UHD Blu-ray Players (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

I have the Samsung UBD-K8500 4K UHD player and am actually very happy with it. I have never seen any ads on my player. I will eventually upgrade this player but for a 1st generation player and being a Samsung it is actually nice.

 

[Sam Posten]

I'm sure a lot of us who bought the 8500 are moderately satisfied. But nobody should buy an 8500 today when the Xbox 1 S is on the horizon. The vast majority of people will find that a better deal, tho I admit it's too early to say for sure and the remote situation may be an issue.

 

[DavidMiller]

I'm sure a lot of us who bought the 8500 are moderately satisfied. But nobody should buy an 8500 today when the Xbox 1 S is on the horizon. The vast majority of people will find that a better deal, tho I admit it's too early to say for sure and the remote situation may be an issue.

I will throw out there that the current Xbox One does not pass Atmos/DTS:X either. So hopefully they fix that with the "S" but there is a chance it won't be. So be warned you might wait until some reviews or some of us like me have it in hand to verify.

 

[Sam Posten]

It probably won't do Dolby Vision either but then again neither of the UHD decks on the market will either

 

[Dave Moritz]

I would still purchase the 8500 over an X Box as I have no interest in owning an X Box.

It probably won't do Dolby Vision either but then again neither of the UHD decks on the market will either

Has any 4K UHD title been released with Dolby Vision?

 

[Carlo_M]

I'm going to be purchasing the X1S as my second room UHD player. Why? With the current playback limitations of the Samsung (no frame forward/back, really lacking fast forward/back functionality) I honestly feel it can't be worse in terms of ergonomic playback features. And it will be the same price ($399 for 2TB version, less for smaller HDDs) and be an X1 player as an added bonus.

So the way I see it, chances are the X1S will be at least as good at playback as the Samsung, has a chance to be better in terms of basic features the Sammy is missing, is priced at the same price point currently, and up to $100 cheaper for the 500GB version, and is an XB1 as an added bonus. No brainer for me. Had I known the X1S was coming two months ago, the Samsung would still be in Best Buy.

I don't want to sound overly negative on the Samsung, as the first UHD player ever it's adequate. If you were in the market six months ago with nothing on the horizon, and a bad impulse to purchase like most of us in HTF have, then the purchase made sense.

But right now the X1S is less than 2 months away, and more UHD players will be here in the Fall, I would view the Samsung as a very poor investment at this moment in time unless you have money to burn.

 

[DavidMiller]

It probably won't do Dolby Vision either but then again neither of the UHD decks on the market will either

I don't believe we will see any, even though WB said they may release some DV movies on disc. I have heard rumors that it costs $50-$100 per unit for the DV chipset and license fees, easy to hide in a TV not so easy on a player... I'm willing to bet that we will only see DV in Streaming format for foreseeable future.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I don't believe we will see any, even though WB said they may release some DV movies on disc. I have heard rumors that it costs $50-$100 per unit for the DV chipset and license fees, easy to hide in a TV not so easy on a player... I'm willing to bet that we will only see DV in Streaming format for foreseeable future.

I would think it wouldn't matter content being on a disc or streaming it, because wouldn't the player need the Dolby Vision decoding chip ether way? Or at least wouldn't the display if the Dolby Vision data can be passed along to the display?

 

[Sam Posten]

Has any 4K UHD title been released with Dolby Vision?

That isn't really the right question. These boxes are not just disk players, they are app ecosystems as well and both Amazon and Vudu are supporting DV and those apps are on all 4 of the known UHD players without support for that HDR format, assuming the X1S doesnt have DV.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I remember when Microsoft made the camera mandatory but the backlash made them remove it and make it optional. I honestly do not see the X Box as a value and I would never purchase a player that pulled discs into it like a car audio deck. Plus I prefer PC games to the lower end counsel games which are not as good IMHO. Am waiting for better players to come out by companies like Marantz, Denon, Oppo and others before I upgrade my current Samsung 8500 which was always going to be a starter player for me. I am debating on adding something so I can stream music or video from my pc to my home theater system. Not even sure I would want an Apple TV in my configuration?



Not impressed at all! So they made it smaller so it will most likely end up running hotter and imagine what the cheap disc loader will end up doing to your discs after time. For me no X Box and no Playstation! What little streaming and movie rental I do can be done by a blu-ray or 4K UHD player so I really do not need a over rated entertainment box.

My upgrade plans:
New receiver with 4K video switching, Dolby Atmos and DTS-X
Bowers & Wilkens Bookshelf speakers for surrounds
Upgrade Samsung 4K UHD player
Purchase 4K UHD native projector after prices come down

At some point I want to phase out my DVD's and HD-DVD titles. That would clear out 173 480p DVD titles and 75 HD-DVD titles. And get rid of the HD-DVD player out of my A/V rack.

My minimum requirements when I purchase a movie:

• Must be on a physical format
• 1080p Blu-ray minimum or 4K UHD Blu-ray (No DVD)
• Uncompessed PCM ok, Dolby True HD, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-X or Dolby Atmos a must for audio track.
• No Lossy Dolby Digital or DTS
• No Digital Downloads

 

[Bryan^H]

I have been saving since 2014 for a uhd TV, and player. I have been thinking about the Panasonic UHD player when it hits the market.
I said a while back that I would only need a handful of titles to make the purchase worthwhile, and as of now there are only two must haves for me. With a little over a dozen UHD titles available for pre-order through October.....well that has me a bit worried. Especially since I'm mainly interested in films from the 80s and earlier.
I'm going to wait until this Fall. By then I will know if the 4k titles I want will be released on disc.

 

[Carlo_M]

I honestly do not see the X Box as a value and I would never purchase a player that pulled discs into it like a car audio deck.

I have to ask if this is based on recent or archival knowledge/experience. Because I had a flaky car deck CD player...twenty-five years ago. My PS3, which for a long time was a secondary DVD and BD player, was a slot-loading champion and has safely pulled discs in and ejected them out, for a decade. My XB1, though much younger in age, has also been a smooth, quiet, slot loading champ. My two Oppos have been tray-loading champs. The component that plays discs have come a long way since the 80s and 90s, and as a PC builder who also has friends who continue to build PCs, the OEM transports for both slot and tray loading have rarely if ever failed in all of our PC builds in the last decade, regardless of which type they are.

Not impressed at all! So they made it smaller so it will most likely end up running hotter and imagine what the cheap disc loader will end up doing to your discs after time.

Again, is this based on archival or current knowledge? The first run XBox 360 (last gen) had the infamous red ring of death based on overheating. Starting with the die-shrink on later versions of the 360 (to 65nm with the Jasper chipset in 2008) the RROD all but disappeared. My PS3 has performed for over a decade with no overheating, and I leave my XBox One (original) on for hours on end without getting hot. I've put thousands of hours into Destiny (#notproud) and it runs today just like it did on Day 1. I watch hundreds of hours of streamed services (Twitch, HBO Go, Hulu) not a single hardware hiccup.

Meanwhile, the relatively lightweight chassis of the Samsung is prone to vibration depending on certain RPMs that the disc is spinning. I can hear it vibrating at times on the shelf it's on. If it's a moderate-to-loud part of the movie, I don't hear it, but if it's a quieter part of the movie I can hear the spinning of the tray and light vibration on the shelf. If anything, your comment now makes me worry more what this Samsung might do to my discs, with all the vibration that is going through the player.

I am not sure it's fair to criticize the build and heat dissipation qualities of an XB1S that hasn't yet been released based on ten-year old impressions of past game systems. Especially when the current basis of comparison is the Samsung UHD 8500 which itself doesn't have great build qualities, and has arguably the worst remote released from a major brand manufacturer for a product costing over $200. I bought a third Sony BD player a couple of years ago for $99 whose remote absolutely shames the Samsung's.

Time marches on. CPUs have shrunk and become more powerful while also becoming more efficient. MS really took a black eye for the RROD in the mid-2000s and have improved their design. Even if you don't see having an XB1 as a value, that's fair, that's your call. But the XB1S is going to be the same prices as the Samsung with the 2TB version, and $100 cheaper at the 500GB version. So even if there's no gaming value, the absolute value of the player is either the same as the Samsung, or $100 cheaper. For what will likely be equal or better playback of UHD. Even if you never play a game on it or stream music/videos to it. Should you ever choose to do any of those, it will perform those tasks better than the Samsung.

Now that I think more on it, it makes me a little upset at the relatively poor build quality for $400 that Samsung sold us: a lightweight chassis prone to vibration, lacking basic feature like step forward/back, and poor scan forward/back implementation, plus a horrendous Fisher Price quality remote. MS is going to put one out at the same price or cheaper, but include a much more powerful CPU and GPU, a 500GB-2TB hard drive, and a game controller. It's now clear to me Samsung rushed to put the first UHD player out on the market as quickly and cheaply as possible, which will soon be outshined within a year. I remember when Sony put their first gen offerings out on DVD and BD: those players compared favorably for a while, unlike this one.

EDIT for clarity of purpose: when the weaknesses of the Samsung were less known, and when it was the only player on the horizon for many months, the purchase was fine and justifiable, especially for those of us who needed to be on the bleeding edge. However, with the Samsung's weaknesses now known, and the XB1S less than two months away, and more dedicated players coming in the fall, it makes less sense to purchase the 8500 now, unless you think of $400 as pocket change, in which case, by all means, purchase away. I bought mine 2 months ago (so I'm past the return stage) and am regretting it. Maybe if I bought it six months ago I'd feel I got more of my money's worth (and if there were more UHD discs out there). But as of now, I'll consider this a lesson learned against impulse purchasing.

 

[Dave Moritz]

The Samsung player is not the greatest looking thing in the world and has no display on the front. When I purchased the player it was only going to be a temporary player and I planed from day one that I would upgrade it later. This player at least boots quickly unlike the HD-DVD player and the first gen blu-ray from Sony which I have owned. I just wanted to get up and running so I could start watching 4K UHD blu-rays but do not see any game counsel as an option if I am just going to play discs or stream netflix to it, also like I stated above I do not trust the loading mechanism and never will. The one thing they did right was to include a second HDMI for audio for those who do not have a 4K switching receiver or pre pro. I will not be purchasing X Box games so again no reason to put an X Box in my configuration and my sources will go through my receiver and will not be routed through an X Box. I am sure for some out there the X Box is a good choice and it works for them but for me a game console is not a replacement for my gaming pc. These newer consoles are nothing more than a pc crammed into a small box and this new model will most likely run very hot. And I also do not purchase the digital download version of any movies so disc is the only option for me especially with disc having the inclusion of lossless audio vs nothing better than Dolby Digital Plus for some digital movies.

I am looking forward to upgrading the Samsung to a brand and model with better build quality and a better quality player over all. Till then the Samsung will do the job and there is no reason to waste money buying a X Box that would get replaced by a third player. A small part is I like my equipment to perform extremely well and to not look like a chunk of cheap plastic like the consoles tend to look.

 

[Carlo_M]

Dave - I think you're confusing me trying to get you to buy an X1S (I'm not) with my actual intent: to provide accurate information based on ownership to people who are contemplating what to buy in terms of a UHD player now.

To be clear, my advice for people looking at purchasing a UHD player today or in the near future: wait for either the X1S--if you have any interest in gaming--or another future UHD players coming in the fall. Unless $400 is a negligible amount for you, in which case buy away!

Interesting you note the dual HDMI outputs, which I too appreciate since it's both on my Oppo BD players and my $99 Sony BD player. I think I've traced a pretty nasty intermittent audio sync issue on the Samsung to it. Depending on the order I power on my HDMI connected devices, I may have to reset everything in order to re-sync audio to picture. If I only use one HDMI out the 8500 hasn't (so far) experienced audio-to-picture sync issues. But if I use both HDMI (one to my 4K TV, the other to my Pioneer SC-05) I occasionally run into severe audio sync issues (between 20-25 ms). Never had this with any other disc player before. Has happened on several discs, remedied by completely powering down the Samsung, making sure both the TV and the receiver are on and are set to the appropriate inputs, then re-powering on the Samsung.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Dave - I think you're confusing me trying to get you to buy an X1S (I'm not) with my actual intent: to provide accurate information based on ownership to people who are contemplating what to buy in terms of a UHD player now.

Trust me I do not think your trying to talk me into an X Box. I heard Panasonic was going to come out with a player months ago but did not want to wait for it to come out and figured it to would be a temporary player as well.

Unless $400 is a negligible amount for you, in which case buy away!

Actually in relation to what I am actually making currently at my job $400 is alot but I did not want to wait and have had my 4K UHD player awhile now. I purchased it as soon as it was available. My next upgrade will be upgrading my Pioneer Elite SC-05 to something with 4K switching, 3D switching, Dolby Atmos and DTS-X decoding. Then I will upgrade my rear Advent speakers to Bowers & Wilkens to match my center channel. Then at that point I will evaluate what 4K UHD players are available and if there is something that will be my long term 4K player. Because the next step after that is hopefully a 4K UHD projector. If I do not get a projectors I want to get a 70" - 80" 4K UHD display, that is if I am not able to get a projector. I am keeping an eye open on what Oppo offers as there was a time I was thinking of there bluray player. It should be interesting once a number of companies start releasing higher quality 4K UHD players.

Has anyone seen anything on companies releasing new 4K UHD players recently? I think it will be interesting to see what companies will have demo's at CES in January! Wondering if DTS will have a 4K UHD demo at CES?

 

[Sam Posten]

I think it might be fair to say that Dave has very strong opinions that aren't necessarily tied to specific real world realities but more to gut feeling, brand loyalty and aversion to downloadable tech. That's fair, he's allowed to have those beliefs and personal biases.

But those aren't mainstream beliefs and choices. The vast majority of people aren't going to have his aversions. For people like him the 8500 is the best he is going to get at $400 for the near term. The crowds will embrace whatever fills the voids to get UHD on their new panels and for a good lot of them that is going to be the X1S very soon.

 

[DavidMiller]

To be clear I would not expect the Xbox One S to be a top tier UHD player. I'm buying it because I'm a gamer and it plays UHD disks. I will report out but I don't believe it is going to be for the average non-gamer. I'm still planning on getting the Oppo at some point but may wait for the cheaper version. I have received info that the one in December will be the "105" version and retail for $1300... I was expecting $750-$1000 so I'll hold off and live with the Samsung a while longer. Might as well get my $400 from it.

 

[Carlo_M]

I don't believe the X1S will be a top tier UHD player either. I just think it will match, if not slightly exceed the 8500. And that's because having lived with the 8500 for a couple of months, I have downgraded my opinion to it to "mediocre". So I would expect the XB1S to be slightly-to-moderately above that. I would expect the UHD players in the Fall to be definitively better than the Samsung, and likely better than the X1S. I definitely won't be paying over $1000 for a UHD player, especially with the dearth of UHD titles right now.

I do wonder though, if the X1S coming it at $299-$399 is going to change some of the release pricing of these upcoming players. Most of the industry didn't see the X1S coming, not with UHD capability, and so the traditional standalone disc players likely came up with pricing based on certain marketplace assumptions, and the X1S may have thrown a wrench in those plans (in a good-for-the-consumer way, hopefully).

I agree with Sam that the X1S will fill a nice niche for a lot of people. I'm actually surprised at how many people in my Destiny group have wives and children who use the X1 for everything from Blu-Ray to all manner of streaming services. I'm talking a good number of them. I know this because when I log on I can see from their gamertag that they're online, but on Hulu, Netflix, or using the blu-ray player. I came from the "a game console is for playing games" generation, and am genuinely surprised at how quickly people have picked up on the alternate use for the X1 (and I assume the same is true for PS4 though I don't own one).

 

[Matt Hough]

The PS3 was my first Blu-ray player, and it remained my primary Blu-ray player for several years. SO when the time comes for me to buy a UHD player (likely within the next year when I upgrade my TV), I certainly will read the reviews of the capabilities of the X1S as a disc player (I'm not a gamer at all) and make my purchasing decisions based on those capabilities alone.

 

[DavidMiller]

I'm actually surprised at how many people in my Destiny group have wives and children who use the X1 for everything from Blu-Ray to all manner of streaming services. I'm talking a good number of them. I know this because when I log on I can see from their gamertag that they're online, but on Hulu, Netflix, or using the blu-ray player. I came from the "a game console is for playing games" generation, and am genuinely surprised at how quickly people have picked up on the alternate use for the X1 (and I assume the same is true for PS4 though I don't own one).

The Xbox One does a good job at all those things for the non-serious home theater person. I did most of my streaming on it until I bought the piece of doo called the Roku 4. I try to use it and bought it for the 4K streaming but honestly talking about cheaply made. Netflix 4K only works half the time and never was able to get Ultraflix to work. I actually started using the 8500 to do my streaming and it does a pretty solid job. If they fix the sound output issue on the "S" I might move back to it for all my 4K streaming. Honestly, that would make me very happy.