Where can I get a Blu-ray player that will work for more than a year?

Snowdensjacket

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 10, 2017
Messages
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I have now owned three bluray players. All three from Samsung. Who I will no longer purchase from. My current one is a Jm57 model. It will only play half of my discs at this point. The other half it just ejects and cannot read. I just finished cleaning it inside and out, and still it will immediately eject half my discs, but plays the other half right away.

What's the deal? I have money. I'm willing to give my money to a company that can give me a bluray player that will actually play all of my discs. I've got a great 7.1 surround system, a huge TV, and I want to watch movies with my family. I'm quite out of touch with modern technology, I work too much now, though I used to be quite a bit more [h]ard. I just spent half an hour on Google trying to figure out why three bluray players have done exactly the same thing. Stopped playing half of my discs. I give up.

Can any of you guys lend me a helping hand? Do I buy a new one, not a Samsung garbage but something else? Did I not clean it properly? Should I just build an htpc with a bluray player and call it a day?
 
I have had the Sony BDP-S390 for a few years without issue. It just works. Even plays x264 movies from USB.
 
Welcome to The Disposable Society where forced obsolescence is now practically the rule of law and where items aren't meant to last anymore because if companies only make long lasting products they only get one chance to overcharge you and they can't afford to do that. ;)

As for decent Blu-ray players, as noted in the post above Sony tends to have some pretty solid hardware (they did help create the technology, just as they did with CDs and DVDs as well). Can't hurt to pop into a forum like AVS and ask the same question or just read some product reviews and the comments from owners to find something that's reliable over a long period of time.
 
I've used my thin ps3 for blurays for...actually it's the only bluray player I've ever owned.
 
Oppo. I've had my OPPO BDP-103 since they came out (has been some years) and it still works fine. It even plays x264 over LAN.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies. I'll look into it a bit more and will probably just go buy some Xbox thing. I'm sure my kids would enjoy that anyway.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies. I'll look into it a bit more and will probably just go buy some Xbox thing. I'm sure my kids would enjoy that anyway.
Yeah, for a while, the Xbox One S was probably the cheapest UHD 4k Bluray player. It doesn't hurt that the Xbox One interface, as bad as it is, is still usually faster and more intuitive than most bluray player GUIs. I help onto my Xbox One for much long that I should have, simply to keep it as a bluray player. Some local walmarts (not all) are selling the Xbox One S bundled with Battlefront 1 for $220.
 
I was using just my PS3s (had 2, one in the living room and one in the bedroom) until I switched the living room box to a PS4. Blu Rays have always played without a hitch. I would have kept on with the Sony boxes but they never added UHD HDR support AFAIK and the XBOX boxes have. My next player is going to be a XBOX ONE X which I already pre-ordered. Maybe I'll go back to the PS Boxes at some point if they add HDR support, especially if they get a new Gran Turismo (the only game I ever buy on a console).
 
Get an Oppo if you just need a solid disc player. Yes, they're $550 but they are built like a tank and play every type of media, except for ISO because of MPAA intervention. The Oppo can be used as a portal for a media server. It supports SMB and DLNA. The BDP-103 is the regular HD model and was replaced by the 4K BDP-203. ALL player manufacturers are being forced to restrict playback of certain types of files, so you'll find the same restrictions on ALL players sold in the US. Oppo handles media streaming better than any other player I have used. Only thing to be aware of is Cinavia copy protection found on some Sony and Lionsgate titles. Ripped copies play fine on the 103 through Ethernet but are protected on the 203.
 
Do you have the auto update option turned on or did you manually download the August 2017 firmware update? If the firmware hasn't been updated, it might help to try it.
 
If you want to go the cheap route, I'd recommend buying a used PS3 (~70 USD most places). If you want something more up to date and are willing to spend a little more, I'd recommend an Xbox One S. The Xbox supports UHD Blu-Ray, as well as lossless audio and Dolby Atmos. Both of these consoles have dedicated media remotes available for purchase, and if you like Harmony remotes, the Xbox is supported via IR, and the PS3 is supported as long as your Harmony supports Bluetooth.
 
Another alternative is the Sony UBP-X800 which you can sometimes find for 200 bucks. Yeah its a 4k UHD player just like the Xbox One S but it outputs a much better picture quality that may or may not matter to you but if you got a recent 4k HDR screen, it may be the ticket. It can output RGB 10-bit 4:4:4, dual HDMI outputs, and can upscale 1080p Blu-rays to 4k, none of which the Xbox One S can do and it has a metal chassis compared to Samsung's plasticky chassis. The only ding against it is that it doesn't support Dolby Vision but it does support HDR10 which is much more common.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/sony-ubp-x800-4k-uhd-blu-ray-player
 
My LG Blu-Ray player is still going strong after four years.

My Samsung optical drives have not had as good a lifetime. The last me one, maybe two years.
 
I just tried playing six different discs in my piece of shit Samsung player and none of them will work. The seventh one worked. Previously all of these discs worked. It makes no sense at all. There is no damage to these discs

I'll just never buy anything from Samsung again. My wife has been looking up used playstations just so we can actually watch all the fucking movies I bought with this massive surround system. It just blows my mind that I can't actually watch my own movies, that played just fine a year ago on this player, anymore. Wtf? Physically nothing has changed!

And here TMobile is trying to get me to buy two new phones. From Samsung. Lol are you kidding me? No possible way will I buy anything from this shit company again.
 
Had a Toshiba (refurb) - remote receiver stopped working. Had an LG, worked well but lacked features. Had a Samsung, worked well but was slow as snot. Got another Samsung, worked great. Until I started playing certain discs, specifically Lions Gate titles. Van Wilder, Crank, Crank II, Terminator 2, Basic Instinct, Total Recall, maybe some others, all released between 2007 and 2010. They played fine when I first watched them, then after a year or two they would start glitching during playback or just not play at all. This is a known issue with Lions Gate releases during that time frame, though I never found out what the nature of the failure was - just some kind of deterioration of the media. I think the problem has been corrected but I haven't checked recently if they have re-released any of those titles. You might check your movies to see if they are Lions Gate releases.
 
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