Playback Compatibility Playback Media BD / DVD / CD Playback Formats VC-1, MPEG2, H.264 Netflix-Ready Instantly Stream Video From Netflix Yes Video A/V Quality DVD Upconversion Yes (up to 1080p) Physical Features A/V Quality Dolby Digital Decoder Yes DTS Decoder Yes Dolby Digital Plus Decoder Yes DTS HD Decoder Yes Dolby True HD Decoder Yes Functional Features Secondary audio support Yes Connectivity USB 2.0 No HDMI CEC Yes Composite Video Outputs Yes Component Video Outputs Yes S-Video Outputs Yes HDMI Outputs(Version) Yes (1.3) Optical Digital Audio Outputs Yes Coaxial Digital Audio Outputs No Analog Audio Outputs Yes (2ch) Network Wireless Ready ( Wireless Lan Adapter not included) Ethernet port Functional Features BD Profile profile 2.0 Local Storage No PiP Yes Product Weights & Dimensions Dimension 17” x 2.13” x 7.83” Weight 4.85 lbs. Shipment Weights & Dimensions Dimension 20.24” x 5.59” x 12.28” Weight 6.4 lbs.
I had to go for this. It has all the features I want, that is, if they work, such as Netflix, for under $100 shipped. The warranty sucks, but I took the gamble. They do offer a one year extension, with replacement, for $17.98. I almost bit but decided to gamble. If it breaks before the year is out, I might be ready to upgrade anyway. I think it will give me more than that. To find the bing cb, I put "CompUSA" in the search box in the shopping section. There was something lister for a wii accessory. This is where I scrolled down and found the 6.5% back link. The FW CashBack is also a decent 4%, so you might choose to forgo a couple of bucks and feed FW some money for doing a good job.
I was in for a DVD player in 1997 for 300-400 bucks after it came down from 600-800. Subsequently watched as they went sub $100. Promised myself to buy into the next standard when it hit sub $100. Plus, I canceled my premium cable channels and was in the market for a Netflix streaming solution.
BradVR4
New Member
posted: Nov. 10, 2009 @ 9:49p
Man I wanted to jump on this deal... but the reviews seem like this thing is quite buggy. Here is a 3-page thread on it:
I think I'll pass.. especially with it being refurbished, and mail order. Might be best to gamble on this unit with a brick and mortar that has a generous return policy till you can find a good unit.
I'm gonna hope that when these were sent back, that the proper firmware was loaded on them to qualify for "refurbished" status. Would make no sense if they didn't diagnose, fix and test before selling them again. Fingers crossed.
and won't work with a regular USB wifi adaptor, is that correct?
Damn, I'm tempted. I've got $600 worth of computer stuff in a $250 Silverstone HTPC case that is supposed to be a fully-functioning home theater PC, but I can't get the audio or my ethernet to work properly and can't tell if the problems lie with my MB, receiver, video card or what. I just can't seem to find the time or energy to yank the case out again, pull everything out, pull my receiver (and all of the other video components that sit on top of it) off the shelf, test out all of my digital audio connections and make it all work. For $100, this Samsung would do about 90-95% of what I wanted an HTPC for that room to do, would probably give me many, many fewer headaches and probably would even be something my wife and daughter could figure out how to use. Of course, if I did buy one of these, then my wife, instead of being appreciative about the convenience and functionality, would then say "So let me get this straight, you wasted how much money on that shiny PC box when you could have just spent $100??" I see futility and frustration no matter which path I choose.
If I can get a Netflix streaming Blu-Ray player with both Pandora and YouTube streaming I think I'll have to go for it - do any of them do both yet or do I have to choose Pandora with the Samsungs or YouTube with the LG's?
EDIT: One of the posts in the Blu-Ray.com forums linked above mentioned that Samsung included YouTube and Blockbuster download compatibility with one of the firmware downloads. It seems that a lot of the problems are from a) firmware not being updated; and/or b) firmware update problems (units "bricking" - I guess circuits overloading and frying) when the units download firmware updates direct from the internet. Downloading the updates onto an USB drive and then plugging that into the unit to update seems to be curing the firmware update problems; I didn't see anyone complaining about problems when downloading the updates to an USB flash drive. So I jumped on this. For $96 after FatCash it will be worth it to be able to have the rest of my family download movies and shows off Netflix, download YouTube music videos for my daughter and play Blu-Rays upstairs so my wife won't have to complain that it's too cold in the lower level home theater to watch movies.
Now, what do I do with my shiny, pretty $850 HTPC setup? I've already got a fully functional (fingers crossed it continues that way) HTPC in my home theater. Maybe I'll have to be one of those geeks who has an HTPC in the bedroom, where maybe I won't run into all of the audio problems if I plug it straight into the TV and can just use a wireless card for internet.
I didn't realize that shipping would be free (and hence buying offline with CashBack is cheaper than buying it instore), so I indeed bought this at my local CompUSA store. It updated its firmware off the Internet without a hitch.
Now, whenever no disk is in the player, it offers Blockbuster, Netflix, Pandora, and YouTube. I don't have Blockbuster or Netflix accounts, but the Pandora and YouTube work just fine. With YouTube, you can log into your own account if you wish so that your favorites are available.
I put my order in yesterday afternoon with free UPS Ground shipping and per UPS tracking, it's already out for delivery today. Whatever complaints people may have about CompUSA/TigerDirect, I sure can't complain about shipping speed with this order - it may be under 24 hours.
Got mine. Came with firmware 1.3 preinstalled. Upgraded to 2.5 via ethernet. took about 30 mins. Added Blockbuster and YouTube functionality on top of the Netflix and Pandora. For some reason the Pandora account was in the account of the person who activated the unit. Firmware upgrade was supposed to make all settings factory default. Turns out that the units MAC address is stored at Pandora and linked to account. Emailed their tech support to clear the entry. They responded within an hour. Next time I started Pandora it asked to register my account. Used Netflix streaming and worked flawlessly, awesome quality no hiccups. Youtube worked great. Both were over a DDWRT wireless bridge and still worked perfectly. Regular DVDs worked fine. Haven't tried a Blu-ray disc yet, Just signed up for Netflix so I'll report in a couple days.
SimMike said: Still waiting for Bing to show my CB.
Mine failed to show up after 3 days. Filled out support request at Bing and followed up with a couple emails. My 6.50 is in the queue now. It's strange how some sites attempt to not honor CashBack. I've had the same problem with GoDaddy via FatWallet.
machinez said: Got mine. Came with firmware 1.3 preinstalled. Upgraded to 2.5 via ethernet. took about 30 mins. Added Blockbuster and YouTube functionality on top of the Netflix and Pandora. For some reason the Pandora account was in the account of the person who activated the unit. Firmware upgrade was supposed to make all settings factory default. Turns out that the units MAC address is stored at Pandora and linked to account. Emailed their tech support to clear the entry. They responded within an hour. Next time I started Pandora it asked to register my account. Used Netflix streaming and worked flawlessly, awesome quality no hiccups. Youtube worked great. Both were over a DDWRT wireless bridge and still worked perfectly. Regular DVDs worked fine. Haven't tried a Blu-ray disc yet, Just signed up for Netflix so I'll report in a couple days.
machinez said: SimMike said: Still waiting for Bing to show my CB.
Mine failed to show up after 3 days. Filled out support request at Bing and followed up with a couple emails. My 6.50 is in the queue now. It's strange how some sites attempt to not honor CashBack. I've had the same problem with GoDaddy via FatWallet. I did the support request also. Bing is waiting for CompUSA to respond. Bing doesn't seem as responsive as before.
xocruiser1
Senior Member
posted: Nov. 17, 2009 @ 11:11a
So Tiger direct now owns Circuit City and CompUSA?
SimMike said: Still waiting for Bing to show my CB.CompUSA denied my Bing claim. They told the outsourced Bing help that I linked through the "Bing shopping site" and not the "Bing search site." WTF??!! It has been a bad week for this particular consumer. First I was denied a small rebate with D-link, which I had unfortunately not made copies of the paperwork. Next, tmobile stiffed me on a promised extra $10 in talk time with my prepaid phone. Now CompUSA pulls a terrible excuse out of their behind to deny me some more money. I suspect that this is going to become more and more common as money gets tighter. Fasten your seat belts, we're in for a bumpy ride.
I just got the player and it works good so far. I decided to gamble and let the firmware update automatically over the internet. It looks like it might take awhile. I'll let you know if I encounter any problems.
Blu-ray played fine, at least the couple of disks I tested. DVD upconvert looked pretty good.
Netflix worked good. I tried an HD version of The Office and it looked pretty good. Not full blown HD, but certainly not bad quality.
UPDATE: The online firmware update went fine. In fact, it added YouTube and Blockbuster. The quality of YouTube and Netflix are certainly not bad. It will please many people to have these available on their TV without having to hookup a computer. You still have to setup your viewing list with a computer on Netflix, but most people that use Netflix are already going to be doing this anyway.
Load time is very fast, whether it be blu-ray or DVD. So far I am very impressed with the features and performance of this player. On the negative, the remote leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately my TV remote, a Toshiba, communicates with the player via HDMI, so I can use this remote for many of the options I need.
THX, update, got the price down to $88.66 after BING tiger direct 12% Cash Back and free shipping (refurbished)
go to bing.com, search for "hdd", see right link to TigerDirect 12% Cash Back (make sure you already have a confirmed bing Cash Back account) add the blu ray 1590 player, and also search for "GEN-8009" (POWER UP JEWEL CASE FOR COMPACT FLASH) a .99 filler to get the total cost $100 for the free shipping (otherwise ship is $14 or so).
I got one a couple of weeks ago and it is working good for me. No problems yet. I like the Netflix streaming, especially of HD. I'm thinking that maybe there was something specifically wrong with these return units and it got fixed in these refurbs. If so, these refurbs might be better than untested new units, albeit with a short warranty. Load time of blu-rays is impressively fast.
All this being said, there are good deals on brand new players for around this same cost, so getting a short warranty unit might not be the best bet. If I get a years worth of solid play, I won't complain too much. Less than that and it would be a mistake.
I absolutely love this unit. I've had it for months. It is exactly the same as BD-P1600 (uses the exact same firmware) without the annoying flip-down front panel. I'm totally sold on the Pandora feature. But I'm mad as hell that I can't play any kind of video files other than properly-formatted DVD or Blu-ray discs. No matter what I do, I can't get it to play AVI, M2TS, MKV, MPG, etc., which is my only complaint (and why I bought it to begin with). I may end up having to replace it with a PS3 just for that simple reason. Apparently, only the US firmware has this limitation, but only the US gets Blockbuster, Netflix and Pandora.
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