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

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Arrived DOA. Had to send to Samsung warranty repair an hour out of the box. Update 11/3/17 Samsung "repaired" it and it came back with a loose part loudly rattling around inside. And it still doesnt work. Sent it back again, they didnt notice the part, despite being specifically alerted to it. Returning and getting a Sony.

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It was a breeze to set up and I have not had any trouble loading UHD and regular BLU-RAY dvds. I love built in apps so I can watch NETFLIX in 4K. Everything else I watch on this looks better too.

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Plays 4k blurays nicely, but this player is not without its faults. First, the good: The streaming capabilities are expansive (Wow there are a lot of apps!). Netflix and Amazon apps play in full 4K with HDR. There is a second HDMI output, so that if you have a receiver that doesnt pass 4K or HDR, you can plug one into your TV for full video performance and the other HDMI into your receiver for full audio (see "the bad" for limitations on this). Has video adjustments on the player to help "fine tune" the re-mapping of HDR content to your displays capabilities. Now, the bad: if you are using the second HDMI output for audio to your receiver, the second HDMI will only output the audio in its native format from discs. If you select "Bitstream" output for audio (the only format which will output whatever is on the disc without downgrading it in any way) you will only get 2-channel audio (which your receiver will probably process as Dolby Pro-logic) from the second HDMI output from any of the apps. If you switch the players audio to PCM you will get 5.1 from streaming apps (if the movie or show you watch has 5.1 sound to offer). Unfortunately, this setting will also convert whatever audio is on any disc to 5.1 multi-channel PCM, though. If you use ONLY the main HDMI output (for both audio and video), you can select "Bitstream" and get the best audio and video all from both discs and apps. Also note that the video adjustments can only be made while the machine is playing a disc. They will apply to apps, once made, but the adjustments cannot be made unless a disc is playing at the time you make the adjustment. Very inconvenient, but still usable. Another issue is lip sync.The audio is ALWAYS behind the picture, so you will need to use the lip sync function on the player to get picture and sound in sync. One thing Ive noticed, though, is that if a program being streamed from and app is in Dolby Digital Plus, the audio delay will be different than a program with just Dolby Digital audio. One delay setting wont sync up everything. The player can not be set to output video in the programs native format either. You must chose ONE format that ALL programs will be up-converted or down-converted to. On some apps which come in at 1080P, the player displays 4x3 images stretched out to 16x9. If the player is set to output in 4K, many TVs will not let the image be reformatted to 4x3. You must switch the players output to 1080P to view from many sites in 4x3, and must then switch the output of the player back to 4K to view 4K material. Lastly in the negative, though, is the terrible remote. This player comes with the worst remote I have ever seen on a consumer product of its type. It is too tiny, too weak, and the battery is of the roughly quarter sized disc type that will be harder to find than the typical. Its amazing that most of these issues are not reported in reviews of the product, even though they are all over the place in discussion groups across the net. But I will admit that as a 4K bluray disc player alone, it is a nice machine. If thats all you will need it for, the negative issues, aside from the remote, will probably not trouble you.

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Wow this player is great super easy to use and it plays everything. I have a 25 year old CD movie that I could only view in my PC. Put it in the Samsung player and it loaded up right away and it even up scaled it to the clearest I could imagine. Highly recommend this unit

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The picture quality is great but unit will need to be returned for the following reasons. When changing disks the player will go into the initial setup mode including requiring internet information to log onto Samsung site. Very time consuming and unable to bypass. Seems to only have one fast forward speed and after fast forward will play about 10 seconds of movie and than freeze requiring starting movie over from start menu. Unit is very slow responding to remote. Pause button simply stops movie and when resumed starts back at disk menu.

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When playing 4K UHD movies this player is excellent, it is very easy to set up, simplicity itself. However, when playing other than 4K UHD there can be problems. Older standard DVDs Often do not play at all or freeze, The same can be true for Blu-ray not on 4K disc’s. The unit does a extremely good job in up converting Those older Blu-ray discs that do not freeze. When I take one of the drisks That freeze in this machine and place them into my old player there is no problem this tells me the problem is in Samsung not the drisk. Aside from freezing on older disks this unit is probably state of the art. Today there are really very few U HD movies available but I would anticipate that in a year or two virtually everything will be released in this format. Having read the reviews of its competitors my guess is that as of now this is as good as it gets.

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Overall I am a little disappointed in this Blu-Ray player. It has been a little buggy ever since taking it out of the box. It shuts off on its own sometimes. The picture/audio goes in and out from time to time and persists until the machine is reset to factory settings. I am hoping that these are just minor bugs and they do not turn into larger issues. The build quality of this device also seems a little cheap. A friend of mine got the 4K Sony player in the same price range and the perceived build quality is night and day from this one. Aside from the bugs I have been having from time to time, this player works as expected and the picture looks amazing. I highly recommend watching Mad Max in 4K.

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This was getting some pretty bad reviews but so far for the price this has worked great for me. I will say the case design and remote have little to desire but its got a great picture and is functional for me. If your a power user your probably not going to find the user interface or the remote to be of the best design. With me I go more for picture quality and this does a good job with regular DVDs and Blu-rays. Update 11/19/18 Well the price was right and this has a great picture but it stopped playing blu rays after the first 4K dvd I played. Ive only used it about 15 times and just purchased a 4K tv. I put a 4k disc in and looked great but now it wont play an blu ray any more guess the blu ray laser is toast or theres a software issue. I did a default reset and it played the blu ray one time and then the same will only play 4K movies now . Luckily I took the bad reviews to heart and bought the extended service plan. It was a great player while it worked.

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I am giving this 4 stars because there does not seem to be any way to turn off HDMI audio when using the optical connection to a surround system. My previous blu-ray player, a ps3 let me do this. I realize this is a nit because I can just turn down the TV audio to nothing but it just seems to be a silly miss on the part of Samsung. If I am wrong please let me know and I will update my review. Otherwise, I like it. It is connected to an 82 in Samsung m8000 TV and a Bose lifestyle 48 surround system.

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Bought this as a refurbished unit...has a vertical crack in front panel...not highly visible, but they claimed it was refurbished/like new...do the new units have cracked plastic face? This player locks up during playback/watching YouTube videos & on occasion, is very slow to respond to any command or completely non responsive...have to pull the plug to reboot sometimes... Worst remote I’ve ever used...buttons are too small & too close together, remote is so tiny & slippery that I want to throw it at a brick wall to relieve some frustration...I had a couple fingers torn off my dominant hand at work fairly recently & this remote is very difficult to use even with my other hand which has all the fingers...why can’t they put a matte finish rubber backer on the thing so it has some grip? Or, better yet, make it bigger than a fun size Kit Kat bar? Also, there is something wrong with this remote because I put a brand new battery in it & it lasted about 2-1/2 weeks before the battery was drained...another annoying thing about this remote is that it has to have a direct line of sight to the receiver in order to work worth a darn...I have to move it around & point like Archie Bunker had to do while trying to change the channel on his tv all while Edith was yapping & Meathead was being just as stupid then as he is today...this remote was probably his dumb idea...

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