Samsung DVD-C500 Upconverting DVD Player (Black)

Bien normal

A good, reliable DVD player. I have several DVDs from Anime distributors, which use DVDs that for some reason are harder to play with hardware players. The ones I tested were Yuyushiki and Astarotte no Omocha!, both of which can only be obtained from the anime distribution websites and nowhere like Amazon.I tried some of those anime shows in a Toshiba Blu-Ray player, only to discover that the playback was choppy (referring to video, the audio was just fine). It was the Blu-Ray player, because the DVDs play just fine on my computer.I tried other anime DVDs (Lucky Star collection) on the Blu-Ray player, aware that the collection is known-good. It worked just fine, so it seems the Blu-Ray player just disagreed with something that the third-party distributors did.Hence, I returned the Blu-Ray player and I bought this model of DVD player from Amazon. I immediately tested the choppy-playback DVDs (which were otherwise clean and new) and the playback was just fine. In fact, the quality was just as good as if I were to play the discs on my computer.When you buy this DVD player and turn it on, the only question it asks you is what language the interface is supposed to use. After that, the DVD player goes right to the menu screen. This menu screen is frugal with features and options, but the Settings menu has HDMI, video, and audio options which are staples of any DVD player.There is no network connection possible, which is just fine. Most Blu-Ray players require Internet connectivity to properly play back all features of the Blu-Ray (using the Java virtual machine) and to keep up with firmware updates (often needed to decrypt later discs for which a new key is needed). This DVD player has no such need for updates or DVD connectivity features, which makes it inherently more stable than Blu-Rays that the market wants to sell customers.The only problem with this DVD player is that it does not have a fast-forward capability. It has chapter-skip, but that is not helpful when trying to watch a moment over again (because you have to skip the beginning and watch the entire thing over again to get to the same point that you want to repeat). If this had fast-forward it would have been perfect, but the sheer fact that it plays my third party anime DVDs - that don't work in other players - outweighs this fact for me, specifically.As long as you keep the disc laser and the DVDs clean, this player should never fail to play a DVD properly.I'm very happy with this player, considering it was fairly cheap to purchase. I highly recommend this model.

As I haven't had this long, this will be initial impressions, but for now.First player was DOA, the tray wouldn't open, but Amazon were great about sending a replacement that arrived the next day and UPS picked up the dead player.This player is hackable to make it regionless following instructions at this link: [...]You're looking for the description by Milesy, April 06 2011. It's detailed and easy to follow. On the grid of numbers mentioned, I didn't have 8 or 22 highlighted, so I left them alone and only changed the 3 to a 2 in the first step and then followed the second step of the process and it worked perfectly.As the player is inside a cabinet, we can't hear the DVD tray noise that other people have mentioned, but even with the cabinet open, it's not noticeably loud at all.The firmware on the player, which is one shy of the current one listed on the Samsung website has fixed the issue of the player not turning on when you open the DVD tray, so that you don't have to power it up first, so that's no longer a issue.Set up was easy, I used a HDMI cable I had, but it's a shame that one isn't included, just component cables. The video and audio quality is great and the upscaling does look really impressive, much better than our old Philips player, which also did a great job.Some initial cons would be the lack of full control buttons on the front of the player. You have power, tray open and play/pause. Also it's a shame the player can't play mpeg4 type movie files, even though the info in the settings says the system is a C550, which is the model up that has the USB socket to allow those files. It's also a little slow to load up when switched off, but on the other hand it does go straight back to where you were if you stopped a movie mid way through and it also loads up the movie pretty quickly.Over all I say it's a really good player, especially considering it's $40. I did knock one star off though because it didn't have the newest firmware already installed and the first player was DOA.Edit: I initially said it came with a component cable, I meant it came with a regular red/white/yellow video/audio cable. There are also AAA batteries for the remote.

Really GOOD machine. I've had mine 1-1/2 years. On my unit, the buttons on front have to be touched "just right" or they don't respond, so you have to get friendly with it, which is a small adjustment, no trouble. Good memory, quick load... pretty good with defective discs (I get some from the library that are hopeless)....simple and non-redundant....mostly fool-proofThe remote died at about 1 year, but getting a good universal is smart..I did not get a warranty replacement that I was entitled to.I just bought another C500 for my mother, and the RCA RCR503BR remote (which I might wish I had for myself).I WAS shopping for a Sony that comes with a "multi-brand" remote, but the people at Sony had wrong information everywhere, and were a useless and frustrating waste of time just as they have been in my past (very bad) experience. They had very good products 40 years ago, but now I'd rather do business with better companies with intelligent, organized support.