Samsung BD-P3600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (2009 Model)

Just received this player 2 days ago for $229.99 shipped. Overall i am quite happy with it.My setup----------Optoma HD70 720P overhead projector (projecting 120 inch diagonal image)Yamaha HTR-6050 5.1 reciever with HDMI video passthru.Verizon Fios actiontec wireless G home network with WEP security.First thing first - Connected the provided wi-fi dongle to the usb port at the back of the player and without much ado the player connected to my home network. The firmware update took almost 25 minutes to download on my wireless G network and another 5 minutes to apply it. My player does not lose the network settings after cycling power as reported by some users.Blu ray performance - Breathtaking clarity in the video image. Had to tweak some audio settings for my receiver though. Since my receiver only supports HDMI video passthru but no HDMI audio, i had to change the audio output of the player from PCM to BitStream (re-encode). Please note that besides HDMI audio, it only supports optical audio out but no digital audio out.SD DVD performance - Excellent upscaling. No jagging artifacts seen in the image.Netflix/Pandora/Blockbuster/Youtube - All work great and as expected. I was happy to see Netflix deliver HD quality on my wireless G network, probably because line of sight proximity to my router.PC streaming - This is where i ran into trouble.Auto detection of networked PCs - Kinda flaky Detects only 2 out of my 3 networked PCs. However, the one it does not detect has zonealarm on it. So it could be a firewall issue.Manual setup - Since it was not auto detecting my main desktop, I had to resort to manually configuring it. For manual config you need to provide the following bits of info -1. IP address of the PC2. Share name (since it can support only one shared folder at a time, i shared my entire H drive with the name H$. It then lets you browse the entire directory hierarchy)3. Userid / password of the desktop account.After the manual config was completed i could stream all my MP3s, JPGs and most of my videos from my H drive. As for the video formats you are safe with XVID / DIVx/ MP4 and MKV. I don't think it supports HD resolution streaming.Finally, as a last bit of irritant, the player does not remember your PC share after you recycle power. Which means once you power off, it forgets the PC connection you had so pain-stakingly configured, either automatically or manually. (What a bummer). Good news is that once you select to manually configuire it again, it remembers the IP address, share name, userid and password you used the last time. So all you need to do is go through those 4 screens again just hitting the blue D button (for save) along the way.In conclusion, it is a great little player which meets most of my needs. I just hope future firmware upgrades will take care of the little annoying bits here n there.UPDATE : Since i posted the review i have discovered that the Flakiness i observed in terms of auto-detecting networked PCs is not necessarily the fault of the DVD player but rather how windows networking works. (Google about "Browse Master") Apparently, among all the PCs/LAPTOPS in your home network, one and only one acts as a browse master. The job of the browse master is to keep a list of all networked PCs. Usually the PC with the most powerful operating system ends up being the master. For example if you have one PC with XP professional, one with XP home and another with windows vista, the PC with XP professional will end up being the master. If you cannot see all your PCs under Network neighbourhood > microsoft windows network, then shutdown all your PCs and bring them up one by one in any order. As they come up they will negotiate with each other for master status. Once you can see them under network neighbourhood, you will be able to AUTO DETECT them from your samsung.

I bought this gift for my son who just graduated from college. We connected it to our Samsung LN52A650 LCD TV set we bought earlier this year with an HDMI cable and the combination is perfect. If you turn on the Blue-ray player it automatically turns on the TV and selects the correct input. This functionality comes from Samsungs ANYNET feature which is built into both their TV and the Blue-ray player. This makes it really easy for anyone who struggles operating multiple remote controls to watch a movie.I also have a Panasonic DMP-BD35 Blue-ray player which was an Editor's choice on CNET. I bought the Panasonic because of the picture quality. Comparing the units side by side the picture quality of both is excellent. However, when it comes to speed the Samsung pulls way ahead. It's so much faster loading Blue-ray disks than the Panasonic. The Samsung also will pick up the movie where you left off if you stop it. This is something the Panasonic DMP-BD35 also fails to do. The Panasonic always starts over from the beginning which is very frustrating.I connected Samsung player to the internet using its wireless connection. It had no problem pulling in the signal from my LINKSYS WRT54G wireless router. I am broadcasting the SSID but I am using WPA2 encryption which all worked perfectly. Playing HD YouTube videos on a 52" TV was an amazing experience. It looked great. I'm sure my son will register online to take advantage of the streaming Net Flicks video capability and Pandora.So far we have watched the following Blue-ray movies which have played beautifully without incident: Casino Royale, STAR TREK (new movie), Ratatouille, Dark Night, Blade Runner (final cut), Pirates of the Caribbean, STAR TREK the original series, Harry Potter (Half-Blood Prince).This player is so good I'm selling my DMP-BD35 and getting one of these for myself!TECHNICAL NOTE!All Blue-ray players are firmware upgradable by design so the manufacturer can resolve compatibility issues with particular Blue-ray disks. As I look at many of the negative reviews here I feel many of them could be resolved by loading the latest firmware update. In addition many of the complaints could simply be attributed to dirty or scratched Blue-ray disks. If problems aren't identified accurately reviews can be missleading and a disservice to the public.