Samsung BD-H5100 Blu-Ray Disc Player (2014 Model)

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I rarely write product reviews, only if something is exceptionally good or really terrible. I am a frequent Amazon customer and their service has always been fabulous. This review is in no way a reflection on Amazon. I bought this Blu-Ray player after several Sony DVD players (progressive scan and upscalling) failed on me. All of those numerous players and this Blu-Ray had great consumer ratings on Amazon, thats why I bought them. I wanted a quiet player for a bedroom after my many previous ones were incredibly loud. This player, to my disappointment is also very loud. I bought it in September 2014. It suddenly stopped working this past weekend, with a DVD I checked out from the library stuck inside. The picture froze on a flawless DVD, I couldnt even get any functions like play, stop, skip, eject, or even power to work. The machine just kept whirring noisily and stayed stuck in the same spot. I ultimately unplugged the unit and was lucky that that disc tray eventually opened. When you spend almost $70 on an electronic it should give you more than six months of good service. This didnt give long lasting or good service. My first DVD player worked well for years. I am willing to pay extra for quality. Why are DVD and now Blu-Ray players so disposable? Consumers deserve better and our environment deserves better. My suggestion: save the warranty information if you make the mistake of buying the Samsun BD-H5100 Blu-Ray player.

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We have a few DVDs and our DVD player gave out. We also have a non-network HD TV and wanted to watch Netflix. This Samsung Blu-Ray player costs less than many streaming players yet provides both functions. This is a non-WiFi player (there is another Samsung model that has WiFi) and installation was simple. Connect to the router with an Ethernet cable. Connect to the TV with an HDMI cable. Put the batteries in the remote. Turn the player on. Done. The first thing the player does is check if the firmware is up to date. It was not, so the player asked for permission to download the latest version. No need for a computer to download the firmware update onto a USB stick, either. Major purpose for this purchase was to watch Netflix. Setup a brand new account using the player itself. Again, no computer needed. And the Netflix application is easy to use and fully featured. What about the other built-in apps? YouTube works fine, and you can pair it with a computer if desired. There is Pandora, AccuWeather (not as nice an app as the Panasonic Blu-Ray version), and a few other free and paid services. There is enough free content on YouTube and the other apps to keep you busy. And if one wants one of the paid apps, great. Thought the loading time for each app was reasonable. Its under fifteen seconds to go from the home screen to either YouTube or Netflix. And within NetFlix, the time to start watching is about the same as on a desktop web browser. The remote has some TV controls, but only for Samsung brand televisions. But that true with other manufactures as well: usually "Brand X" Blu-Ray remotes only control "Brand X" televisions. Five stars because this is a great value. A streaming player that makes any HDMI TV network enabled and a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray player. In one inexpensive, easy-to-setup box.

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Being that I only really purchase Samsung televisions, picking the brand of blu-ray player was simple. I also have Amazon Prime (which I strongly suggest purchasing) and this was eligible for free shipping which was a convincing factor. The player itself is incredibly lightweight. The top of the player has a small touchpad that allows you to control the player easily in-case you lose the remote. The remote is standard as far as Samsung products go. If youre unfamiliar with Samsung electronics: all remotes works for all products. That means this remote works for my television as well as the blu-ray player. And, indeed, this was the case. I turned it on and decided to choose the quick-start option, which allows for the player to remain in an active sleep state when not in use. When youre ready to use the player, it turns on immediately. When I say immediately, I really mean immediately. There is virtually no delay when pressing the power button on the remote for the player. Ive used products with quick-start options in the past and none were as responsive as this. Next, I set up my Netflix account to be associated with the player. It didnt provide me with an access code and instead had me log in with my email and password. Fine with me; saved me the trouble of opening my laptop and whatnot. It will keep you logged in until you decide to log yourself out; this includes shutting the player off. Netflix was very responsive and I have zero issues with it still. It also has Hulu and Pandora on it but I dont use those often so I didnt bother checking them out. Overall for the price, this player is easily the best on the market right now. My one complaint is that it doesnt have wifi. I had to hard wire it into the router but we keep it next to the television anyway so this was a non-issue. Still, its a little strange that it wouldnt have wifi being that this is the most recent model of *this* Samsung product. Its the year 2014; we have dedicated wifi in airport bathrooms. Why isnt this blu-ray player equipped properly? This is the only thing keeping my rating at 4 stars. Otherwise, what a great product. I highly recommend grabbing it.

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Update: March 2017 unit failing again. Response to remote control is sporadic. Piece of crap. Bought this player new in April 2015. It is now August 2015 and the player is already starting to fail. I can no longer turn the power off on the unit via the remote when there is no disc in it. The disc drawer wont stay closed after you insert a disc in it. Have to power off the unit with the disc in it to get it too stay closed and play the disc. It now wont play DVD+Rs either. Very disappointed with this purchase. August 24, 2015 Update - I contacted Samsung Customer Support and they emailed me troubleshooting instructions. Powering the player off for 60+ seconds by unplugging it fixed the problems. Also did a firmware update just for good measure. Have changed my rating from 1 star to 3 stars based on the player being operational again. September 2015 update - the August fix only lasted a short time. Ended up having to ship the player to a repair station at my expense. They replaced the motherboard. It has been working fine since that time. Have lowered my rating from 3 stars back to 1 star for poor reliability.

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It is an good Blu-Ray player. Shipping was fast and the price was appropriate. Be sure to order a HDMI cord as this Blu-Ray player does not come with a HDMI cord.

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After 5 months of minimal use, this player started to sporadically NOT play blu ray discs. Discs that Ive had for years would suddenly not be compatible. Brand new discs not working. This is blu ray only. Extremely long story short, I find out that there are periodic necessary firmware upgrades. Hours of live chat, and broken links and misunderstanding reps at Samsung later, and apparently my now 7 month old 5 star bluray player needs to be sent in for a tech to fiddle with. NO WAY. Ill use a 2 disc blu ray set as a 1 star example. They both played just fine every time I played them within that 7 months. Now it will play the first disc, but will not accept the 2nd. Thats ridiculous. For something as minimal as a disc player, I expect it to play a disc when I put it in. Of course things break and STOP WORKING, I understand that. But having the system randomly choose to not play is 100% unacceptable. Its either broken, or its not. I see that I noted in the original review that it would fire up and go "Smart" on me. I should have known then. As far as Im concerned: Samsung is the same garbage it was 40 years ago, when you would consider buying a $19 dorm room TV knowing that it was not going to make it through the semester to begin with. I know Im the rarity here, but Im being honest and transparent and sometimes the 1 star reviews are accurate. The time I personally wasted alone, trying to get a disc to play, and having 4 separate chats with Samsung was worth FAR more than the purchase price of a new player. Do they really think Im going to submit a repair order, send my box in, and wait for them to tell me that theres nothing wrong with it? Maybe get it back 6 weeks later at my postage expense? Am leaving my original review for comparison I guess, so my update is fair: I like the subtleness of this wee box. My Sony Blu-Ray crapped out after about 5 years and of course, having cut the CABLE, I have to have a DVD player! The top of it has almost invisible controls on the right front. They arent buttons, but they appear to be almost touch screen like. The door and disc tray are quiet during operation. Its much more compact than my old Sony, and that works just fine for me. The only thing I really dont like about this SMART player is that when it powers up, it automatically goes into Smart mode and makes you choose if you want Netflix, YouTube, etc. I like to choose those things when I want them. When I power up a disc player, I probably want to watch a disc and not have a couple of extra unnecessary remote control steps. I have a Smart Panasonic TV already!! So far so good. I will update if necessary, but I would imagine that with Samsung, which is now a GOOD name in electronics, (theyve come a long way), nothing dramatic will occur. This machine was highly rated, and that was mostly what I based my choice on. I rely on others reviews quite often! Id buy it again if I needed another, or as a gift.

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First of all, what an amazing deal this thing is for 60 bucks. Incredible, the value you get. Some quick review points: Load time - fast! Quite fast. Decode quality seems great (i.e., your blu-rays are going to look fantastic). Love the remote. It even has source and power and volume control for the TV. Netflix: very good speed at loading netflix and streaming movies. I was pleasantly surprised by this. It actually is a great box for streaming online content (Netflix is all Ive streamed so far). This box gets 5 stars, except for one very annoying bug. In fairness, Im not sure if the bug is in the player or in my TV - both of which are recently purchased and both are Samsung. If I take the time to debug this, Ill update my review. PROBLEM: If you power up the device and resume a previously played blu-ray, the audio is WAY out of sync. (my setup is simple: blu-ray connected over HDMI to a TV, and using the tvs audio output, no surround system.) So out of sync you cant stand to watch it. WORKAROUND: you have to power down, and start the blu-ray from the beginning, as if its the first time - you cant resume. (If youre listening, Samsung - please fix!!) This could be the TVs fault, but I doubt it. Again, not sure if Ill take the time to isolate the problem using different players and tvs - I am trying to be entertained, not do QC. 5 stars if this bug wasnt there. Best $60 Ive ever spent.

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I purchased this player "used-like new" from Amazon Warehouse Deals for a very attractive price. When delivered, some packaging was absent from the box, but the player had no visible cosmetic blemishes and worked just fine. I was so pleased that three weeks later I purchased another "used-very good" also from Amazon Warehouse Deals. This one appeared to be new, never out of the box, and the price was about $11. less than the first. The player does everything it is advertised to do, with a very pleasing user interface. It has many apps available, and is reasonably quick to load them. The unit is not WiFi, but if you read the item description, you should know that before purchase - you need an Ethernet cable to connect to the apps and DLNA. Also, be aware that Amazon Prime is not available as one of the apps. If you want Amazon, WiFi, or 3D capability, they are available on other, more expensive Samsung models, or choose a machine from a different manufacturer. Problems with Netflix, reported by other customers, have apparently been resolved, as I have had no problems accessing Netflix. Blu-rays and DVDs also play without any difficulty. As a side note, the Samsung BD-F5100 (thats "F" not "H") is being sold by some vendors, including Amazon, but is a 2013 model and does not offer nearly as many apps as the BD-H5100. I made the mistake of buying the "F" model from another vendor and returned it. All in all, I am very satisfied with my purchases, and I would recommend checking out the savings available by purchasing one of the used units from Amazon Warehouse Deals. UPDATE: 9/6/14. Since I bought this player, Samsung has provided a software update that has added Amazon Prime as an available app. If you own this model, run a firmware update, and you should see that Amazon Prime is available.

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This is a very capable machine. I own several hardware pieces from Samsung, so it makes using remotes a bit easier if you add a disc player thats the same manufacturer of the TV. In this case, the TV hangs on the wall, so having a player with a small footprint isnt that big of a deal. The machine is quick to power on, and quick to read a disk - if thats what youre using it for. Im plugging this in to a non-internet TV, so actually use the machine to access Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. more often than playing a disk. Be aware, you need a wired connection to the internet. I accomplish that using a Homepower kit - which runs the signal through your power lines. I can get full HD movie connections from this unit without stretching the connection at all. From the pictures you can tell there arent a lot of buttons or bells. This unit plays disks, and can access the internet. There are "buttons" on the unit which, in theory, allow you to open the drawer, turn the unit on, and play a disk. If you have enough light and can figure out what the pictures mean, you probably can do that. Its much easier to use the remote. Besides, the buttons would be covered if you put anything on top of the unit. Im not sure why a drawer open/close button cant be done on the front. But, thats really the only drawback, in my opinion, from a really good - and inexpensive - machine.

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Just an average smart blu-ray disc player... Im disappointed there is apparently no resume feature unless I am missing something. I assumed that was a fairly standard feature. I like being able to stop the video and come back to it sometimes. With this player you have to remember where you left off and skip forward to that point again. Aside from that its been great. Picture and sound quality are great and the unit itself is silent. I do wish the keys on the top had some kind of lighting as its impossible to tell where the buttons are and which they are unless you have good location memory and can go right back to them every time. I use the remote mostly so that part isnt really a big deal either.

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