Samsung UBD-M8500/ZA 4K UHD Blu-Ray Player

Ive only owned this player for a week, and have watched 2 UHD movies on my 75 inch sony 4K TV. Its my first UHD player, and the picture is what I would expect...clearer than normal Blu-Ray. Thats especially noticeable in small details like lettering and distant people in a scene. But Id expect that from any UHD play. So I can only pick nits with the operation of the player. Being the 2017 version I expected minor annoyances to be ironed out, but: First, there is no indicator on the front to know if the unit is powered on or off. The only Power light is on top, which you can only see standing above the player. Not smart. Maybe Ill mount a mirror up there! Next, I looked in vain for an on screen display of play time on a DVD, like minutes into the movie and minutes remaining. None to be found. My previous players all had that feature. Also, there are apparently some feature that can only be used with a Samsung TV. There is a "123" button on the remote, for example, that seems to have no function in my setup. Too bad other TVs cant take advantage of whatever those special features are. Finally: As I said, its my first UHD player. HDMI2 cable is not just recommended...its mandatory for a UHD TV. Hooking it up with my old HDMI cable resulted in a "no input detected" message on my TV. GIven that, including an HDMI2 cable would have been nice for those wanting to unpack it and immediatley hook it up. Still, it worked out of the box, was easy to set up and delivers UHD resolution so I cant ding it more than one star. If I find other issue Ill revisit this review. Update 1: To see the time into or remaining on a DVD, hit the Pause/Resume button. That calls up a banner that takes up about 1/4 of the top of the screen, but eventually times out.

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*Update* After trying to use the player without the remote and trying to fix the remote, I have come to the conclusion the remote is not only problem. Every command issued from the remote is picked up as ok/play. Home, tools, arrow keys, nothing else registers as anything but play/ok. The player itself randomly powers on if I even pick the remote up without pressing any buttons. Initially the player seemed to work without the remote, but that means most of the options arent available. As of today, I cannot even play movies without the remote, in essence the player no longer works at all. *my initial review is posted below* The player itself seems to work well and the quality is pretty good. The the significant downside to the player itself is that it is slow and unresponsive, trying to change menu options often ends up skipping right over what you wanted to select unless you are super patient. The larger problem is the remote, not only does it not work well it seems to actually break the player. About an hour into my first movie I started having random/weird problems. When I went to check the menu settings, the remote wasnt working right and when I turned the player off it immediately turned backed on and had a blinking red/green light. After brief troubleshooting, I realized there is something wrong with the remote, it is constantly sending some sort of command to the player even when no buttons are pushed. When I took the batteries out of the remote, my problems seemed to go away. If they come back, I will update the review to reflect the fact the player doesnt work.

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I bought one of these units a couple of weeks ago. From the beginning, 4K DVDs would skip or black out; sometimes for one or two seconds, sometimes ten or fifteen. The unit was connected directly to a Samsung TV via an HDMI cable, so there should have been no incompatibility between the units. To say the least, it was very frustrating to try to watch a movie. Based on what people were suggesting on line, I did all kinds of resets but none helped. I spent a considerable amount of time chatting with Samsung techs, but to no avail. I downloaded a "special" firmware upgrade not available to the public. It had to be installed via a flash drive. Result: player didnt recognize the file as an upgrade. Finally Samsung said it needed internal repairs. I went to their web site and found that repair service was a very intricate process. Bottom line: they dont want to service their products. Was my problem a one-off? Dont know, but I see other people on line looking for a similar fix. Unless Samsung makes some upgrades, this model deserves to be passed over. The packing was nicely done.

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Pros: - Easy set up - Picture is unbelievable! - Features integrate with my Samsung S8 Cons: - No digital display on player. There is no way to see where I am in the movie time-wise. One can only discern this using an on-screen pop-up. Of course, the same goes with CD playback but worse because I dont always have the TV on when I play a CD. Since I have this unit in a theater room, I really dont want to turn on the projector just to have CD track information. - The remote may just be a tad too small. It gets lost in seat cushions easily. - The remote has no back-lighting. In my dark theater room, I need to have a small flashlight handy just to see the buttons. I have memorized the positions of the commonly used buttons, but I still need to break out the flashlight to FF/RW or |> & <|

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This is a great 4k player I hooked it up to my new 65" Samsung curved 4K TV and it sinked up right away and my smart remote from the TV programed itself automatically. Loads very fast and picture quality is great

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Bought this Blu-ray player to go along with my Samsung tv (UN55KS8500) and the picture quality is amazing. Also does a great job upscaling normal blu-rays. I wanted to address a couple issues brought up in the only other review for this unit. I can see the power light from the front at eye level easily its red when off green when on and second is info for the movie can be seen by hitting the tools button on the remote and selecting information from the top of the list. It shows all the timers also shows every bit of info for audio and video from the disk. The UI on this player is great and I found it to be very intuitive.

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Works well playing 4K discs and also up-converting blu ray movies. Good features for the money. Can control the player with my Sony TV remote. Kinda miss a front display, but you can easily bring up disc info pressing pause on the remote. Remote is VERY basic. When setting the TV control buttons on the remote to control a non Samsung TV, I found the instructions in the manual very confusing. The manual shows the numbers 1-0 in the illustration, but what you cant see is the button text under the number. Additionally the example does not specify the button name for the numbers. I was bringing up the numbers using the 123 button and that just did not work. To help anyone else that is having a problem, this is the correct way to do it. Using Remote Control Buttons to Enter TV Codes: 1. Press and hold the (TV Power) button. 2. While holding the (TV Power) button, press the buttons on the remote that correspond to a two-digit TV Code from TV list. Use the key below as a guide for the numbers. 123 button = 1 DISC MENU button = 2 POP UP button = 3 UP = 4 LEFT = 5 RIGHT = 6 DOWN = 7 RETURN = 8 HOME = 9 TOOLS = 0 For example: To enter code 01, while holding down the TV power button, press the TOOLS button for 0 and then press the 123 button for 1. I did call Samsung support, and they were very helpful. When I bought this 4K players were going for over $300. I paid $140 and it is well worth the money.

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For a top of the line blu ray player from Samsung, my go-to brand, this unit has been a major disappointment. After maybe 3 and a half to 4 months, I started noticing that its wifi adapter was struggling with one of my home routers channels, specifically, the 5G band. I would be streaming video, then suddenly, "buffering, buffering, buffering..." Switching to my routers 2.4G channel allowed internet connectivity again. And for what its worth, I recently did what is referred to as the "hard reset" on the unit, which seemed to aleviate the problem. About 4 months after receipt of this brand new unit, my video feed would just cut for 2 to 3 seconds, as often as once every 2 minutes, or sometimes once every 5 to 10 minutes. I noticed it first only on streaming apps (YouTube, Netflix, etc.), but recently also when watching 4K blu ray disks... and I mean often once every minute to once every 30 seconds. This completely ruins the experience of watching anything. Samsung support were very kind and professional, but could offer little more than soft and hard resets as attempts. Next step is sending in for repair, which fortunately warranty will cover as I understand. I did a little research on the video issue, and lo and behold, it appears the precursor "K model" 8500 had the same problem. Im not giving up on Samsung, as this is the first bad experience of all of the other good ones Ive had with them. If I have any more issues after attempted repair, I will certainly update this review accordingly.

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I bought a new Samsung 4k TV and needed a 4k Blu ray to go with it. Just after the Amazon return window closed, it stopped responding to the remote; the remote only stops or starts the movie and the LED on the front of the player just flashes. When I cover the remote emitter or remove the batteries, the LED stops flashing, so it sounds like the remote, but there’s no way for me to know for sure. I replaced the batteries, checked the firmware, and reset the bluray player, but the problem didn’t go away. It’s very upsetting to spend money and have new tech fail so soon and now I don’t have a player I can use and have to spend time (I’m sure a fair amount of it) with Samsung to try and resolve the problem. I do not recommend. Addition: I have been chatting with Samsung for more than a an hour and they just stopped responding. Ugh! I did contact Samsung by phone the next day, and they did agree to replace the remote--but itll take 14 days to get here. Meanwhile, since the front panel controls are very limited, I cant really use it until it comes in.

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Great player. Shakes hands nicely with my Samsung UHD TV. Decent interface, and a beautiful picture. Replaced a Sony that needed to be reset several times a week.

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