Samsung BD-P1500
Manufacturer: Samsung Part number: BD-P1500/XAA
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- The Samsung BD-P1500 offers generous Blu-ray functionality at a budget price, thanks to several firmware updates and aggressive retailer discounts.
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CNET editors' review
Samsung BD-P1500 price range: $99.95 - $217.34
- Reviewed by: Matthew Moskovciak
- Edited by: David Katzmaier
- Reviewed on: 02/20/2009
- Updated on:03/30/2009
- Released on: 05/15/2008
The good: Recent discounts make it a bargain; Profile 2.0 compatible with a firmware upgrade; onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD; very good image quality on most Blu-ray discs; Ethernet port for firmware updates.
The bad: DVD playback will disappoint videophiles; no analog multichannel outputs; onboard DTS-HD Master Audio decoding.
The bottom line: The Samsung BD-P1500 offers generous Blu-ray functionality at a budget price, thanks to several firmware updates and aggressive retailer discounts.
Editors' note (March 30, 2009): The rating of this player has been changed since its initial publication to reflect changes in the marketplace.
Buying any piece of electronics gear is an investment, but the analogy is even more apt if you're buying a Samsung Blu-ray player. When the Samsung BD-P1500 was first released, it was a somewhat risky pick due to its $400 list price, disc compatibility issues, and long list of promised firmware upgrades. Since the initial release, however, its value has risen. The BD-P1500's online price has plummeted and it has received several firmware upgrades, making it Profile 2.0 compatible and ironing out compatibility issues. It's still not in the top tier of Blu-ray players--its image quality is a step below the best and it lacks DTS-HD Master Audio--but with the street price as low as $220, it's one of the best Blu-ray values available.
Design
We've knocked Samsung's excessively glossy designs in the past, but we're suckers for the BD-P1500's look. The front faceplate is still glossy black, but it's completely flat and doesn't have a bezel, unlike its predecessor, the BD-P1400. On the far right are some front-panel controls, including play, stop, and chapter forward/backward, but otherwise the aesthetic is minimalist. In our opinion, the BD-P1500 is the most stylish Blu-ray player we've seen.
Samsung fans will recognize the same remote the company has packaged with most of its products for the last couple years. There are playback controls just north of the center of the remote, and there's some slight differentiation--including Braille-like nubs--that make it possible to navigate in the dark. Overall, it's a good remote, but we'd really like to see Samsung give it an update since it's been unchanged for so long and there's still room for improvement.
While the menu of Panasonic's DMP-BD50 still features blocky standard-def graphics, the BD-P1500 has nice high-def menus. They're easy enough to navigate, and we had no issues with routine tasks like changing the output resolution or audio output format.
Features
Out of the box, the Samsung BD-P1500 is a Profile 1.1 player, but owners can make the player Profile 2.0 compatible by installing the latest firmware update. Profile 2.0 compatibility means it will be able to play back Internet-enabled BD-Live features available on some Blu-ray movies. We haven't been impressed with BD-Live features so far, but there have been some promising early attempts, such as director Christopher Nolan's live chat on The Dark Knight.
Soundtrack support is pretty good, although not flawless. The BD-P1500 has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD, but not for DTS-HD Master Audio. While the lack of DTS-HD Master Audio decoding is annoying, we wouldn't stress about it too much--even the experts have trouble hearing the differences between soundtrack formats in ideal environments. All soundtrack formats are supported in bit stream output mode.
Connectivity is standard. The most important connection is the HDMI output, which is capable of carrying both high-def video signals up to 1080p and high-resolution audio. For analog high-definition video, there's also a component video output, but note that Blu-ray Discs are limited to 1080i over component and DVDs to 480p. There's also a composite video output (but no S-Video), and of course it's limited to standard definition.
For audio, there's the aforementioned HDMI output, plus an optical digital audio output. Analog audio limited to just a stereo RCA output, whereas more expensive standalone players, such as the Samsung BD-P2500 and Sony BDP-S550, have multichannel analog outs. There's also an Ethernet port, which can be used for updating the firmware and to stream BD-Live content content.
Performance
For our Blu-ray performance tests we compared the BD-P1500 with the Panasonic DMP-BD50 and the Sony PlayStation 3. We started off looking at test patterns, with all three players connected to the LG 50PG60, with each input set to its THX picture mode. The first disc we looked at was Silicon Optix's HQV test suite on Blu-ray.
The BD-P1500 got off to a bad start, failing the Video Resolution Loss Test, as certain parts of the screen had a strobelike appearance and the overall image appeared unstable. Both the DMP-BD50 and PS3 passed this test in the same scenario. Things didn't get any better with the jaggies tests, as the BD-P1500 failed both the pivoting three line test and the rotating white bar test. Again, the DMP-BD50 and PS3 passed both of these tests, with the PS3 performing slightly better than the DMP-BD50. We switched to the most difficult of the HQV tests--the Film Resolution Loss Tests--and as we suspected, by BD-P1500 failed the panning resolution test pattern. However, we were surprised that it handled the slow pan over Raymond James Stadium reasonably well, without the excessive moire that we sometimes see on lesser players.
Since nobody actually watches test patterns, we switched over to actual program material. We began with some scenes that we know often cause problems for players with mediocre video processing. The very beginning of Chapter 8 from Mission Impossible: III will often show moire in the stairs in the background, but the BD-P1500 handled it well. The blinds at the beginning of Chapter 12 and the limo in Chapter 16 can expose similar problems, but the BD-P1500 handled both with full detail and free of jaggies. Considering it failed so many of the test patterns, we were impressed.
Next up was Ghost Rider, and we fast-forwarded to the end of Chapter 6, with a panning shot away from an RV. We often see moire in the grille of the RV, but the BD-P1500 handled it perfectly again. We also looked at Tony Bennett: American Classic, which is actually on the disc in 1080i, which forces the BD-P1500 to deinterlace everything. We did notice some issues on this disc. For example, at the beginning of Chapter 7 there's a clapperboard with horizontal lines, and jaggies show up all over each of them. Jaggies showed up on the DMP-BD50, but they were much more subtle. Of course, very few discs are in 1080i natively, but it does give some indication that the issues we saw in test patterns can occur in program material. And we should note that the aforementioned issues will only be present when the player is set in 1080p mode, so if your HDTV has solid 1080i deinterlacing or can properly accept a 1080p signal at 24 frames per second, you may be avoid some of the problems we described.
When the BD-P1500 was first released, it was plagued with disc compatibility errors that made it impossible to load some movies. After several firmware updates, the vast majority of those issues are gone; we threw a wide variety of discs at the BD-P1500 and it didn't run into a single error. That means we're mostly willing to look past the BD-P1500's earlier troubles, although we'd add that there's no way to know if more compatibility errors will show up on newer releases.
Load times were just a tad slower compared to the newest standalone Blu-ray players. Mission Impossible: III loaded in about 29 seconds, which is average. Java-heavy discs naturally took a good deal longer--Spider-Man 3 loaded in 1 minute, 50 seconds. Similarly, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest loaded in 2 minutes, 3 seconds; the newer BD-P2500 loaded the same movie about ten second faster. While these speeds are solid for a standalone player, they still don't compare with the superfast PS3, which consistently loads discs in a fraction of the time standalone players do.
Standard DVD performance
DVDs are still cheap and plentiful, so the BD-P1500 DVD performance remains an important factor. We started off our DVD tests with the HQV test suite on DVD, and the Samsung performed admirably at first, passing the initial resolution test and displaying the full detail of DVD. The next jaggies tests were only mediocre, with significant jaggies showing up on a test with three pivoting lines. We were also disappointed to see the BD-P1500 fail a test with scrolling titles, as the titles looked jerky and difficult to read--most players pass this test. On the upside, the BD-P1500 had no problem with the difficult 2:3 pull-down test, successfully kicking into film mode in about a second.
Switching to actual program material, we looked at the opening sequence of Star Trek: Insurrection and the BD-P1500 correctly did its 2:3 pull-down processing, as the hulls of the boats and the curved railings looked smooth. We did notice some subtle jaggies on the text of the opening credits, but the same jaggies were present on the DMP-BD50, although they weren't on the PS3. Next up was Seabiscuit, and sadly the BD-P1500 performed quite poorly on the introduction, with a few scenes marred by jaggies appearing all over the screen. In other words, videophiles may feel the need for a separate DVD player if they choose the BD-P1500.
User reviews
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Very good standalone player!
by rsc8989 on July 29, 2008
Pros: Fast loading time, stunning graphics & audio, clean menu.
Cons: Unstable network and USB connections.
Summary: As always, did some research before buying this unit and one of the main complaints about this unit being slow loading time, it was nothing to be concerned about as ...
Summary: As always, did some research before buying this unit and one of the main complaints about this unit being slow loading time, it was nothing to be concerned about as it somehow "felt" normal than anticipated. The graphics and sound noticeably jumped me from my seat.
Easy to play with HDMI CEC which works admirably by inserting a disc, the TV turns on and change the source to Blu-Ray input and starts playing. Clean and simple menu and setup screen to change. Although could not really tell the advantages of having 1080/24fps and xvyCC options, it's always nice to have features.
Loaded some Blue Planet, Planet Earth, other documentaries, Cars, Black Hawk Down, Hellboy, Underworld, 300, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, all of which loaded faster than I anticipated and played admirably.
If you are not much of a game player and would love a Blu-ray player now and save some money at the same time, this will not let you down.9 out of 9 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Very nice, fast load times, easily upgradable.
by dagerton on June 1, 2008
Pros: BD Live ready, Fast load times, Sleek design
Cons: No DTS-HD yet
Summary: Aside from the fact that this player will not decoded DTS-HDMA this player has lived up to the expectation. Firmware upgrades are super easy with the ethernet connection. My brother-in-law ...
Summary: Aside from the fact that this player will not decoded DTS-HDMA this player has lived up to the expectation. Firmware upgrades are super easy with the ethernet connection. My brother-in-law has the Sharp BD HP-20 and the 1500 loads almost a full minute faster than his player. Overall, very pleased with my purchase.
7 out of 8 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Darn good player....better than reviews I've read!
by dbrat1 on June 30, 2008
Pros: Fantastic picture and sleek design
Cons: Crap-tastic cable included....
Summary: After some setting tweeks, this BD player was everything my wife and I were looking for! Reviews I read before coming home from Best Buy with it complained about slow ...
Summary: After some setting tweeks, this BD player was everything my wife and I were looking for! Reviews I read before coming home from Best Buy with it complained about slow booting and pauses on standard DVDs....didn't happen. Boot time was noticable but not annoying...heck, my LCD takes 10 seconds to boot. View both Planet Earth blu-ray and The Mask in standard with no issues.
One of the setting tweaks was elimate some black pixels that were most noticable on bright areas of the picture. Reseting the player so it knew my TV was 1080i (rather than 1080p)...must be an HDMI thing...it was too easy and fixed the issue.
Samsung included an useless audio cable and could have provide an HDMI.6 out of 6 users found this user opinion helpful.
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very good blu-ray player
by zahmbee on December 9, 2008
Pros: The Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray player is a solid choice for viewing Blu-Ray material. Great picture and rich colors.
Cons: a little tweaking required on the TV in order to get a good upscaling image
Summary: The Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray player is a solid choice for viewing Blu-Ray material. The picture is sharp and colors are stunning. At first I thought that the upscaling might have ...
Summary: The Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray player is a solid choice for viewing Blu-Ray material. The picture is sharp and colors are stunning. At first I thought that the upscaling might have been a little on the short side but after tweaking my Samsung HDTV a little I have to say that this unit does a very good job with regular dvd's. I loaded the updated firmware from Samsung, which was easy and quick. Once I connect an ethernet cable I'll be ready for BD-Live. I am currently using the Samsung LN40A650 HDTV so the interaction between the two units is smooth and fast. After viewing several movies in blu-ray I have to admit that I am already spoiled with the quality vs standard dvd's.You can feel assured that buying this unit will provide many wonderful hours of blu-ray quality. Upscaling old dvd's is really good and load times for movies is pretty quick. This unit also provides an ethernet connection so that you can enjoy the benefit of BD-Live programming from the internet. Samsung has managed to keep it's promise regarding firmware updates. They even make the update process fairly simple and painless. i was a little amazed at how slick the update went considering I am not a computer geek. So, now that blu-ray player prices are slowly coming down this player should be considered because it provides more features than other players in the same price range.
Samsung just released another firmware update and it's great. My BD-P1500 is now BD live capable and they added an update to make more titles compatible with their player. This is an excellent blu ray disc player.
Updated on Jan 29, 20094 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Sleek, Fast Load Times and Stable.
by SLKabaker on May 25, 2008
Pros: Boots Up Fast, Loads Discs Quickly, Bitstreams all audio formats, BD Profile 1.1 Compliant and Profile 2.0 Ready.
Cons: Only decodes DolbyTrueHD into 2 Channel Stereo, No DTS-HD Decoding (HR or MA...yet...), Not Profile 2.0 as of yet.
Summary: The BDP-1500 is a great looking player. It is a very sleek and sexy black, with a nice gloss sheen. The video playback is superb. The picture quality is great. ...
Summary: The BDP-1500 is a great looking player. It is a very sleek and sexy black, with a nice gloss sheen. The video playback is superb. The picture quality is great. It bitstreams (the same as the BD-P1400, having 2 options, "remix" or "audiophile") over HDMI all Dolby and DTS codecs. Unfortunately, if you do not have a receiver that can decode the HD Formats, it only can decode Standard Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS Core in full. It will decode Dolby TrueHD, but it down mixes from 5.1 or 7.1 to 2.0. It does not, as of yet, decode DTS-HD HR or DTS-HD MA. The system out of the box is BD Profile 1.1 compliant, and is BD Profile 2.0 (a.k.a. BD Live) ready. According to Samsung, there will be firmware updates adding DTS-HD HR internal decoding and enabling full 2.0 compliance and support. Being lucky enough to have a receiver that can decode the new HD Audio Codecs, I have the player set to Bitstream (Audiophile) over HDMI and I am very impressed with both the Video and Audio I got. For the price, other than the Playstation 3, it is best deal for both Profile 1.1 and 2.0 Players. I would strongly reccomend this unit and once it can decode DTS-HD HR and is BD Live enabled I would up my rating to a 9.5!
4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Very happy with this economy player!
by systemBuilder on December 31, 2008
Pros: - upconversion looks great to us!
- BD-Live 2.0 firmware has been released!Cons: - User interface is a little clunky and sluggish
- To use BD-Live after upgrade, you must leave your flash drive stuck in the player!
- The player is low on flash and hangs if you remove the flash drive!Summary: Bottom line: This is a fantastic economy player for $210 which is what we paid (shipped) at christmas time! We watched Prince Caspian and thought we were looking at a ...
Summary: Bottom line: This is a fantastic economy player for $210 which is what we paid (shipped) at christmas time! We watched Prince Caspian and thought we were looking at a Blu-Ray disc the quality was so good!
The other downside to this player is the remote, which has "tiny and tinier" buttons and a weird layout. There are at least 3 types of menu buttons, randomly scattered on the remote. The pause and play buttons are on different rows of the remote! It's easy to hit "Chapter Skip" when you want to FF. I hope you get the picture!
About the only downside is that occasionally the blu-ray player, when I hit "menu", will stop feeding a signal into the TV for a few moments, causing the TV to put up a "No Signal" message on the screen. Not smart, Samsung !! Also, the BONUSVIEW feature puts an annoying icon on the screen, and to get rid of it you have to stop everything, and turn off a big chunk of all your displays! NOT SMART, SAMSUNG!
Still, we are completely satisfied with this economy player!
Since there exists NO BD-Live content WORTH HAVING, you're wasting your money buying more than this basic player offers!
Updated on Dec 31, 2008
Updated on Jan 1, 2009If you are thinking about a BD-2500, why not try Netflix Streaming from your laptop using S-Video? I think you'll find that you don't want to bother with the BD-2500 if you preview the quality and lagtime of a Netflix streamed video before you purchase it !! Anyway, if we want this feature we can always use our laptop, so the BD-1500 is all we need for the foreseeable future!
Updated on Nov 6, 2009We've watched about 50 movies on this player so far. It was an awesome value (only $200), and I understand it's relatively fast (although I haven't had much opportunity to compare). Playback quality on our LN52A850 television is fantastic, as is the sound. I also like the anynet feature that redirects the TV to the blue-ray signal when you insert a disk into the player. We haven't tried the BD-Live 2.0 but we'll be trying that very soon. So, for a rock-bottom price, I feel like this product "does it all" - whats not to like ??
Updated on Nov 6, 2009Half the time I'm taking the DVD out of the Blu-Ray player to check if it's really just a DVD ?? The upconversion on this player is excellent, imho.3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Not bad for an entry level player.
by garvinw on November 11, 2008
Pros: - Fast load times
- Decent feature set
- Easy setupCons: - Not upgraded out of the box
Summary: I found this player at Best Buy for $199 during a manager's special sale. After getting it home, it only took about 3 minutes from setup to watching a ...
Summary: I found this player at Best Buy for $199 during a manager's special sale. After getting it home, it only took about 3 minutes from setup to watching a movie. Movie load times were are 10 to 15 seconds, as opposed to minutes with some players. The setup menu was easy to navigate and easy to follow. Will upgrade firmware soon to take advantage of Profile 2.0. Best bang for the buck out there!
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Solid Performance
by nolanski on November 3, 2008
Pros: Plays everything I've thrown at it BR and DVD without any issues. Respectable load time on BRs less than 30 seconds on most. Good upscaling for DVDs. Beautiful picture.
Cons: Doesn't have internal decoder for DTS-HD at this time.
Summary: For around $200 excellent value and I can't tell the difference in picture quality over my son's PS3 on my Samsung PN58650A.
I would by another if I ...Summary: For around $200 excellent value and I can't tell the difference in picture quality over my son's PS3 on my Samsung PN58650A.
I would by another if I needed one.2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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DO NOT BUY THIS PLAYER!!!!!!!!!!!
by archman99 on November 20, 2009
Pros: Price is good. But you get what you pay for.
Cons: firmware updates are flawed. doesnt play all disks. Unit gets real hot.
Summary: I had this BR player for 4 months. I had allot of trouble with playing certain BR disks.(due to firmware updates) I got a message to update my firmware. ...
Summary: I had this BR player for 4 months. I had allot of trouble with playing certain BR disks.(due to firmware updates) I got a message to update my firmware. So I did. It made my player freeze up. I called cust. svc. Told me send it in under waranty. I did. They called me and said that the parts were covered under the waranty, but not the labor. $80.00 to fix a relatevely new unit, and they would not budge. I even emailed Samsung corp. relations for the USA and they would not budge either. So, I told them I would bad mouth their product when ever I could. Buy a Sony PS3..... I did and love.it.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Awesome-Until Firmware Update-Now it won't play BLU-Ray
by ArkITEngineer on October 17, 2009
Pros: Watched part of one movie and was blown away by the quality. It was Coraline in 3D-the only BLU-Ray I had.
Cons: I connected to my network and updated the firmware. I wanted to be able to see what BD-Online was. It has not played a BLU-Ray since. I went and rented a BLU-Ray movie and got the same think. DVD's play fine but I have a 400 disc DVD changer.
Summary: I've downgraded to older firmware (that took a while to find and not from Samsung) with no success. Extremely frustrating to be enjoying a movie and now I have ...
Summary: I've downgraded to older firmware (that took a while to find and not from Samsung) with no success. Extremely frustrating to be enjoying a movie and now I have spent most of the day trying to fix this thing.
AVOID the Firmware Updates1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Samsung
- Part number: BD-P1500/XAA
- Description: As the first company to introduce a stand-alone Blu-ray player, Samsung reinforces its support of the Blu-ray format with the Full HD BD-P1500. An ideal player for anyone who enjoys Blu-ray, DVDs or CDs in their home, this groundbreaking model takes the home viewing experience to the next step and accommodates all of these formats in one unit. What?s more, it can upconvert standard DVDs to 720p, 1080i and 1080p resolutions and offers Full HD video playback capabilities for a crystal-clear picture. Designed with fans of multimedia technology in mind, the BD-P1500 easily connects to other digital peripherals through an HDMI 1.3 port with CEC for expanded color delivery and easy home theater control. With its built-in Ethernet connection, users can quickly take advantage of BD Profile 1.1 interactivity. True audiophiles will love the BD-P1500 as it goes beyond standard Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus audio playback to include 7.1 PCM, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution and Master Audio, Bitstream audio output via HDMI and more - making for a truly immersive viewing experience for movies, gaming, sports and more.
General
- Product Type Blu-Ray disc player
- Form Factor Tabletop
- Width 16.9 in
- Depth 10.8 in
- Height 3.3 in
- Weight 8.6 lbs
DVD
- Media Type CD, DVD, BD-R, CD-R, BD-RE, CD-RW, DVD-R, BD-ROM, DVD-RW
- BD Profiles Profile 2.0 (BD-Live)
- Built-in Audio Decoders DTS decoder, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus
- Media Load Type Tray
- Upscaling Yes ( Up to 1080p )
- Supported Digital Video Standards VC-1, H.264, MPEG-2
- Supported Digital Audio Standards PCM
DVD Features
- Parental Lock Yes
- Additional Features JPEG photo playback, Progressive scanning
Audio System
- Sound Output Mode Stereo
- Response Bandwidth 4 - 44000 Hz
- Dynamic Range 100 dB
- Digital Audio Format DTS digital output, Dolby Digital output
- Signal-To-Noise Ratio 110 dB
- Total Harmonic Distortion 0.003 %
Remote Control
- Type Universal remote control
- Technology Infrared
Connections
- Connector Type 1 x HDMI ( 19 pin HDMI Type A ) - Rear, 1 x Component video output ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Rear, 1 x Composite video/audio output ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Rear, 1 x Digital audio output (optical) ( TOSLINK ) - Rear, 1 x Network ( RJ-45 ) - Rear, 1 x USB - Rear
Power
- Power Device Power supply
- Power AC 120 V
- Power Consumption Operational 28 Watt
Manufacturer Warranty
- Service & Support 1 year warranty
- Service & Support Details Limited warranty - Parts - 1 year, Limited warranty - Labor - 90 days
Dimensions & Weight (Shipping)
- Width (Shipping) 20.6 in
- Depth (Shipping) 15 in
- Height (Shipping) 7.1 in
- Weight (Shipping) 12.6 lbs
Manufacturer info
- Samsung
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Samsung products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.samsungusa.com/
- Address:
105 Challenger Road, Ridgefield Park, NJ 07660 - Phone: 1-800-726-7864
- Fax: 1-973-601-6001
