Blue Ray Disc Players

13 Responses to “Samsung BD-P1500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player”

1. Cwen on August 7th, 2009 at 4:06 am

   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

2. Raffaello on August 7th, 2009 at 5:02 am

   1.0 out of 5 stars
   Don’t buy this bargin
   I bought this blu ray player this past December. Everything worked just fine until we did the first firmware upgrade.

3. Phoebe on August 7th, 2009 at 5:07 am

   I had been waiting to jump into the HD media fray until a winner was declared and of course, that happened earlier this year. A lot of people recommended to me to get a PS3 for my blu-ray player but, for a variety of reasons, I decided I wanted a standalone player. After a lot of research, I settled on the Samsung BD-P1500. I had heard a lot of negatives about how Samsung had not been supporting their previous generation units but I was willing to get them a 30 day trial. I’m glad I did.

   I purchased this over memorial day weekend so I’ve had it over a month. In that time, I’ve played maybe a dozen blu-ray discs and 3 or 4 DVD’s. The only problem I’ve experienced that is attributable to the player is several extremely brief audio dropouts while watching Ratatouille. However, I updated the player’s firmware last weekend and watched several scenes that would previously cause the dropouts and observed none.

   I love the fact that it has an ethernet port for firmware updates and future BD 2.0 features. The player loads discs quickly in comparison to stories I’ve heard about other players. Picture and sound quality are outstanding (I’m able to use the HD audio features and it’s frankly amazing).

   This is a really good player and the only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because there are VERY few products that would rate 5 stars in my book. Most things have at least a couple of areas to improve on. For the price, this is a really good player.

4. Odell on August 7th, 2009 at 5:14 am

   This unit has two design problems that I’m aware of. I’m surprised that Samsung hasn’t already fixed these issues.

   For reference, my unit has the latest 1.3 firmware as of 9/10/2008.

   #1: The BD-P1500 has inherent audio drop problems on the HDMI interface. I’m not sure if the optical interface has the same issue(s); however, I wouldn’t be surprised if it does. The audio bitstream will drop (silent) occasionally on most blu-ray discs that I’ve played. I believe there is a timing and/or bandwidth issue with either the firmware or hardware. This problem has been reported by many other BD-P1500 owners on various AV forums.

   #2: The front display is extremely dim. When this unit is placed next to the Samsung HT-AS720 receiver which has the same display type, the BD-P1500’s display looks terrible. The BD-P1500 has an option to adjust the brightness of the front display; however it doesn’t work. The display is always too dim. This problem has also been reported by many other BD-P1500 owners on various AV forums.

   Unfortunately, Samsung has not been able to resolve the audio drop issue as of 09/10/2008 so I’m concerned that they may never. If high quality reliable audio playback is important to you, then I suggest you research the BD-P1500 more before buying it.

5. Philena on August 7th, 2009 at 5:40 am

   1.0 out of 5 stars
   You Wont Like Me When I’m Warming Up!
   Hello, I bought this product on 2/19/2009 today’s date is 7/28/2009. Up until now I have very minor complaints about the product.

6. Myfanwy on August 7th, 2009 at 6:48 am

   5.0 out of 5 stars
   great blu-ray player
   We’ve enjoyed our new blu-ray player, we bought it to go with our new Samsung LN52A650 LCD HDTV. We love the anynet device compatibilty, they’re both samsung so they communicate…

7. Anonymous on August 7th, 2009 at 8:14 am

   5.0 out of 5 stars
   Blu-Ray Heaven
   This is the second Blu-Ray I purchased from Samsung of this model and I am very happy with it. I have Samsung LCD TVs and the Blu-Ray interacts with it automatically.

8. Aston on August 7th, 2009 at 9:21 am

   1.0 out of 5 stars
   Not very good!
   I enjoy Samsung products, have a 52″ LCD and a surround sound system.. so I bought the Samsung Blu Ray player. This player for some reason is not their best product.

9. Xiao hong on August 7th, 2009 at 10:09 am

   1.0 out of 5 stars
   BD P1500 no regular dvd at 4 mo, no audio at 6 months!
   I too have been very disappointed with this blue-ray Samsung BD-P1500 player. At 4 months, it would no longer play regular non-HD dvd’s. So much for up-converting.

10. Baxter on August 7th, 2009 at 11:56 am

    5.0 out of 5 stars
    This Blue-Ray Player Is GREAT!!
    I received my Samsung BD-P1500 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player in an extremely timely fashion from Amazon. The box was completely unharmed and the product was in perfect condition.

11. Nadine on August 7th, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    1.0 out of 5 stars
    Shoddy Blue Ray Player
    This is the first blue ray player I have owned and I must say it is a terrible disappointment. My chief complaints are.

12. Tvuna on August 7th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Great Value
    Sets up and runs like a typical DVD player but the output is breathtaking. Seems very reliable and boot time is just slightly slower than a typical DVD player.

13. Halden on August 7th, 2009 at 6:39 pm

    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Samsung BD P1500
    No problems so far, Blu-ray Disc player compliments our HD Samsung Television in every way possible. Blu-ray picture is beyond HD and superior to anything I’ve ever seen.

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