Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-Ray Player

Some background:

While we put in a great sound system and nice HDTV, until recently I have held out on the purchase of a blu-ray player.  I have been somewhat skeptical of the actual improvement in picture quality.  But I found a good deal at a locally owned electronics and appliance store on this Samsung model.  I'm a big proponent of Netflix, so having both in one box was a bonus.  In fact, only after I purchased this, did I realize that it also included Pandora, which is an Internet music-streaming source.

I also liked that you could purchase a USB WiFi dongle (Samsung WIS09ABGN), albeit proprietary, and a bit pricey.   So this allowed us to connect to our secure network without running another Ethernet cable.

Features:

Playback:

 BD/DVD/CD

A/V Quality:

 DVD Up conversion to 1080P
 Dolby Dital Decoder
 DTS Decoder
 Dolby Digital Plus Decoder
 DTS HD Decoder
 Dolby True HD Decoder

Connections:
 
 HDMI (V 1.3)
 Composite Video Output
 Component Video Output
 S-Video Output
 Optical Digital Audio Output
 Analog Audio Output
 Ethernet port
 USB Port

What I liked:
 
Once we got it home, I had it unpacked and hooked up in about 10 minutes, but only for the blu-ray and DVD capability. We borrowed a few Blu-ray disks from a friend.  They were "The Pirates of the Caribbean, The Black Pearl" and "The Patriot".  I was blown away with The Pirates of the Caribbean.  The image was fantastic.  The Patriot wasn't quite as startling, but good nonetheless.   We also watch our standard DVD format version on "Tinker bell".  That has been my gold standard for video quality, and it looked just as good on this player as the one it replaced.  But ... this disk did have some more pauses; more on that below. 

Another good feature on this player is that the firmware can be upgraded, by 3 different methods no less.  You can upgrade via the USB port using a memory stick, or use a DVD, which has the upgrade firmware stored, or better yet, over the Ethernet or WiFi network.  We just had an update notice around 7/1/09.  The update did take about ½ hour to download and run.  There were some changes in the user menu, and I did have to reconnect to the network after the reset.  Otherwise, it seemed fine.

Netflix:
Once we received the WiFi dongle, I plugged in and began the setup.  It probably took me 15 minutes to get though the entire hookup and network configuration.  Your router security may differ, but the player provided a PIN, which I plugged back into the network router through the laptop, and in about 1 minute it was up and running.  Very easy.  From there out, Netflix has worked great.  The remote works just like playing a disk, very intuitive.

Pandora:
And I have been playing around with Pandora, which is a nice bonus that I didn't expect.  But it's not true Internet radio, since you can't really subscribe to radio stations.  They are more like channels which group or categorize the music.  Then they stream music that fits that description.  You can pick artists, genre, albums, and the like.  I have received a notice that they can only play so many songs per hour of a particular artist, or perhaps album, so they may also stream similar songs or artists to fill the void.

I was looking forward to finding some interesting Internet radios stations, such as the BBC, or who knows, until I learned what Pandora was.  But as I said, it's a freebee, and as such, I've been happy with the feature.

What could be improved:
 
I have to say that I have been a bit disappointed in a few aspects of the player.  It seems very sensitive to the condition of the disk surface.  Very slight smudge or scratch one either DVDs or Blu-Rays will cause it to hang up or skip.  Often a cleaning will help, but we do get disks from Netflix, and they are often is pretty bad shape.  Disks that play in our other DVD player give the Samsung a fit.  And, we purchase "Hunt for Red October", and I took it out of the case and dropped it in the player without giving it a second thought.  There were two places on the disk where it skipped.  When I took the disk out, there was a very faint smudge (don't know how that got on a brand new disk).  It was much better after cleaning.  The same thing happened with the Tinker bell DVD.  That disk has a few scratches on in from my 3-year-old playing air hockey with it on the hardwood floor.  It sill plays pretty well in the old DVD player, but the Samsung just can't handle it with out a lot of pauses.

Another thing about the player that I find distracting is the frequent chatter of the read head.  This happens when watching a disk normally, and really makes a racket when there is a skip or drop out.  So this is a bit distracting when watching a movie. 

I'm hoping in the future that Samsung will come out with a firmware upgrade that will improve the disk error tolerance, and perhaps the read head chatter.

Some people complained about the flip down front panel.  I find it superfluous, but otherwise I don't have an issue with it.

The final analysis:
 
I got a good deal on this player; I paid $165, which did include a $75 gift card or rebate from an earlier purchase.  If I had paid more than $250 for this player, I would have returned it due to the skipping sensitivity and read head chatter.  But in the end, for this price, I consider it a Netflix instant view box than can play Blu-ray, DVD, and CD with a little disappointment.  Would I recommend it? Well, yes I would, but only if you get an equally good deal on it.  You may want to hold off for the next generation (there is a newer model now out), by then maybe they will have the bugs worked out.