I haven't watched a DVD in three years but I'm very interested in the browser capability of this unit. Can anyone address the suitability of this as an internet portal?

Here us a link for Cinavia info

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011/02/01/cinavia-what-is-it-and-why-you-should-care/

Im getting a western digital tv live unit to stream my movies.

If anyone has info on a cinavia free bluray player for under $100, please post it. Thanks.

cdebro wrote:DO NOT buy Samsung refurbished products. I bought the BD5700 from woot! a couple of weeks ago and received the unit in poor cosmetic condition. Samsung will not replace it with one that is not in such shape because it is cosmetic damage. This makes no sense since they sent it to me in this condition. Reading the warranty, this falls under the materials and workmanship clause.

I buy refurbs all of the time and they have all looked new, until now.

If you want a second rate refurb, then pull the trigger on a Samsung refurbed product.

you're kidding right? does it work mechanically? why does cosmetic matter? are you literally watching the Blu-Ray player instead of the Blu-Ray movie it is outputting? if so, I must advise you, you're doing it wrong.

amazon sells the same unit new for $69.99

paulikorg wrote:amazon sells the same unit new for $69.99

Says its refurbished.

csublime wrote:anyone know if this will play avi

Yes, this plays AVI files. Virtually all devices will play AVI videos, from picture frames to media players. Only Apple products sometimes struggle with them.

FYI, AVI is just a container format. Just as important is the CODEC the video uses. The CODEC is what's used to encode and compress the video. If the player doesn't have the same CODEC used to make the video, then it won't be able to decompress and decode the video for playing, even if it recognizes the container (i.e. AVI, MPG, MP4, etc).

Generally speaking, this should play any AVI video you're likely to have.

Look on page 10 of the manual for a table of compatible Containers and CODECs, and the limits of each.

I am disappointed that it doesn't play FLV (used on YouTube and other Flash-based sites) or RMVB, which is very popular in Asia. A similar LG player is able to play both.

RichardCarver wrote:I haven't watched a DVD in three years but I'm very interested in the browser capability of this unit. Can anyone address the suitability of this as an internet portal?

I don't have this player but Amazon reviewers say that it works reasonably well, even for video sites like YouTube (for which it is optimize. I don't know how well it works with other Flash-based sites). Needless to say, typing in addresses and other text is really annoying.

ki4rxm wrote:Would love to buy, but I don't need/want to pay for 3D, and all of the regular BD players Woot! sells seem to be craptastic. Looks like I'll be heading for Wally or BestBuy on Black Friday to score one of their $35 regular BD players.

You really aren't paying for the 3D aspect at all, its a great price regardless because it includes the wifi instead of being just wifi ready and spending another $80 on a link stick. Also, in the future you may own a 3d tv and this feature will come in handy.

Its has wifi built in, apps, and it plays blu rays for a cheap price. The 3d part is a bonus imo

darkmagician1184 wrote:you're kidding right? does it work mechanically? why does cosmetic matter? are you literally watching the Blu-Ray player instead of the Blu-Ray movie it is outputting? if so, I must advise you, you're doing it wrong.

+1

maniac2k wrote:Did you even google it? Cinavia is drm protection that you do not. Want.

I have a PS3 with Cinavia and I couldn't give a bigger crap whether I can play pirated movies or not. Plus, not all movies have the Cinavia watermark. If you watch legit movies the Cinavia shouldn't matter.

Newbious wrote:You've heard of smartTv, well this is a smart Bluray. Is plays every video format and has all the apps of a SmartTv. Did I say WiFi (Wireless Fidelity)...LOL. My best player ever.

No, it does not play every format. In fact, I was about to buy until I compared it to similar players from LG and Sony, both of which plays more formats. For example, the LG BP620 plays all the formats this plays plus FLV (used by Flashed-based sites like YouTube) and RMVB (very popular in Asia, and used to encode most Asian TV shows). And the Sony player accepts DVD-RW in VR format, whereas this only plays DVD-RWs in finalized DVD-Video format.

Here is the manual. If you want to know about file compatibility, look on Page 10.

brdunkle wrote:Thank you...I was just getting ready to ask if it enforced this protection the way that all of the SONYs do.

They ALL have Cinavia as of February 2012. Unless you can find old-old stock you will not find a Blu Ray player without it. And if you do and it forces you to do a firmware update you're still going to get stuck with it.

Another thing that some people might consider is that this only has HDMI output. A similar 3D player from LG also has the old fashion RCA composite (yellow, red, white) jacks. This allows older equipment to use the player. While it's true that composite outputs won't play 3D video, HD video or pressive scan video (720p, 1080p), there are times where composite output may be desirable.

For example, you might want to use this Blu-Ray player as a source to duplicate footage off a DVD (without having to remaster a DVD on your computer). If it only has HDMI output, there's no way to connect it to another DVD recorder. Some older video devices will only accept composite inputs. For example, I have glasses composed of LCD screens. Likewise for older projectors.

I have a Sony blu-ray that no doubt has cinavia firmware on it (since I do all the updates). It can play backed up blu-ray movies that were made with the latest version of DVDfab. The Avengers was the latest-that was played, I'm pretty sure this has cinavia, and it played perfectly.
http://www.dvdfab.com/news/19

I bought this a few weeks ago when it was on Woot. It is a flawless machine. Only complaint is no Amazon App but otherwise I would highly recommend this. Been using it a lot for Netflix even though I have a Roku hooked up but it seems to operate quicker.

DerHirnFanger wrote:Is this the player that Woot had up earlier that has no optical audio output? HDMI and Coax only?

yup

darkmagician1184 wrote:you're kidding right? does it work mechanically? why does cosmetic matter? are you literally watching the Blu-Ray player instead of the Blu-Ray movie it is outputting? if so, I must advise you, you're doing it wrong.

I bought this a few weeks ago and was also a little disappointed with the cosmetic condition. I would say this is classified as "Seller refurbished" not "manufactured refurbished". I have never received a manufactured refurbished product that didn't look brand new.

I understand its cosmetics aren't holding the player back mechanically, its a dumb argument to say it doesn't matter at all..

darkmagician1184 wrote:you're kidding right? does it work mechanically? why does cosmetic matter? are you literally watching the Blu-Ray player instead of the Blu-Ray movie it is outputting? if so, I must advise you, you're doing it wrong.

There is concept called perceived quality. First impressions are important. When I look at the unit and see the lack of attention to cosmetic detail, I immediately question where else corners have been cut.

Also, I expect more from a name like Samsung. Their refurbs should be second to none and not only function well but look good too.

ashli143 wrote:You really aren't paying for the 3D aspect at all, its a great price regardless because it includes the wifi instead of being just wifi ready and spending another $80 on a link stick. Also, in the future you may own a 3d tv and this feature will come in handy.

Its has wifi built in, apps, and it plays blu rays for a cheap price. The 3d part is a bonus imo

Blah you sold me on it... woot give this guy commission

Do you know whether it supports Intel® Wireless Display (WiDi)? I have a Samsung laptop and I would like to stream from it to the TV. I need an adapter - but if this work, it may even be better.

I had one and returned it after a few days and bought two Roku's. I thought the Apps were kludgy and did not like the slow software updating. For this price I might have kept it, but I don't watch DVD's more than once a year, so the Roku was a better choice.

edit: also a good choice if you may need the 3d someday

ashli143 wrote:You really aren't paying for the 3D aspect at all, its a great price regardless because it includes the wifi instead of being just wifi ready and spending another $80 on a link stick. Also, in the future you may own a 3d tv and this feature will come in handy.

Its has wifi built in, apps, and it plays blu rays for a cheap price. The 3d part is a bonus imo

Point taken; I guess what I was meaning to say was that I wish Woot! would sell some cheaper no-frills Blu-Ray players that the majority of people would rate above a 2/5 for reliability. I've got Xbox for internet and apps, and if I ever want 3D then I'm sure the TV's will be sold packaged with a 3D BD player, which most are now.

p2k2000 wrote:I just got this model from Best Buy, paid around the same because they first shipped the wrong product from their warehouse. So far, so good with this model. The features are very easy to use. Avatar 3D played awesomely.

I have a very similar model from last year, and outside of the 3D blu-ray functions, i've found it more than adequate as a streaming box. The app selection for Samsung is pretty good, covering most of the bases you'd expect - Netflix and Hul - and a few other fun ones.

ashli143 wrote:You really aren't paying for the 3D aspect at all, its a great price regardless because it includes the wifi instead of being just wifi ready and spending another $80 on a link stick. Also, in the future you may own a 3d tv and this feature will come in handy.

Its has wifi built in, apps, and it plays blu rays for a cheap price. The 3d part is a bonus imo

Nailed the value proposition here! Looks like a solid player that will work well for years to come...

Do refurbished items come with their original box and manuals etc?

ki4rxm wrote:Point taken; I guess what I was meaning to say was that I wish Woot! would sell some cheaper no-frills Blu-Ray players that the majority of people would rate above a 2/5 for reliability. I've got Xbox for internet and apps, and if I ever want 3D then I'm sure the TV's will be sold packaged with a 3D BD player, which most are now.

I don't have a need for the 3d of this model, so I purchased a non-3d one on Moofi:

http://moofi.woot.com/offers/samsung-blu-ray-player-with-wi-fi-1

c6cole wrote:I bought this a few weeks ago and was also a little disappointed with the cosmetic condition. I would say this is classified as "Seller refurbished" not "manufactured refurbished". I have never received a manufactured refurbished product that didn't look brand new.

I understand its cosmetics aren't holding the player back mechanically, its a dumb argument to say it doesn't matter at all..

Interestingly, the unit is a Samsung refurb. It is backed by a Samsung warranty. But, to your point, I had thought that it was not a Samsung refurb at first for the same reasons that you point out.

calpencil wrote:region free?

Ummm...no. I doubt any "major" retailer would sell such. You won't have trouble finding them on Amazon/eBay though.

tdubstudios wrote:Do refurbished items come with their original box...?

What, your cat won't play in a plain brown box?

tdubstudios wrote:Do refurbished items come with their original box and manuals etc?

I bought a couple of these the last time they were up here. The manuals were large and present. The wifi works well, but not amazing. The web browser feature is UNBEARABLY crappy. But it has built in apps for most of your media means, and those all work smoothly as far as I can tell. For the price, these are pretty damn nice. I have no idea how well they work with 3d though. the only ports on the back are coax, hdmi, and ethernet. one of each. Keep that in mind.

Would you need a 3D TV in order to use this as a 3D blu ray? Or would a regular HD TV work?

spamagnet99 wrote:Would you need a 3D TV in order to use this as a 3D blu ray? Or would a regular HD TV work?

Yes you need a 3D TV

Samsung is a good name. I love my Samsung HD TV, but the Samsung Blu-Ray player I got about 4 months ago has the worst software of any consumer device I can remember.

It plays discs OK, but the streaming software is incredibly buggy and ridiculously slow. It usually takes 10-15 seconds to load a program (such as Netflix), the menus don't render right always, the thing locks up distressingly often. They've updated the firmware a few times but nothing ever seems to change. Oh, and it doesn't do Amazon.
On some Netflix shows the screen constantly switches back and forth between aspect ratios, which is maddening. I finally got so fed up I bought a Roku, which works ten times better, and just use the Samsung for discs.

Can't say this model is the same, but I'd be wary.

To bad it doesn't support Amazon Streaming.

To my chagrin, I've learned that the horribly designed Samsung.com provides false information. Specifically, I checked their website for compatible apps before pulling the trigger on a Blu-ray player. It turned out that despite the website's promises, the apps in question did not support the model I purchased.

Hey guys - just be aware of the fact that the Samsung unit Woot is shipping is NOT the BD-E5900. The unit they are shipping is the BD-E59/ZA. While they are both current models in Samsung's lineup, they are very slightly different, with the "5900" offering about 5-6 more features. I have already written them about this, and, while they have been appologetic about the issue, have not sufficiently satisfied the problem by sending out the correct unit. You might want to check the actual model number on the rear of the unit and report your results back here. Otherwise, the unit works OK. They have advertised this unit twice in the last month - with both sales havinng the same issue.

This thing just plain sucks. It worked for about 10 minutes then just says stop Samsung service wasn't helpful and i have to pay the shipping to send it to them.

rracorcey wrote:Hey guys - just be aware of the fact that the Samsung unit Woot is shipping is NOT the BD-E5900. The unit they are shipping is the BD-E59/ZA. While they are both current models in Samsung's lineup, they are very slightly different, with the "5900" offering about 5-6 more features. I have already written them about this, and, while they have been appologetic about the issue, have not sufficiently satisfied the problem by sending out the correct unit. You might want to check the actual model number on the rear of the unit and report your results back here. Otherwise, the unit works OK. They have advertised this unit twice in the last month - with both sales having the same issue.

Same experience here. Support said they couldn't ship out a replacement until after the woot-off. Guess I'll find out how the story ends next week. All I want is to get what I bought, or at least pay a fair price for what I did get (the "59" retails for $15-20 less than the "5900").

jbeyerlein wrote:Same experience here. Support said they couldn't ship out a replacement until after the woot-off. Guess I'll find out how the story ends next week. All I want is to get what I bought, or at least pay a fair price for what I did get (the "59" retails for $15-20 less than the "5900").

I agree with you. Interestingly enough, here's part of the reply I got back after the 2nd go-around of email: "I do apologize. It seems as if there might be a problem with our inventory on this item. I have forwarded your email to the buyer to look into this further."

Not sure what is meant by "after the woot-off," but I guess it means something.