Samsung BD-P3600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Online Shop ... OnlineShop-Neo Amazon-USA

- Does not play all Blu Ray movies -
  I've had this player about a year. Firmware glitches and incompatabilites with certain titles have prevented me from watching several movies with the latest being Invictus and Book of Eli using the most recent 2.09 Firmware. If you search for this issue, you'll se countless posts from other users experience the exact same issue with these and other titles. I'd stay clear from this player, perhaps from Samsung altogether until they get their act together. And when I called and chatted online for support, it was terrible. You get the answer Du Jour depending on who you talk to. The same movies played just fine on my Panasonic Blu Ray player. Another issue I have with this player is everytime I do a firmware update, I have to go into the audio setup and change some obscure audio output setting or surround sound does not work. Then you have to reaccept the 10 pages of Terms and Conditions for each Internet service like NetFlix and Pandora.

- An Expensive Mistake - A 3 Month Labor Warranty! -
  READ THE FINE PRINT ON THE WARRANTY BEFORE YOU PURCHASE! AND, IF A PRODUCT SO MUCH AS SQUEEKS, RETURN IT IMMEDIATELY!
We were complete idiots to buy this Blu-Ray Player! The warranty is THREE MONTHS ON LABOR AND ONE YEAR ON PARTS!
We purchased a Samsung BD-P3600 Blu-Rayplzyer in December and within the first month or so, it would pixilate when you fast-forwarded DVD's or Blu-Ray discs to get past the movie previews. We thought it was an issue with the discs!
After 5 months, the unit completely stopped working -- showing blocks of pixels in a jerky manner. We tried using a lens cleaner but that didn't solve the problem.
After calling Samsung, we discovered yes there is a one year PARTS warranty, but THE LABOR WARRANTY IS THREE MONTHS ONLY. After the 3 months, then you pay shipping and $50 labor cost. After several requests as to what the problem with the unit was, Samsung customer care advised that the main board on the player had failed. Apparently to me, Samsung has no problem if the main operating circuit board on the unit doesn't last, it still charged the $50 labor charge for the repair.
I do not understand how Samsung can do business if they only warrant a product for 3 months. A quick read on the warranty length shows one year which seems fair, the 3 months on labor with the one year on parts only doesn't inspire long term confidence in a product to me.
I certainly will not have confidence in Samsung in the future when we want to upgrade or replace our electronics.

- Okay after 6 months of usage -
  After six months of owning this unit, I've decided to write a hopefully insightful review for future consumers.

You can get this product for $140 at your local Best Buy, which is considerable cheaper than its original retail value of $400. So, let's start off with the positives, which include:

- Decent (I'll explain in the negative section) picture quality.

- Superb connectivity via router or Ethernet. I'd recommend Ethernet for faster download times for streaming video and music.

- Netflix is great, just follow the instructions. Remember, you have to have a Netflix subscription, can only view On Demand video, and can only view those On Demand videos that are in your Netflix Que. This means that you can browse Netflix's DVD selection...they have to be in your que. In addition, this (and no other) blu-ray player can stream hi-def videos (yet).

- Pandora...is simply amazing. I have two Polk towers, center, and subwoofer, which are powered by an Onkyo 607 with AudioQuest 14 gauge speaker wire. The sound is simply incredible.


In terms of negatives, the following has been observed:

- The picture quality is okay, but not as good as some of Panasonic or Sony's current and past blu-ray players. From reading home theater forums, it's been suggested that this is due to the way in which the unit processes the picture. Supposedly, Panasonic and Sony use a different format which makes the picture quality much clearer and "deeper."

- I wish the touch buttons were on the face plate of this player. Otherwise, they function fine.

- If you're running your HDMI through a receiver to accomplish home theater sound...well, it may be a little tricky. I suggest going into the players' menu, select audio, adjust you speakers to the right size, and select "audiophile." This enabled my receiver to locate all the new sound formats (DTS-HD, Master Audio).

- I had A LOT of difficulties obtaining a wireless connection. After two hours I gave up, and instead plugged it in through an Ethernet connection.


Solid buy at $140 at your local Best Buy, but still a three-star product for the following reasons.

- Samsung Support Stinks -
  I bought this system and at first I was happy with it. Three months after I had it they sent a firmware update automatically. That is when the system started to break down. It started to skip on both downloaded and DVD material. I called 4 times to support and each time got a different answer. No surprise that the system was out of warranty. I found for $50 I could get it worked on by Samsung. I thought why not. I sent it back and am now finding out that it takes 2 weeks to get to them via slow boat shipping. They will take 4 weeks to work on it and then it will take 2 weeks to get it back. This is horrible service on their equiptment and horrible support. I would not purchase another samsung blueray.

- Very frustrating -
  I wouldn't recommend this player. We've been using it for about 6 months now. It consistently has problems reading discs, both BluRay and DVD, I'd say about 90% of the time. The disc starts to load, but then the player hangs somewhere before the title screen. Most of the time, we can fix it by ejecting and inserting the disc again; after 2-3 tries, the player will typically work. Once the video starts playing from the title screen, things usually work okay.

Last night was a first; we got a "NOT SUPPORT!" message on a BluRay disc that we got from Netflix that we couldn't resolve, and had to send the disc back.

Other glitches are just plain sloppy and annoying. The controls on the box are typically unresponsive; you have to push the Eject button 10 times for the player to respond (the remote works fine). The startup ring has an annoying digital skip every time, similar to the skipping sound on a music CD. That kind of stuff is just sloppy.

We bought this player because of the Netflix integration, and that part has been great. I guess because BluRay has been out for awhile, we just assumed that reading and compatibility issues wouldn't be a problem, and we've been happy with our other Samsung products (which are non-A/V). You know what they say about assuming!