The Energon Pub

I've got a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu Ray player. It no longer seems to want to play Blu-Ray discs, but it plays regular DVDs just fine. None of my Blu-Ray discs work any more. Ugh. Everything was fine a month or so ago when I received the Transformers animated movie on Blu-Ray from Madman at the beginning of August. Ever since then, nothing Blu-Ray wants to play.

This URL sums up my problem and frustrations: http://www.fixya.com/support/t2616265-s ... ay_blu_ray

I can't remember the exact error it gives me. I think it says "can not play disk" or "can not read disk" after trying to load it, and then promptly ejects the disk.

I spent about 2 or 3 hours last night messing around with firmware updates. It wouldn't read the firmware updates I burned to a CD so I tried doing it via USB. The firmware update was the same as the one that was currently on the machine but I told it to update it anyways since I didn't have much to lose.

It seems that this problem is pretty rampant with the particular model that I have as well as Samsung models in general. I guess I'd like to figure out a way to restore the factory settings in order to roll back the firmware. Apparently Samsung does not offer older firmware versions and I couldn't find a website that had older firmware versions archived.

Open to suggestions and ideas. I'd rather fix this one than buy another one.

Ah-ha! Here's a link for v2.3 firmware.

Skyfire77 wrote:Ah-ha! Here's a link for v2.3 firmware.

Thank you for posting the link. Unfortunately, rolling it back to v2.3 firmware didn't resolve the problem. It will still play regular DVDs, but not Blu-Ray discs. Just tried Dark Knight ... no dice.

Could it be dust problem? I don't have the particular Blue-Ray player in question, but my PS3 stopped playing PS3 games and Blue-Ray, and I decided to clean the amount of dusts gathered in there and it fixed it.

Did you see if the Blue-Ray region is the same as the player?

shonenfan4 wrote:Could it be dust problem? I don't have the particular Blue-Ray player in question, but my PS3 stopped playing PS3 games and Blue-Ray, and I decided to clean the amount of dusts gathered in there and it fixed it.

Did you see if the Blue-Ray region is the same as the player?

I sprayed some air in the player last night to no avail. I also ended up finding the original firmware from last summer, but that didn't work either. I might take the player apart this weekend to see if I can physically find the blu-ray lens or whatever it is just to confirm that it's not dirty. From what I've read though, this is a rampant problem with the model that I have. While I love my Samsung DLP 56" TV, I've not been so happy with their DVD players. I also have problems with my 5 disc changer that I bought a couple of years ago.

Region is the same. The only thing that I can think of that I've done in the last month is played my burned discs that I made of BWII. I can't imagine how that would possibly affect the Blu-Ray player functionality, because I can still play regular DVDs.

Ah, I seriously want to take a baseball bat to this thing. What a waste of money.

I don't know much about DVD and BR players but I have a wild guess: it could it be that the laser has been worn out to point it doesn't have the energy needed to play BR discs only DVDs due to a lower energy requirements or something?

Again this is truly a wild guess (and I'm more likely wrong), but since it's apprently not the firmware that is the problem here (from what I gathered here anyway) so it has to be something else to consider.

Cyberstrike wrote:I don't know much about DVD and BR players but I have a wild guess: it could it be that the laser has been worn out to point it doesn't have the energy needed to play BR discs only DVDs due to a lower energy requirements or something?

Again this is truly a wild guess (and I'm more likely wrong), but since it's apprently not the firmware that is the problem here (from what I gathered here anyway) so it has to be something else to consider.

Yeah it's got to be something weird or faulty hardware. I even figured out how to clear out (reformat) the internal flash memory on the player. I think I might be more frustrated that I've spent at least 6 hours working on this damn thing and doing research about the problem on Google. I'm trying to avoid calling their customer service because I've read that is a nightmare as well.

I just want to watch Wolverine in Blu-Ray. That movie came out the week my daughter was born so I never got to see it. It was really the first blockbuster movie that I've wanted to see that I wasn't able to see in theatres. Having a baby will do that (but it's so worth it). If I can't see movies on the big screen, I at least want to watch them in the best quality that I can at home.

Blu-Ray is really making this process difficult. Remember back in the day how simple it was to play DVDs? A legit movie worked no matter what player you put it in? Ah, those were the days. I can't believe they expect people to have to upgrade the firmware on their players. What a joke. Blu-Ray is going to kill this industry and force everything to digital.

Seibertron wrote:

Cyberstrike wrote:I don't know much about DVD and BR players but I have a wild guess: it could it be that the laser has been worn out to point it doesn't have the energy needed to play BR discs only DVDs due to a lower energy requirements or something?

Again this is truly a wild guess (and I'm more likely wrong), but since it's apprently not the firmware that is the problem here (from what I gathered here anyway) so it has to be something else to consider.

Yeah it's got to be something weird or faulty hardware. I even figured out how to clear out (reformat) the internal flash memory on the player. I think I might be more frustrated that I've spent at least 6 hours working on this damn thing and doing research about the problem on Google. I'm trying to avoid calling their customer service because I've read that is a nightmare as well.

I just want to watch Wolverine in Blu-Ray. That movie came out the week my daughter was born so I never got to see it. It was really the first blockbuster movie that I've wanted to see that I wasn't able to see in theatres. Having a baby will do that (but it's so worth it). If I can't see movies on the big screen, I at least want to watch them in the best quality that I can at home.

Blu-Ray is really making this process difficult. Remember back in the day how simple it was to play DVDs? A legit movie worked no matter what player you put it in? Ah, those were the days. I can't believe they expect people to have to upgrade the firmware on their players. What a joke. Blu-Ray is going to kill this industry and force everything to digital.

Congrats being a father Ryan, I know it's very belated but I've been busy.

I had that happen to me with my Xbox 360 one day it just stopped playing discs and it was that I simply worn out the laser (that has never happened to me before or sense) by playing a lot of games, DVDs, and CDs on on the thing.

If it's a hardware issue than you're probably going to have to either call Samsung or buy new one.

Get a PS3. They're 100% BS free.

Surprisingly, I've not had a problem talking to Samsung customer service. However, it could be some other problem completely aside from a laser error. Have you checked your HDMI cable? It could be loose, or faulty, which would stop the player from handshaking with your TV. This in turn would prohibit the player from running the Blu-Ray disc due to the copyright protection.

Counterpunch wrote:Get a PS3. They're 100% BS free.

I had PS3 problems, except with dusts.

TheMuffin wrote:Surprisingly, I've not had a problem talking to Samsung customer service. However, it could be some other problem completely aside from a laser error. Have you checked your HDMI cable? It could be loose, or faulty, which would stop the player from handshaking with your TV. This in turn would prohibit the player from running the Blu-Ray disc due to the copyright protection.

I didn't realize that the player would check the TV. That's interesting. If that's true, then I should, in theory, people able to try a different HDMI cable to see if that works, correct? Or better yet ... get rid of the HDMI cable altogether and use the component wires which should prevent this communication attempt altogether.

Also makes me wonder about trying it on my other HD TV in my bedroom upstairs. That would be an interesting experiment as I continue to eliminate possible issues.

Assuming your statement is true that it would prevent a "handshake" between the Samsung BD-P1500 and my Samsung DLP TV, wouldn't this affect the ability to play regular DVDs?

I still think that this has something to do with me playing those burned DVDs that I made about a month ago, which was the first time I had ever tried playing a DVD that wasn't a store bought DVD or Blu-Ray. Everything was fine until then. It is also worth mentioning that the player would not read the DVD-R or the CD-R of the firmware upgrade that I made two nights ago when originally trying to get Wolverine to play. I reverted to using the USB drive instead, and also even updated the firmware via the Ethernet port as well. But no dice with the ISO burned to DVD or CD. I can't find anything on Google that would support this theory that my burned DVDs caused the initial problem.

It's also worth mentioning that I cheaped out with some of my HDMI cables last year when I was trying to replace component wires to clean up the wire mess behind my entertainment system. I bought the cheap-o Phillips HDMI cables from Walmart last year for $27. Perhaps something is bad with this cable and I should replace it (obviously after I test it with one of my better HDMI cables).

I love that the Seibertron.com community has been more helpful than all of the websites I have visited over the past two nights as I spent about 6 to 8 hours trying to resolve this problem. Thanks guys. Even if these ideas don't pan out, it's been a fun discussion so far to a miserable problem.

shonenfan4 wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:Get a PS3. They're 100% BS free.

I had PS3 problems, except with dusts.

This might sound weird to some of you guys but I don't want a game player as my primary DVD player. I bought this player at Walmart on Black Friday last year for $200. I'm determined to get this thing to work. I'm going to have a pretty tough time rationalizing to my fiancee why I want to buy a new Blu-Ray player when all she's heard me say are bad things against Blu-Ray over the past year and especially when we're trying to save money for our wedding next year and especially when I really, really, really want Overlord from Masterforce.

Seibertron wrote:

TheMuffin wrote:Surprisingly, I've not had a problem talking to Samsung customer service. However, it could be some other problem completely aside from a laser error. Have you checked your HDMI cable? It could be loose, or faulty, which would stop the player from handshaking with your TV. This in turn would prohibit the player from running the Blu-Ray disc due to the copyright protection.

I didn't realize that the player would check the TV. That's interesting. If that's true, then I should, in theory, be able able to try a different HDMI cable to see if that works, correct? Or better yet ... get rid of the HDMI cable altogether and use the component wires which should prevent this communication attempt altogether.

Also makes me wonder about trying it on my other HD TV in my bedroom upstairs. That would be an interesting experiment as I continue to eliminate possible issues.

Assuming your statement is true that it would prevent a "handshake" between the Samsung BD-P1500 and my Samsung DLP TV, wouldn't this affect the ability to play regular DVDs?

Yes to trying it with component as well as trying a different HDMI cable. I also believe I read a while back that Blu-Ray discs themselves are copy protected and there is some verification that goes on. So trying the different connections would certainly knock this theory out if none of them work. I'm unsure on DVD protection. It's possible they don't fall under HDCP so there is no check on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandw ... Protection

If you'd like to read about HDCP.

Seibertron wrote:I still think that this has something to do with me playing those burned DVDs that I made about a month ago, which was the first time I had ever tried playing a DVD that wasn't a store bought DVD or Blu-Ray. Everything was fine until then. It is also worth mentioning that the player would not read the DVD-R or the CD-R of the firmware upgrade that I made two nights ago when originally trying to get Wolverine to play. I reverted to using the USB drive instead, and also even updated the firmware via the Ethernet port as well. But no dice with the ISO burned to DVD or CD. I can't find anything on Google that would support this theory that my burned DVDs caused the initial problem.

It's a possibility that the player might have locked you out after using the burned disc. Maybe some lockout to prevent piracy that I don't know about. I have the same player by the way. Haven't tried anything burned in there but a firmware update.

Seibertron wrote:It's also worth mentioning that I cheaped out with some of my HDMI cables last year when I was trying to replace component wires to clean up the wire mess behind my entertainment system. I bought the cheap-o Phillips HDMI cables from Walmart last year for $27. Perhaps something is bad with this cable and I should replace it (obviously after I test it with one of my better HDMI cables).

Doesn't matter. HDMI is a digital connection. A $3 cable will provide the same quality as a $150 Monster brand. Only difference being the quality of the plastic, brand name, and if it's got fancy braiding which serves no purpose. Hell if you want to test out a different cable, I've got two sitting here that I got for free.

Seibertron wrote:I love that the Seibertron.com community has been more helpful than all of the websites I have visited over the past two nights as I spent about 6 to 8 hours trying to resolve this problem. Thanks guys. Even if these ideas don't pan out, it's been a fun discussion so far to a miserable problem.

Hey, it's what we're here for.

Also of note, the BDP-1500 has a 12 month part warranty. If you can get them to figure it out on the phone, you could get the parts for free. If it's a hardware issue.

TheMuffin wrote:Doesn't matter. HDMI is a digital connection. A $3 cable will provide the same quality as a $150 Monster brand. Only difference being the quality of the plastic, brand name, and if it's got fancy braiding which serves no purpose.

Thank you! I wish more people would realize that. Thinking that more expensive=better leads to things like this. (Read the comments!)

TheMuffin wrote:Also of note, the BDP-1500 has a 12 month part warranty. If you can get them to figure it out on the phone, you could get the parts for free. If it's a hardware issue.

Awesome that you have the same model. Gives me some hope that this thing isn't junk. It's really frustrating that this happened besides just the obvious reasons. I just got Transformers the animated film from Madman back at the end of July. It looked absolutely beautiful. It was possibly the best quality version of the film I've seen to date, minus a few exceptions. I finally saw a film that I thought looked incredibly better on Blu-Ray than the regular DVD version, which I generally credit to the overly awesome upconverting capabilities of the latest players.

Seibertron wrote:

shonenfan4 wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:Get a PS3. They're 100% BS free.

I had PS3 problems, except with dusts.

This might sound weird to some of you guys but I don't want a game player as my primary DVD player. I bought this player at Walmart on Black Friday last year for $200. I'm determined to get this thing to work. I'm going to have a pretty tough time rationalizing to my fiancee why I want to buy a new Blu-Ray player when all she's heard me say are bad things against Blu-Ray over the past year and especially when we're trying to save money for our wedding next year and especially when I really, really, really want Overlord from Masterforce.

I could relate to the feeling of not using a game player as a primary DVD player. I have a separate DVD player that I use, but since I only have a few Blue-Rays, PS3 will do just fine. An actual Blue-Ray/DVD player has more capabilities than game players and is less prone to overheat and loud noises. Hopefully you'll resolve your problem soon.

Oh this just keeps getting better. So I get home tonight, started messing with various HDMI wires and HDMI ports ... nothing! Upgraded the firmware again to the latest version after swapping wires around and trying it on my other TV. I decided after all of that didn't work, that I would try to update the firmware to my Samsung DLP TV. No harm in doing that, right? Well, everything was going fine with the firmware update initially. Saw the message that the TV would shut down and start back up during the firmware update process. TV shut down, but never came back on. Waited a few minutes. Nothing. Pressed the power button on my remote. Nothing (except for the light on the TV that shows that buttons are being pressed on the remote). Pressed the power button on the TV. Nothing. Unplugged the TV. Waited 10 minutes or so. Plugged it back in. Nothing except for the normal audio music sound thing that it normally does when it first gets turned on.

Sigh. I'm sure I don't even need to explain how incredibly frustrated I was at this point.

I finally caved in and called custmer service at 800-Samsung. Surprisingly, I immediately got through to someone. The lady I spoke with was extremely friendly and very helpful ... with the TV side of things. Gave me a case number, etc. Some company is supposed to come out to repair it after they call me to schedule an appointment. Even gave me a claim number for Samsung to reimburse me the costs of the repair if the repair company doesn't get paid directly by Samsung.

Then she switched me over to the department that handles Blu-Ray players. The guy I spoke to over there wasn't that helpful. He sounded far more scripted than the lady I talked to first did. He gave me the usual "wait for the next firmware update" spiel. I gave him a hard time as well after he wasn't so helpful. He gave me a case number so that I could call back during business hours tomorrow to speak to someone higher up. Toward the end of the call, I restated my original scenario to him. I asked him what he would tell me to do if I had just told him about the player not playing Blu-Ray discs. He said he'd tell me to upgrade the firmware. I then said what would you tell me if that didn't resolve the problem? He said he'd tell me to wait for the next firmware update. Then I said basically every scenario I throw at you you're just going to tell me to wait for the next update? So I've got a completely useless product? This would be like buying a car, driving it home, and then the next day the car doesn't do its primary function. Would a car company just tell me to wait for the next firmware update?

Ugh. Maybe that's not a fair comparison but it seems ridiculous that I've got a Blu-Ray player, it won't perform its primary function (which is to play Blu-Ray discs) and I'm told just to sit around and wait for the next firmware update.

So now I've got a Samsung DLP TV that won't turn on, a Samsung Blu-Ray player that won't play Blu-Ray discs, and a Samsung 5 disc DVD changer / surround sound system that doesn't work properly. I'm starting to get the feeling that this is the end of me with Samsung products.

I made a post over on the CNET forums where some Samsung Techs seem to be posting/participating over in the CNET forums.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-13973_102-0 ... dID=359735

Maybe this will help? I've got my fingers crossed.

To be honest I've been hesitant about Samsung ever since my debacle with them and Best Buy over a CRT HDTV about 4 years back. But the player was so damn cheap on Black Friday that I couldn't pass it up. Other than that though I own none of their products.... Because they've broken.

TheMuffin wrote:To be honest I've been hesitant about Samsung ever since my debacle with them and Best Buy over a CRT HDTV about 4 years back. But the player was so damn cheap on Black Friday that I couldn't pass it up. Other than that though I own none of their products.... Because they've broken.

Yea, I refuse to buy Samsung or LG products. I've had bad experiences with both.

I hate to be that guy on the issue, but my set up is all Sony and it's been great.

Before we were burglarized, I had an LG tv and had nothing but problems with it. The service rep discussions I had were much the same as your Seibs.

I'm more frustrated about the tv not working now than i ever was about the blu-ray player. now i can't watch anything.

Could you post how to clear our (reformat) the internal flash memory?
I did find this link that has all the 2.x firmware and a 1.3 USB & CD updates. http://www.mediafire.com/bd-p1500-firmware
I have been through all of them still with no avail. It is so frustrating because the one time I used it and it worked the picture was awesome. Coraline in 3D. I opened it out of the box on Thursday so I know the lens should be clean.

I got mine through a rewards program and Samsung is telling me it is out of warranty without a receipt. Samsung Customer service is easy to get a hold of and they are very nice they just aren't technical.

Cyberstrike wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Cyberstrike wrote:I don't know much about DVD and BR players but I have a wild guess: it could it be that the laser has been worn out to point it doesn't have the energy needed to play BR discs only DVDs due to a lower energy requirements or something?

Again this is truly a wild guess (and I'm more likely wrong), but since it's apprently not the firmware that is the problem here (from what I gathered here anyway) so it has to be something else to consider.

Yeah it's got to be something weird or faulty hardware. I even figured out how to clear out (reformat) the internal flash memory on the player. I think I might be more frustrated that I've spent at least 6 hours working on this damn thing and doing research about the problem on Google. I'm trying to avoid calling their customer service because I've read that is a nightmare as well.

I just want to watch Wolverine in Blu-Ray. That movie came out the week my daughter was born so I never got to see it. It was really the first blockbuster movie that I've wanted to see that I wasn't able to see in theatres. Having a baby will do that (but it's so worth it). If I can't see movies on the big screen, I at least want to watch them in the best quality that I can at home.

Blu-Ray is really making this process difficult. Remember back in the day how simple it was to play DVDs? A legit movie worked no matter what player you put it in? Ah, those were the days. I can't believe they expect people to have to upgrade the firmware on their players. What a joke. Blu-Ray is going to kill this industry and force everything to digital.

Congrats being a father Ryan, I know it's very belated but I've been busy.

I had that happen to me with my Xbox 360 one day it just stopped playing discs and it was that I simply worn out the laser (that has never happened to me before or sense) by playing a lot of games, DVDs, and CDs on on the thing.

If it's a hardware issue than you're probably going to have to either call Samsung or buy new one.