General Player FAQ
This is where you will find general questions and answers, and stuff that hasn't been given its own section yet.
Table of Contents
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Product Infomation
What's in the box?
- Player
- Collateral materials, including printed manual
- A cardboard thingy for putting the unit out for display
- A remote
- Batteries for remote
- Standard AV cable (Left, Right, Composite Video)
What is not in the box that you think would be?
- HDMI Cable
- Component Video Cable
Where is the product page?
- On the Samsung website
- The FAQ there is empty
- There are no firmware downloads available there
Where is the manual?
- Available from the product page (12MB pdf)
- Note that the pdf manual has "DUO Player" on it, but the printed one in the box says "BluRay Player"
- Also note that the manual has a slightly different part number on it (there is a difference in the extension)
Free HD-DVD and Bluray disc offers
Can I get both?
- You can try
- Some people have had a bit of success.
- Others have not because the player is not listed specifically with the vendor as a qualifying player for the deals
Could I end up with neither?
- Yup, like me, who also got denied the 10% of coupon
Manufacturing Information
Known Manufacturing Runs
October 2007
- System Reports SW version 071020.01_1020_0924.11_XAA
- Main Board Date Of July 2007, Version 1
- Manufacturing Plant "C"
- known serial A00328F
- When updated to current SW version reports 071108.02_1020_0924.11_XAA
November 2007
- System Reports SW version 071108.02_1114_0924.11_XAA
- Main Board Date of October 10, 2007, Version 2
- Manufacturing Plant "C"
- known serial ending 00902N
Assumptions about the S/W version string based on above
- Four values separated by the underscore "_"
- Main Software
- Date is YYMMDD
- Version is .##
- Build Date or some sort of manufacturing date stamp
- MMDD
- Date of bootloader / firmware upgrader
- Date is MMDD
- Version is .##
- Region / model information
- X for HD-DVD region, meaning no region which is not used yet
- A for Bluray region
- A for DVD region. Letters substituted in for the region to prevent a number on the end that could look like a version number
- Main Software
- Example, 071108.02_1114_0924.11_XAA
- Main Software version 02 dated November 8th, 2007
- Built on November 14th (year assumed as this only happens once)
- Bootloader version 11 dated September 24th (year assumed as this is only loaded once)
- HD-DVD no region, Bluray Region A, DVD region 1 (A)
Disc playback problems
Reports of certain discs not working
- All Fox Titles, but if one plays, then they all play.
- Something about some DRM thing (conjecture)
- This does not happen for everyone.
- This is a developing issue and has been encountered on other players.
- This may be a network connectivity issue similar to the Transformers one below, with regard to downloading some sort of cookie or something (conjecture)
- Titles include
- Live Free or Die Hard
- Mr and Mrs Smith
- Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer
- Hangs on Transformers
- "Web Enabled Update" loading never quits.
- This has been seen on the Xbox360 (by me and others)
- Deleting the persistant memory (8MB) for Transformers cleared this on the 360
- This is probably some sort of network connectivity glitch, possibly on the studio end (conjecture)
Random Stuff
Load times?
- About 11 seconds from power off to the Samsung Logo.
- About 50 seconds total to get BD playing from power off.
- About 40 seconds total to get HD playing from power off.
- About on par with most recent players, as far as I can tell.
Auto standby?
- Yes.
- I think around 30 minutes.
- Not defeatable in the menus.
- Will do this if paused.
- Doesn't seem to take a long time to load from this, however.
Resume playback from stop? From power cycle?
- Yes, on both DVD and Bluray only.
- HD-DVD does not support this directly, but (thanks Nomb!)…
- You can use HD-DVD bookmarks by pressing the "B" button on the remote at any time while watching. You can later go back to these bookmarks by visiting a discs' "scenes" menu.
Is there a similar player on the market?
- Yes, the LG BH200 (although no analog multichannel outs)
- There is a shared problems thread on AVSForum.
Print / Online articles about the player
- HD Guru
- Gizmodo
- CNet
- Sound and Vision - this one mentions DTS-HD MA FW upgrade coming
- Electronic House