My New Blu-ray Player

Ever since the hi-def DVD format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray was resolved in favor of the latter, I've been shopping around for a Blu-ray DVD player. Finally bought the Samsung BD-P3600 and after using it for a couple of weeks, I'd say I'm totally satisfied.

The player looks minimalistically sleek and cool. Unlike a traditional DVD player, its front is completely smooth and clean and the playback buttons, which are touch-sensitive, have been moved to the top of the player. Blu-ray discs load up at speeds comparable to the loading speed on regular DVD players. The picture is ofcourse noticeably sharper on Blu-ray and watching a movie is now even more of a pleasure. Even regular DVDs look better than they did on my earlier upconverting DVD player.

The improved picture quality is a given for any Blu-ray player but it was the goodies on the BD-P3600 that helped make my decision easier. First, it supports Netflix streaming. Setting up Netflix was a breeze with movies added to the Instant Queue(on the computer) being available for watching immediately. Netflix has a pretty good collection now and the movies can be paused, FFed, etc. Second, the player supports file sharing for photos, MP3s and video. So I can connect to my desktop to flip through photo slideshows, watch movies, etc. No more hooking up the laptop to the TV for this. And the biggest advantage for me is that the above can be done wirelessly since the player comes with a USB Wi-Fi dongle. With the router at the opposite end of the house from the DVD player, the wireless connection isn't the strongest. The Netflix streaming quality, for instance, was only half of what was possible. Still, the movie started in just a few seconds, was eminently watchable quality-wise and played without any interruptions.

Now for two quibbles. While connecting to a computer is easy, the player doesn't save the settings. This means the IP address, folder name, user name and password must all be entered manually each time the file sharing feature is used. With an onscreen keyboard, this is not a fun task. Also, the player has a limited set of codecs and so recognizes only some AVIs. AVIs created with unsupported codecs and other video formats(like MP4s or DVD files) are not playable. I'm just hoping that these, especially the first, will be fixed with a future firmware update.

If you are shopping for a Blu-ray player and you are a Netflix member, this one's a no-brainer. If your answer is "No" to either of those, what are you waiting for? :)