TechBoy

In fairness, it's not only the Samsung, but also the RCA which is that on both formats, you can't see how much time is left in the movie. You can see how much time has lapse, but not how much time remains on a film or documentary you're watching.

Also, I want the ability to turnoff the upconverting if it's ever necessary.

Semona

I don't have a problem with the Samsung player, it's a pretty nice piece of equipment. The BD discs have been fairly lackluster so far, hopefully there will be improvements on that front in the near future.

My major gripes with the Toshiba are the boot time and the remote. The remote doesn't always work when I hit the down arrow on menus.

ITRocks

Having watched Hitch and Terminator I have had the same thing happen during both films. About 3/4 of the way through Hitch the audio dropped out for a second and the video froze and it then started up again. It did this a few times and then I ejected the disc and looked for dust. I found maybe two flecks on it and cleaned them off. The movie then played fine. About 1/2 the way through Terminator it froze for just a second and then no problems. Is this something to be concerned about or could it really just be specs of dust getting in the way of the laser? I don't want to box the thing up and take it back to Circuit City if the player is fine but don't want to be stuck with a lemon. Of course if I take it back who knows when they will get one in to exchange it with.

Cyborg

Because of the density of the media, it is entirely likely that a dirty disc will impair playback. A clean disc is a happy disc. This is the case for DVD, and it sounds like it will be even more so for high-definition counterparts.

But if you see the same pattern on a third disc, and a fourth disc, I would worry.

TechBoy

Biggest gripe with the Toshiba is when you fast foward or rewind, you don't see a speed stepping... Slow Load times on DVD's...

Semona

Neither of the Samsung players I've had this week will play Lionsgate titles without sporadiac judder. I will proably be returning this second player too. It won't even load Lord Of War, which the first one did. Besides these issues, I like the player well enough.

ITRocks

Mine was DOA with corrupt firmware (and returned for a refund). That was a pretty big problem.

The Lions Gate issues may be with authoring, especially since the Sony titles are playing back okay. I've had authoring issues with some custom work I've done for the Toshiba player. Does Lions Gate have any statement on the issue?

Cyborg

So, let me ask you here....

I may be forced to buy into Blu-Ray as there seems no
inevitable price drop by year's end.

With these reported problems, should I buy the Sony, Samsung
or just wait for another manufacturer model later this year?

TechBoy

Based on what I have seen so far, if you value image quality in your HT, I would wait. I have yet to see any actual released movies on BD that don't have image quality issues. HD DVD has set a high standard, and today BD is not delivering. It's true that the demo disc looks anywhere from fair to excellent, depending on the source.

But you know the many stories about demos.
My favorite concerns heaven and hell, but that's off topic...

Semona

It's now being reported over at AVS that the "judder" associated with the Lionsgate titles has something to do with DTS audio. Switching to DD 5.1 (or EX) on the titles seems to solve the problem. The Lionsgate titles don't include the uncompressed PCM audio option presumably to optimize the MPEG-2 video within the contraints of the 25GB space limitation.