I have had the Samsung BD-C5500 Blu-ray player for about a week now and I absolutely love it. It was very easy to setup and worked perfectly right out of the box. It's smaller in size than the DVD player it is replacing but noticeably heavier. It starts up quickly and loads Blu-ray discs quickly too. The buttons on the front of the player are touch sensitive and don't give the user any tactile feedback so sometimes it's hard to tell if you have pushed them or not but at the same time they are cool and have a cutting-edge appeal. Some people have mentioned that they don't care for the remote but I find it to be very adequate and easy to use. I like the larger size of the buttons since I have big hands. The remote seems to work well at different angles and distances as well. When I first hooked up the player it did a firmware update and about a week later it notified me that there was a newer firmware and again did an update. It's comforting to see that Samsung is actively working to improve the device's firmware by releasing updates frequently if needed. I didn't know what issues/features the firmware updates were addressing because the UI on the player doesn't really tell you but Samsung does list what the firmware updates change/fix on their website. The device didn't have any problems connecting to my home network using a CAT-5 cable. It doesn't bother me a bit that this player doesn't support wi-fi out of the box. In my experience wi-fi is very susceptible to interference from other devices such as microwaves, cordless phones, and other wi-fi routers so using it to stream a high-definition movie could be problematic when you decide to pop some popcorn during the show or if someone calls you on your cordless phone. You'll always get better streaming performance from CAT-5. Plus, it's a lot cheaper than the players that do have wi-fi built in.
I have used this player to stream Netflix content from my Netflix instant queue. Before having this player we watched a lot of Netflix streaming content on our computer but watching it on the HDTV using this player has been a lot more convenient and sounds better on the home audio system than on the computer speakers. Streaming works very well and I haven't seen it skip frames or stop to re-buffer the stream. It takes a little longer to buffer the stream at the beginning of playback than my computer does but after a 15-20 second wait it's good to go so it's not a big deal. I have spoken with people who stream Netflix through the PS3 or XBOX and they have told me it takes about the same amount of time to buffer on those systems and I would imagine other Blu-ray players that stream Netflix would have similar performance. Some of the Netflix streaming content will stream in 720p resolution which looks and sounds great. One thing to note is that this player will only see titles you have added to your Instant Queue on the Netflix website. You cannot use the player to browse for different content and add it to your queue. This has not been very bothersome to me but it might bother some people. I actually like the fact that I can put titles in the Instant Queue for my children to watch and they can't browse around Netflix on the player and find adult content accidentally in the process.
Streaming music through Pandora has been great too. The Pandora app works well and has a good interface. You can give songs a thumbs up or thumbs down but only while the song is playing. It would be great if you could go back through the list of songs that have recently played and give them the thumbs up or thumbs down after they have played like you can on the Pandora website but that's not the way it works sadly. The quality of the audio seems very good and the time it takes to buffer the music is not even noticeable. We have really enjoyed having a device capable of using Pandora connected to the home audio/theater system.
I used the Blockbuster service to rent a movie for my kids. The video/audio quality was excellent and I had no streaming problems but the price was a little absurd. The movies cost about $4 to rent and you only have access to watch the movie for 24 hours from the time you first start playing it. At that price I would expect that you would get to watch the title as much as you want for 5 days just like you would do if you physically rented a movie from a Blockbuster location. I don't think I will be using the Blockbuster service very much unless there is a movie I really want to watch and I'm too tired/lazy to physically go to a Blockbuster and rent it.
Overall I feel like the device does a lot for how much I paid for it and is definitely worth the money. I have already recommended it to numerous friends and co-workers who have been looking to get a Blu-ray player. This is the first Blu-ray player I have owned and might possibly be the last since it's so feature-rich and works so well.
Update 4/14/2010:
I have had this player for over a month now and I have received 4 firmware updates I think. With the firmware updates the device has only gotten better. The updates didn't appear to add any new features but they have made the player more stable so it is less likely to freeze-up or stop working in other ways. Everything has been working flawlessly for me.
There is a new service called Vudu now that this player supports. I have not tried to use it yet but it appears to give you one free HD rental so that you can try the service. It looks similar to the Blockbuster streaming app. Most movies appear to have options to rent/buy the title in 3 different formats. HDX (1080p 5.1 Surround), HD (720p 5.1 Surround?), and SD (Standard Definition 480p and I'm not sure on the audio). I have watched a few trailers on Vudu and they stream fine but I haven't tried actually streaming a movie from Vudu yet. Samsung BD-C5500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player - Blu-ray Disc Players - 1080p - Samsung - Blu-ray'
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