 |
Product: Samsung BD-P4600 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on Samsung BD-P4600
I like the design of the player, and for playing Blue Ray disks, it seems to work fine. Although my Blue Ray library is still pretty limited. Sadly, I’m less than happy with the players ability to play DVDs. Several of my DVDs will not play in this unit. It claims the “Disk is unreadable” and ejects it. Even though the disk plays fine in other players. So beware if you have a large DVD collection. Some may not play. My second complaint is the built-in, automatic screen saver. I was pleased with how great Pandora worked. And I was excited to use it. Unfortunately, the player does not recognise Pandora as a valid video signal, so it automatically switches to a screen saver after 60 seconds. I called Samsung, hoping to disable the screen saver, but I was told that the screen saver is built-in and cannot be turned-off or adjusted in any way. What’s up with that? They let you adjust nearly every function you can imagine, but they lock you out of the screen saver? The bottom line is that you can play audio via Pandora, but you loose the video showing Title, Artist, etc. That really sucks, and pretty much negates using Pandora.
My BD-P4600 arrived 6/3/09. Purchased via Amazon at a great sale price over Memorial Day weekend.
1. Style Factor: That’s why I’ve been drooling over this puppy since January. I detest “boxes” and have endeavored over the years to find the best combination of style/features/ease of use in all my gear. Started with B&O in the 80’s, and I’m now getting around to replacing my Bose Lifestyle. (Bose ease of use and style are great, but I sure miss really good sound – Harmon Kardon AVR3550HD will replace this eventually, along with Mirage speakers.) The BD-P4600 was the first step in a complete refurb. And it didn’t disappoint. The “Touch of Color” is excellent around the bezel. The size and shape is perfect – big enough to show off, but not overwhelming. Love how the controls are touch sensitive and show up only when the device is on. Slot load, instead of a clunky tray popping out, is great. Pictures don’t do it justice.
2. Wireless Network: Samsung includes the wireless dongle. Once I got to the screen to set up the network connection (I have AirPort Extreme, 802.11n) at first I thought it wouldn’t take my wireless password. Found out the problem via trial and error – first off, my password is all lower case. Since the Samsung offers up a screen with letters that you have to navigate to to enter, I was choosing capital letters over and over again, I’m ashamed to admit. Whoops. But then even choosing lower case letters it wouldn’t work. Samsung offers several secure network options to log on with. I was choosing mine – which is WPA. There were a couple of other secure log on protocols there with longer names that I finally chose out of frustration. Although it didn’t make sense to me, choosing a network security protocol OTHER than WPA on the Samsung worked. Whew!
3. Netflix/Pandora: I’m a Netflix subscriber and am on the cheapest plan, so it does wear a bit thin waiting for another DVD after I finish watching one via snail mail. Setting up Netflix and Pandora went flawlessly, easily and quickly. I chose a few movies from the website (can’t put movies in your queue via the Samsung) and they showed up right away. Picked one, hit Play, took a moment for it to load (acceptable time frame, considering wireless) and worked like a charm. No more waiting for the mail! No more purchasing movies via my cable company at outrageous prices when there’s nothing on TV (which is often.) Fantastic!
4. DVD/CD Playback: Just what you’d expect – handles CD’s and DVD’s and I know a host of other formats – and, of course, Blu-Ray. This is my first Blu-Ray player, and I don’t own any yet (then why did I buy this?!) but it’s my plan to continue building my library with Blu-Ray. I’ve ordered Terminator 2 Skynet Edition, as this Blu-Ray version offers BD-Live internet connectivity – apparently “Skynet” tells you that you are connected and it gives you the city you live in with area code, your email address, the degrees outside where you live and other goodies that only “Skynet” would know. (If it comes up with more personal information, then I’ll get worried.) The BD-Live feature sounds awesome, and I can’t wait to see it in action.
For now, since the Bose is still around and does not have an HDMI input, the Samsung is sitting at the base of the pedestal that my Panny 46″ is attached to. I didn’t use the wall-mount capability of the Samsung, so I attached the included base and it “sits up” quite nicely. HDMI is directly attached to the Panny, so I’m using the TV’s own speaker set, which is pretty good for that particular product, and very acceptable for the occasional Netflix streamed movie, where this device, for now, will perform its main function. My Harmony One’s software had the BD-P4600 remote functions in its data base, so I can get rid of the (IMO) Samsung’s lackluster remote – nice piano black finish, but no back-lit buttons, not-too intuitive layout and very small lettering for this 51 year old.
I understand that a PC can stream to the BD-4600; although I haven’t tried that yet, from what I’ve read it’s a bit of a task. Recently Samsung updated their manuals to reflect some new information regarding reading shared files from a PC, so it would be of benefit for anyone wishing to do this to visit the Samsung site for the latest information.
Nothing I’ve read so far states that Mac can share files to the BD-P4600, although I know folks out on the web are trying workarounds and other tricks to get there. Samsung states that, for now, this is not available.
I’m quite satisfied with this 21st Century-looking machine!
This is the last Samsung blu-ray product I will buy. On the plus-side, it is a good looking deck, and the visual quality (when it works) is very good.
However, my experience was very unsatisfying–it would freeze intermittently and seemingly at random even with newly purchased (vs. Netflix) blu-rays and sent it back. It also had major problems with the first season of Star Trek The Original Series on Blu-ray.
I bought the Oppo blu-ray player from Amazon and it has been 100% reliable–no freezing, no unreadable disks, and flawless image quality. Plays Star Trek on Blu-ray with no issues at all. It is beautifully packaged for shipment, and it’s obvious Oppo took its time to get the player right. It costs more than the 4600, but then, you get what you pay for.
If this comment isn’t enough to convince you to stay away from Samsung blu-ray, read the AV forum comments about the problems with Samsung blu-rays (firmware updates cause the players to become bricks, intermittent freezing, etc.). It’s obvious that, unlike Oppo, Samsung releases its players to market when they should still be in beta-testing.