Samsung - UBD-K8500 4K Ultra HD - Anyone have one? (2 Viewers)

[Patrick_S]

I'm just curious, is anyone using one and have any feed back they would like to share?

Thanks

 

[Sam Posten]

Yep. It's ok. Ads suck. App management sucks. It's overpriced. Other than that it's pretty solid.

Longer thoughts in this thread:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/com...s-and-format-experiences.345696/#post-4346771

 

[DavidMiller]

I'm not quite as bitter.. I apps work just like the Samsung TV if you can deal with that it is ok. Far more limited apps though vs. the TVs. The remote is a little small but I have gotten used to it. The only "ad" I have seen is in the upper corner on the app screen. I don't even notice it. Since they did the firmware upgrades it has been rock solid. It is a tad more expensive but cheaper then the first Blu-ray players where at launch. It is not an Oppo but pretty darn good!

 

[Patrick_S]

Thanks everyone for the responses.

I'm going to pick one up this weekend. I haven't purchased a Blu-ray player since 07 or was it 08. I would love to see what Oppo comes out with but who knows when that will be so I'll take the leap and get the Sansung now.

 

[Carlo_M]

Just bought one last night and only watched about 45 minutes of Kingsman on it and one hour of The Lego Movie, so I don't have much to contribute. I will say this: the remote is terrible. It doesn't even have dedicated buttons for the most basic functions like scan forward/back or frame forward/back. It's a clumsy implementation of holding the >> or << keys while either playing or pausing to try and get the appropriate aforementioned function to activate. I really hate that. I'm going to update my Logitech universal tonight and hope that it has dedicated buttons for those. Seriously, the remote on the Samsung looks like it belongs on a $19 DVD player that comes free with the purchase of an old tube TV from your local Goodwill.

The playback quality of Kingsman and Lego was very good in general on my 55" Sony 4K XBR-55X850B which has HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 but does not support HDR. Even without HDR the PQ was good.

Oh, here is a pic of the remote:

And believe me, that pic is flattering. It feels like a cheap plastic toy in your hands (and it essentially fits in your palm, for size context). I'm not a big guy (5'7", and my hands are average sized), but even I found it extremely difficult to hit the "ok" button in the midst of the arrow keys (which acts as the "enter" button). So when navigating around menus, it's just super easy to mistakenly hit up or down when you're actually trying to hit enter.

 

[Carlo_M]

Finished watching The Lego Movie and Kingsman. I can say as far as PQ and AQ goes, the Samsung performs well.

However, those things I mentioned above regarding certain basic functionality omissions are now really bothering me. The fact that you can't easily scan forward or back, and you can't frame forward or back, is really annoying. One thing I love doing with new tech is show it off to family and friends. And part of showing it off is demonstrating details previously unseen. Want to pause and show things in the background that you couldn't see before, i.e. the Yellow Submarine in Kingsman, R2D2 in Blade Runner, those kind of "easter eggs", it's really hard if not impossible to do it on the Samsung. You can't even frame backwards at all, and it's not just the limitation of the remote. I updated my Harmony One universal with the Samsung UBD-K8500 and those functions haven't been mapped out in Harmony's database either. And it's not just a problem with UHD discs. You can't do those functions on BD either, so this player is missing basic functions that are present in just about every BD player on the market costing a fraction of the price.

So bottom line: if you're wanting better PQ/AQ right now, and the ability to play UHD discs, this is pretty much your only option and it does the basics well. If you want any sort of functionality that I described above, it's going to annoy you that you can't do any of that. For me, I'll hang on to the Sammy for a bit and hope they add some of those functions in via a software update (not even sure that's possible). Given how there isn't much on the market looming, I'm unfortunately going to view this as a $400 placeholder until Oppo or Sony enter the market in 2017 with a real player, and then this will be relegated to eBay.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yep, the remote is terrible. There's no alternative deck at this point. Most people should wait, which is what I said above.

 

[TomTom]

fyi--this was my first 4k player---just noticed--Creator & Indy5 play 4k but Abyss & Grand Turiismo (4k rental) dont. Message says disc not to spec--wonder if this is a triple layer issue? As well as Old Hardware??

Mistake on my part---did the whole wipe down on both discs and both play now--sorry for the mistake