My Samsung Blu-ray player wont play Blu-ray movies
I was watching Watchmen on Blu-ray last night when the picture froze. If you’ve seen the move, it was the scene where Silk Spectre and Nite Owl take a stroll down a dark alley and they end up going Old Testament on a bunch of street thugs who were up to no good.
I tried taking the disc out and cleaning it. I had just bought it so I didn’t know how it got dirty, but that was all I had in my digital disc troubleshooting bag of tricks. After cleaning off the nonexistent gunk from the disc, I tried to watch it again, but now my Blu-ray player wouldn’t read the Blu-ray disc at all.
I tried it again today, but the result was the same. I then tried playing another Blu-ray disc. The player wouldn’t read that disc either. I tried a regular old DVD disc and it read that disc without any difficulties.
My Samsung BD-P1500 will play DVD discs, but not Blu-ray discs. I’ve probably only watched five, maybe six Blu-ray discs on it and it now wont work.
I went to the Samsung website to see what I could now do. After entering in all of the applicable information, it informed me that though the machine was still under warranty for parts, it was no longer under warranty for labor. The warranty for parts is 12 months, while the warranty for labor is a mere 3 months. I was then advised to call Samsung to arrange a repair.
How lame is that? It would probably cost me more to have the unit repaired than it would to just buy a new player. I paid $200 for this one last Black Friday. I haven’t priced them lately, but I doubt Blu-ray players have gone up in price since then.
Not that I will ever buy anything made by Samsung ever again.
‘The Matrix’ on Blu-ray
I was perusing through the Best Buy circular this morning when when I stumbled upon an ad for a high definition Blu-ray version of The Matrix, the first movie in the popular Matrix movie triligy. It goes on sale Tusday, March 31.
I’ve been wanting to buy this on Blu-ray since first buying a Blu-ray player. The movie was available on Blu-ray up until now only in a boxed set with the other two Matrix movies, sequels that I personally would like to forget even exist. The first movie is a masterpiece. The other two are borderline awful.
I’m still not entirely convinced that Blu-ray movies are really all that much better than good old fashioned regular DVD, especially when the DVD movie is played on a player with DVD upscaling or upconversion. My Blu-ray player has it and it makes good old fashioned DVDs look great.
Animation on Blu-ray: is there a difference?
When the Watchmen motion comic was released on March 3rd, I found myself wondering which version I should purchase. Should I buy the high-definition Blu-ray version or the regular DVD version? Would I really see a difference between to the two formats?
I went ahead and picked up the Blu-ray version.
I’ll be perfectly honest and admit that I sometimes can’t tell a difference in quality between Blu-ray and regular DVD. Not that I’ve watched the same movie in each format side-by-side. That would be a fun experiment to stage, if it were at all possible.
When I moved from VHS to DVD, I noticed a huge difference in quality. When I moved from cassette tape to CD, I noticed a huge difference. When I moved from regular definition TV to high definition TV, I noticed a huge difference. When I moved from DVD to Blu-ray, I didn’t really see much of a difference.
I can only imagine that an animated movie with a limited spectrum of colors will have even a less pronounced difference in quality than a live-action motion picture.
I noticed recently at Suncoast that the Japanese anime classic Akira is now available in the high-def, Blu-ray format. Would I notice the difference between it and the DVD version I already own?
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic comes out on DVD and Blu-ray March 3, 2009. The individual chapters have been sporadically appearing in the iTunes store as $1.99 downloads. I think I purchased the first two, then promptly forgot about ever going back to see if the remaining chapters were ever made available or not.
A quick check of iTunes shows that they are up to chapter 10.
It looks as though that if you purchase the Blu-ray disc for $34.99, it comes with “digital copies” of all 12 chapters. Both the DVD and Blu-ray version come with a $7.50 Movie Cash coupon good towards a ticket to see Watchmen beginning on March 6th. As if anyone buying the DVD or Blu-ray motion comic of Watchmen wasn’t already planning on seeing Watchmen in the theater.
Netflix: Very Long Wait
I don’t know what’s the deal with Netflix, but I can’t seem to get them to send me movies. Once I select a movie, it sits there in my queue with the words “Very Long Wait” displayed next to it for weeks. I’ve had the movie Pineapple Express in my queue since before it was released on January 6 and it still shows “Very Long Wait”.
At first I thought I was because I upgraded my account to include Blu-ray movies. That was when it seemed Netflix stopped sending my my selections. I went a head and stopped selecting Blu-ray discs and instead just chose old fashioned DVDs. That doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference. It still took me nearly three weeks to get them to send me a copy of Wanted.
I’m not waiting anymore. I’m going to go ahead and cancel my account and just go back to renting movies from the local video store. At least with the old fashioned brick and mortar video rental store, if they don’t have copies to rent me, I don’t have to pay them.
That’s not the case with Netflix.
Battle of the Black Friday Blu-ray players
Like a lot of Americans, I’ve been checking out the Black Friday websites for a deal on Blue-ray players. From what I can tell, there are two different units from two different companies making an appearance early tomorrow morning. One from Sony and one from Samsung. From what I can tell, both players are essentially the same in that they play both high definition Blue-ray discs and standard definition DVD discs.
The two players are:
Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray Disc Player
- Best Buy $249.99
- Sears $179.99
- K-Mart $179.99
Samsung Blu-ray Disc Player BD-P1500
- Best Buy $199.99
- Circuit City $199.99
- Sears $199.99
- Wal-Mart $198.00
Best Buy being Best Buy of course has to charge more for the Sony player then K-Mart and Sears. Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart has to get all cute with their price, charging $1.99 less than everyone else.
I hate Wal-Mart.
I don’t really want to go out this Black Friday. I definitely don’t want to go out at oh-dark thirty and engage in hand-to-hand combat with shoppers looking for a deal. We might head out later in the day and see if we can buy one of these Blu-ray machines. I’m thinking that Wal-Mart will stock up on Blu-ray players if for no other reason then to sell lots and lots of Blu-ray discs. Maybe if they stock up enough, they’ll have them available even later in the day after the crowds thin out.
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