I miss is that the eject and control switches do not have the background blue light. Otherwise, the picture and sound are wonderful! Everyone talks about the picture, but I now hear things that were not apparent before. I have it hooked to the 61" Samsung LED rear projection set and all is good. It even has this neat feature that if I have the TV set to the dish, and I put a DVD in, it switches the TV by itself! Also I'd like to say something about Amazon.com, these people are great. The first unit I bought didn't work well. Amazon sent me a return lable, and a new unit within a week! Plus they are worth their weight in gold just for posting reviews from regular guys like me. I may or may not trust the guy in the store, but when I have a forum like this to read, it allows me make better choices.
Great Blu-Ray Player! June 8, 2008
Cooper (McCordsville, IN)
21 out of 24 found this review helpful
I hooked this up to my 37 inch 720p/1080i Vizio, and I was surprised at how much crisper the picture was compared to the HD signal I receive from my cable. I wasn't sure it would make a big difference since I don't have 1080p, but Blu-Ray discs look much better than my upconverting Panasonic DVD recorder when it pays commercially bought DVDs or DVD-RAM.
Also, the Samsung BD-P1500 says it doesn't play DVD+R discs, but it plays discs that I made on my Panasonic DVD Recorder (DMR-EZ 28) just fine. Panasonic DMR-EZ28K 1080p Upconverting DVD Recorder with Built In Tuner
Excellent Blu-Ray Player, would rate 4.5 if possible though! July 8, 2008
F. Burton (Baltimore, MD USA)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Samsung BD-P1500 1080p Blu-Ray Player
Pros
Bitsteams DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD, Ethernet port easily downloads firmware updates
Cons
Average styling and physical looks, not 2.0 out-of-the-box
Review
I love the BD1500 from Samsung. I unboxed mine, attached it to my Onkyo TXSR606, attached the ethernet cable, and downloaded the firmware update. (DHCP worked perfectly out of the box). It has a fast load time, tray ejects almost immediately and the menus are simple to navigate. In a comparison to my Toshiba HD-A30 HD-DVD Player, with both players turned off, I pressed the OPEN/EJECT button at the same time. Both powered on immediately. The Samsung Blu-Ray ejected it's try while the Toshiba displays "LOADING" as it powers on (and boots linux behind the scenes). I put a movie in the Samsung Blu-Ray and closed the tray. Toshiba still says Loading... Samsung is now loading. about 30 seconds into it the Samsung begins to play the movie... about 2 seconds later the Toshiba ejects it's tray and is ready for a movie to be inserted.
Picture quality is top-notch on Blu-Ray movies AND does a great job on upconverting DVD titles. I compared upconverted DVD in the Samsung Blu-Ray to the upconvert of the Toshiba HD-DVD (Reon chip) and I didn't notice much difference. Audio bitstreamed to the Onkyo 606 sounds excellent in my setup. I have no complaints about the Samsung unit whatsoever. Well worth the price I paid at Amazon ($300 shipped, after using a $50 credit they issued back to those who previously purchased an HD-DVD player from them). I look forward to future firmware updates to bring it up to 2.0 BD-Live, currently sits at profile 1.1 along with a working ethernet port already in place.
If possible, I would have knocked it a half point ONLY because it was 1.1 out-of-the-box and I don't understand why it wasn't 2.0 from day one.
Pretty happy, if price comes down you should especially consider it July 4, 2008
Alex H. Lim (seattle, WA United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's not particularly sleek or stylish, very basic 'here i am' player... as most intro blu ray players are, i'm sure they'll progress like dvd players did.
the picture and playback of everything has been flawless... looks awesome.
i wanted to write a review because the main thing i love... is actually DVD playback. all the blu ray i've tried has been amazing... but where i love this thing is in regular dvd playback. i don't know all the technical terms of how it converts upwards to HD (but then not technically hd?), but needless to say the picture quality of dvd, even burned/compressed dvd, is 100x better than it was played on my old sony dvd player... and that's gotta be a big thing to a lot of people out there with huge libraries of dvds and hardly any blu ray...
i got a new samsung ln46s750 with this at the same time, and the pairing is just plain sick. if you really want a full current bd player and have 400 to drop, go for it.
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