Customer Reviews
minor issues 
2008-06-08
My main complaints: It won't play discs with a printed label stuck on them, there are a few HD titles that won't play (the Planet Earth series is one), and you have to wait about a minute to open the tray after turning it on. Other wise it works fine, the picture is beautiful on my 61" Samsung DLP.
Disregard the earlier negative reviews 
2008-06-01
Thanks to the latest firmware update, those earlier criticisms about the unit's audio limitations have been overtaken by events. Virtually overnight, the BD-UP5000 has gone from flawed product to one of the best-performing hi def players on the market. It's always had a beautiful picture, for both Blu Ray and HD DVD, but now handles the latest audio codecs as well.
Firmware Update Now Available 2008-05-30
Looks like the firmware update everyone is mentioning was put up on the Samsung web site today. My unit is still in shipping so I'm not able to tell you more.
What's with the price? 2008-05-26
I use this player and so far it works very well. I do have to "reboot" it from time to time for some reason but that's no different than the Sony BDP-S300 and the Toshiba HD-A35 players I have in the other room. This must be something Samsungs are prone to because the HT-AS720S AV Reciever system I have the BD-UP5000 hooked up to must be shut off and back on once in a while for no apparent reason on start-up. Maybe I need to change the Logitec Harmony 1000's order of which device it turns on first. Maybe that will fix the problem. By the way, do yourself a favor and get a Harmony 1000 to replace ALL your remotes, but keep them around in a drawer just in case there's not a compatible botton on the Harmony (which is unlikely). My Harmony runs 2 home theater systems with a total component count of 9. Unfortunately it's expensive but well worth it (amazon had the best price). Anyway, back to my original reason for this post. I purchased my BD-UP5000 April 18, 2008 for $463.24 with S&H. Now the web site lists the price at $744.99 plus S&H. Why the big price jump? Mind you I'm not complaining, but was there a price screw up or did I just hit a good sale?
I'm at the theater! 2008-05-12
Even though Blu-Ray won the format war, I still wanted a dual format player. You can find HD-DVD movies for 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of Blu-Ray discs. Not all titles are available in both formats either.
The 1080p,24FPS output in incredible looking. Very film like. I've paired this with Samsung's LED DLP rear projection monitor. The color accuracy and image detail equals or surpasses the image quality of many theaters. It's upscaling of standard DVD's looks a lot better than my other upscaling players that I've tried.
The firmware is easy to update. There are two ways to do it. Just plug it in to your switch/router. If you don't have a convenient way to connect the player to your network, you can download a cd-rom iso file from Samsung and burn an update disc. Just put the disc in the player and follow the on screen instructions. I've done the second procedure.
The down side is: No BD-R or HD-DVD-R compatibility (per manual). I haven't tried either yet to verify that fact.
DVD-R playback is marginal. It freezes occasionally. So I use my upscaling Pioneer DV-490V DVD player for home made discs (plays PAL/NTSC region free).
Because of the DVD-R playback compatibility problem, I gave four stars instead of five. Maybe a future firmware update will correct this problem.
Awesome System 2008-06-23
I went from the Toshiba 3 HD DVD system to this one, keeping the Toshiba as a back up for HD DVDs and I could not be happier with this system. I've only been using it for about a month, but the quality of play is excellent, the start up time for the machine is faster than the Toshiba, and I have had no DVD issues with random pausing like I a little bit with the Toshiba. Oh, and it plays Bluray discs? Ye-ah.
FIRMWARE REVISION ENABLES ADVANCED AUDIO 2008-06-23
Samsung BD-UP5000 1080p HD-DVD Blu-Ray Disc Combo Player
This is the Samsung combo HD DVD/Blu-ray Disc player released earlier (and since discontinued, as I understand it). When it was introduced, it bowed to glowing reviews about its video performance, but general dismay about its limited advanced audio codec performance.
I have owned this player since February, 2008. The first week of June I became aware of a firmware update (dated May 29, 2008). After I downloaded and installed it, the full multi-channel "audiophile bitstream" for both DOLBY DIGITAL TRUE HD and DTS HD MASTER AUDIO now pass through to my receiver (the Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH). In additon, the firmware appears to have brought the player to full Blu-ray "Profile 1.1" capability, as features on certain of my Blu-ray discs (for example, the historical trivia game on National Treasure 2) are now functional.
Samsung seems to have kept its promise to provide those capabilities by May. I no longer feel that my money was wasted on this player, since I now enjoy first-class audio along with the first-class video. I have rated it a "4" rather than a "5" only because its internal hard drive is too small to allow a potential future upgrade to "Profile 2.0".
If you have a collection of HD DVDs, or are hankering to take advantage of some of the "fire-sale" liquidation specials on discontinued HD DVDs which are not yet available on Blu-ray, I highly recommend this player if you can find an example at a reasonable price.
Installed the latest firmware update and I am impressed. 2008-06-18
I have this product since January 2008. Fabulous picture and the HQV chip works wonders. However, I was a little disappointed with the audio performance until now. Just tried it with National Treasure II (Dolby True HD) and was blown away. They obviously have fixed everything. 5 stars now.
Great Value 2008-06-17
Saved me money by not having to replace all my HD DVD movies. Plays all movies crystal clear without paying an arm and a leg!
DVD-R Playback Problem 
2008-06-09
First I have yet to update my firmware so keep this in mind as well as the fact I've only had the unit about two weeks. That said I'm not overly impressed except for the obvious fact that the BD-UP5000 does play both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs. That is pretty cool for those of us who have HD-DVD discs. The less cool part is the the unit seems to NEVER plays a DVD-R recorded disc all the way through. Oh, it starts well and plays generally 3/4's the way through...Then it stutters for a bit and usually eventually freezes. What the heck is this about. The cheapest "Brocksonic" drug-store $[...] DVD players are able to play DVD-R discs? Do any of you that own this player have this problem too??? It could just be my unit, but likely others have experienced the same problem and I'd love to know if there is a solution.
The other uncool part is that this player is suppose to have a very highly touted upscaling chip that trickled down from the Teranex ($[...]) commercial unit. While the BD-UP5000 makes standard definition DVD's look good it is apparent if you have a Toshiba HD-A2 player handy from which to draw a comparison that the Samsung's upscaling is not as good as, at least in this case, a much less expensive Toshiba.
If I could just get this unit to where it did not balk on DVD-R discs it could be my one unit. Of course I'd like the upscaling to give me better pictures like the Toshiba, but mostly I just need it to play all my discs. Any tips on how to achieve this will be appreciated.
jwwerner@bellsouth.net
