New Samsung Blu Ray Firmware (BD-P2500/BD-P2550 v2.3)

cnetchan,

I updated my BD-P2500 with v2.3 this morning and have had some trouble. Although things seem to be working, for now. Here's my story . . .

Last night I rented a couple of BluRays from Blockbuster - Clone Wars and Point Break. Neither of them would play. Wouldn't even make it to the previews or the disc menu screen. The player kept crunching and cranking and finally said "Disc cannot be played" and ejected it. Tried both discs several times with no success. I then tried the one BluRay I own, The Dark Knight, and that played just fine. I could not distinguish anything on the rented discs or on the disc jackets that indicated they were in any different format from The Dark Knight disc that I own. I was baffled why the two discs I rented would not play.

So I go to the Samsung website and talk to a tech support person via online chat. He gives me little useful information. All he said was I need to update the firmware and that should take care of the problem. I explain to him that I did update the firmware immediately upon receiving my BluRay player from Crutchfield about 1 month ago. I ask if there is a more recent firmware version than this? He doesn't know. All he says is he will pass along this information to the engineers and to keep an eye out for the latest firmware version. I ask when the newest firmware will be available. He doesn't know. LOADS of help this guy was.

So I go to the Samsung firmware update page and discover there is indeed a more recent firmware version, released on 12/31/08 - v2.3. (Why the tech guy didn't know this is beyond me.) So I update my player with it, via USB flash drive, this morning and try the Clone Wars first. I got further than I did last night, but the previews (audio and video) are skipping horribly, like the disc is scratched up or something. It's unwatchable. I try Point Break. Same deal.

So after having spent about 3 hours total between last night and this morning try to get this thing to play the discs I rented, I was ready to rip the thing out of my entertainment center and ship it back to Crutchfield. One more time, I said to myself. I turned the player off and back on. I try Clone Wars again. It works. I try Point Break. It works. No skipping. And yes, it now decodes DTS-HD audio(this is the soundtrack format on the Point Break disc).

After my experience last night and this morning, I am thoroughly unimpressed with this machine. It's ok for now apparently, but if I have any more issues with it I'm sending it back to Crutchfield.