Electronics Store

Excellent for Blu-Rays, Netflix and Pandora/Fair to Good DLNA client
I got the BD-5500C model from Costco. That model comes with an HDMI cable. That's the only difference. (and it was much cheaper at least vs. today's amazon price. Sorry)

I connected the unit to an older Olevia Syntax 768P LCD with only 1 HDMI port so I needed to dig out my old Monoprice HDX-201E 2x1 powered HDMI switch since my DirecTV HD DVR was already using the HDMI port. There are no handshaking issues with this setup. It works perfectly.

I connected the unit to my gigabit LAN network via ethernet. I did the auto setup and it connected, passing all the tests.

It plays Blu-Rays beautifully. Even with the 768P display it's obviously better than DVDs. A couple Blu-Rays did not let me skip the preview so I had to search through them quickly. It did not let me go to the menu either. I had another Blu-Ray movie (from Blockbuster) that started freezing. After we removed it and wiped it a little it played well in the spots where it had been freezing. If you're going to stop the movie, take a note of your 'time in' because with Blu-Rays, there's no resume function. Find your way back to the movie and enter in the time with the Tools function.

I did try 1 DVD for a few minutes and it played fine. I'm probably never going to put in another DVD except for some home DVDs I have made.

The rest of the review is about the Extras:

Youtube has a clunky interface to use and it was disappointing. You do NOT get HD from HD available videos so what's the point?

Pandora is a lot of fun. It's the first time I tried that service and it's very cool. It's great with wireless phones connected too!

Netflix: I signed up for a trial (I've been a Blockbuster Online sub for a while) and HD videos stream flawlessly. However, at no fault to this unit, the streaming selection that they offer is limited and my wife and I were disappointed that most of those movies don't include closed captions. She has a mild-moderate hearing loss so the wireless headphones are crucial in that application. I don't know if we'll keep the Netflix subscription.

Blockbuster: On the other hand, I'm disappointed that their subscription service does NOT entitle you to their streaming content. I have not purchased any of their content.

Vudu: I haven't purchased any content so no comment.

Rovi TV Listings: This is a waste of time. The GUI is horrible. If you want to check your guide do yourself a favor and switch to the DVR.

The other "Internet @ TV" apps are mostly fluff. There's accuweather, google maps and USA Today. Believe it or not, there are some games like Memory, Quizz Master game, Sodoku, Mahjong.

DLNA: I tried the Samsung PC Manager software, TVersity, Mezzmo and Serviio. I found Serviio to do the best job of streaming pictures (from 2 PC profiles sources), music and videos. Formats I've streamed include .avi, .mp4 and .wmv. Unfortunately, you can not truly search forward and back but you can jump forward about 20 seconds using the right arrow button and you can jump back as well. You can also use the Tools button to enter the minute where you want to go to. This is not perfect yet. There are some files that don't play but it has been generally reliable and I would expect it improve with the development of Serviio which is free!! Lastly regarding DLNA it has worked better than I anticipated.

Since this player plays Blu-Rays smoothly, does Netflix and Pandora so well and is an adequate DLNA server, I do highly recommend it.

Since you don't have more precise control over trick play (fast forward/rewind) via DLNA, I am deducting a star to give it 4 stars.

Did you know ?
Hey Blue Ray shoppers.Please be aware that this Blue Ray will not play a lot of dvd's (1/4 of my collection) . After I bought my first Blue Ray disc I found out that I need to update it and I need to wait 7-14 business days before Samsung will send me the disc.Costumer support was horrible and mostly useless.Most of electronics I own are high end Samsung but looks like I will be considering all other brands after this expierience.

Great Player
I have been using it for about two weeks now. I was nervous reading all the reviews but now I can not understand what the noise was about!! It plays all my Blue Ray and DVDs perfectly. Netflix is awesome and so is Pandora! Of course it does not come with an HDMI cable (its like on eBay) or the wireless dongle, but it never claimed that it does. Great player at a great price.

Great Blu-Ray, OK Streaming, Poor DVD
I purchased (and ultimately exchanged) two of these players. The Blu-Ray experience is great & the streaming is basically good (but having to re-register my Netflix account seemingly every-other day was annoying), but the majority of what I was playing was DVDs, which are what make up the bulk of my library. The upscaling was fine, but at least 60% of the time, the machine had problems just getting to the root menu of the disc. It would either freeze up on the previews (which it adamantly would NOT let me skip, unlike my old Pioneer, which would pretty much cut a straight line to the movie if I wanted it to), or it would choke on menu navigation and I would have to try again. While I could normally get things going after a few minutes of fiddling (there were only a couple of titles that simply wouldn't play), this was ultimately a deal-breaker - if it advertises that its compatible with the older format, then I expect something resembling a decent experience.

To sum up, its fine if you want something for Blu-Ray or the streaming features it offers, but don't expect it to play nice with all your old DVDs.

Great product with a great catch.
I just bought this product. Looks nice and slick. However, the box says it is wireless ready but they don't include the adapter. Even worse, you can't use another adapter than a Samsung. On top of that, the damn adapter costs , where you can get a regular adapter for !

That's not an honest strategy from Samsung. And even though I can afford the adapter, I will return the product.

Powering Creativity
I chose the 930 because of it's price/performance balance. It can easily be overclocked to 4.0+ GHz and runs cool at stock speed. And the quad-core technology works great with my Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate OS. Go Intel or go home.

No need to buy the Intel extreme
With a decent motherboard, this CPU will run comfortably at 3.8GHz with an air cooler, and at 4.2GHz with better cooling. And it will be rock-solid! It eats through my games and converts or encodes audio and video faster than any CPU I have owned so far. I hear it is being phased out like the i7-920 before it, and will be replaced in this price spot by the i7-950. Although buying the LGA1366 platform is expensive, this is what you purchase if you want the best desktop platform available today.

Intel Core I7
I built an Adobe CS5 System for one of my customer with limited budget, and the I7-930 did the job.

It is much much smoother than the I7-920 and as good as any of its brother I7-940, and any others later. What I meant is that it's a few hundreds dollars less than the I7-940, and it can do the same job. It's extremely fast with ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 mobo with triple memory channels and with Window 7 64 bits operation system.

The HD Video display is as good as any blue-ray DVD you displayed on your TV with any current video card over 0.00; much of the credit goes to the CPU and it's triple memory channels. I means nothing can't go wrong with Radeon HD 5770 or above.

The fan comes with the I7-930 is so quiet. I can't even tell whether my board is posted.

Unless you have extra dollars to throw away, I would recommend the I7-930 would be perfect to fit your budget and do the extreme jobs you want it to do.

i7-930 is hot performer
I have the i7-930 installed in a high end ASUS X58 MB W/Corsair Dominator 1600 MHz memory. The system works well and and the memory operates at rated speed. The 930 is provided from Intel with speed step technology and mostly operates at 12X of BCLK (133MHz) and a Vcore=0.93v. When the930 is in a hurry, it operates at 21X of BCLK and a Vcore=1.25v. When the 930 is operating flat out 23X of BCLK and 4 cores with 8 threads running Prime 95 the CPU goes into thermal runaway above 71 degrees C (I stopped here) after about 15 min. Oh! by the way I am running the Cooler Master V8 CPU high performance cooler at 2100RPM in a Cooler Master HAF922 case. So, this CPU runs so hot that it cannot be over-clocked without water cooling or danger of burnout. This is my reason for 4 stars plus the fact that the 930 is slow to enter the flat out mode. I would think you could get as good or better performance from one of the new unlocked i7-800 series CPUs with over-clocking. The only limitation being a limit of graphic cards performance. But the CPU performed as advertised by Intel.

Runs Great!
The i7-930 was purchased for my desktop system. I'm running ubuntu 10-04 with 12gb memory on two monitors. The CPU runs lighting fast with no problems. Re-touching photographs and running other applications make this CPU a complete joy. The price is reasonable for all the benefits you receive.

Love this TV!
I saw this TV in a store and was blown away by the picture quality. The price was too high so I didn't buy it. I checked on Amazon and saw the price was almost 0 cheaper so I bought it here. We have not had any issues at all with the TV (had it since April 24th) and the guys that brought it into the house were great. They set it all up and took away all of the boxes.

ETA: I have not had any color/light bleeding..the picture is amazing!

Awesome!
I've had this TV for about 3 weeks now and all I can say is - Awesome!
Samsung must have fixed the issues some people mention because I do not see any bleeding light. I did a firmware update when I got the TV.

I bought an HD calibration DVD to set the picture and after I did that the picture is incredible. The default settings will kill your eyes.

The 3d movies look great and are fun to watch. I have played a few games on the PS3 in 3d and those look good and seeing the depth in games is actually great, I imagine Gran Turismo 5 and Killzone 3 in 3d will be insane!

The TVs internet connectivity is really cool too, I stream netflix directly from the TV. I can also connect any Hard drive to the TV (or use a wifi media center) to play all my media -- really nice feature.

If your looking for a TV and can get the bundle set from Amazon with the blue-ray player, 2 glasses, a movie AND free shipping --- get it!

No regrets with this TV at all

Best 3D TV
Sorry, I did not buy this TV from Amazon, could not wait after seeing various demos. What can I say about the TV, best purchase ever made, was able to hook it up in less then 5 minutes. Has lots of additional features, my favorites are the Internet related, specifically, Netflix, been playing lots of movies using wi-fi dongle, no problem what so ever, no drops, lagging, delay nothing. Picture quality is awesome, I could watch hi-def programming all day along. All share (DLNA) option is great, multi tasking is not available, i.e. can not view pictures and listen to music on the remote PC same time, hope I am right on this one. It would have been nice if you could hear music in the background while viewing pictures etc.. Agree with some of the other customers thou, on the remote control you can not feel the keys, it's pretty uniform, you actually, have to look at keys when pressing but, it's kinda cool remote, looks pretty sexy, reminded me of some of the Apple products. Allover, if I were to buy a TV again, Samsung would be first choice, thank you Samsung for makaing a great TV. It's winner.

This set ROCKS!
I bought this almost as soon as it was available (ok, I waited a couple of weeks after it was released until the first package deal with glasses, 3-D DVD Player, and the stupid Monsters 3d movie), wanted to use it a while a while before I published a review.

I've had it about 4 months now, so it's time.

This television ROCKS!!! The picture is amazing, *everybody* who sees it is instantly jealous. Then I tell the to look from the side, and they are again blown away...it's 1" thick! I mounted it on a power-tilt wall mount...as soon as it comes on, it tilts down form the wall, and back up when I turn it off. They sell the mounts on Amazon, but I was in too much a hurry and got it from a local big-box store (for more $). Definitely a great accessory for this set, and at 50 lbs you can use mounts meant for smaller sets (as long as the VESA is right).

There are a bunch of apps (which seem to want to "update" precisely when I try to show off this feature to my friends...not a great selling point, but if I used the apps more often it wouldn't happen exactly when I was trying to show off!), that are neat and some are quite useful. It was easy to match my set to the different services. ***Computer required to look up website and enter your tv's unique number before using app***. Netflix streaming rental app is really nice (although the movies for streaming aren't the newest ones) and I ditched my Blockbuster mail-in service immediately after realizing their app only *sells* movies, no rentals, and the Netflix combo mail and streaming was cheaper anyhow. The YouTube app is great, have watched lots of those in full screen mode. Weather, traffic, and other stuff too. I tend to just watch TV on the set most of the time.

I bought the 3-D DVD player, too, which seems to have the same apps...so there's too much redundancy for my taste there. Also, as soon as I turn on the DVD player, it takes over the TV immediately...that blows, sometimes I want to give the DVD a chance to warm up and get staged while I'm watching the end of something else. No *real* problem, just grab the remote and switch inputs again...but annoying for sure.

The sound leaves something to be desired...but what can you expect from a 1" thick television??? I feed the output to a Samsung soundbar with wireless subwoofer and all is well!

Controls are pretty intuitive, all made sense. The remote is really neat and shiny silver, and there are strange (color a/b/c/d) buttons I have no idea what they do...but I could look it up if I wanted. They may be macros or something. The DVD player's remote is similar, and can control some of the TV functionality, too...which I like.

3D is...well...there, and still under development by broadcasters. I haven't done much with that, as there's not that much to do. I didn't realize some World Cup games were broadcast in 3D, or I would have tried to stand that horrible buzzing sound form those obnoxious horns to see how it looked. "Converting" regular signals to 3-D seems silly, but every now and then you can see an effect. A basketball game did look 3D-ish, for sure. The glasses are a bit less comfortable than I'd like, so I prefer to watch in 2D without them on. As channels are added with 3D, I may change my mind. The "kids" (adult kids) like messing with that stuff.

There is something about the picture...it's so High Def, so "real", that for a while everything looked like a soap opera. It's hard to describe what I'm trying to say. Everything seemed to have that "soap opera feel" to it, some stuff was kind of uncomfortable to watch for some reason. We got over it, I guess, because we don't notice it anymore...but visitors mention how "real" things look and I think they are noticing the same thing we used to see.

Very happy with decision to buy this from Amazon. Unit arrived exactly when it was supposed, to. The delivery guys called in advance, and were very polite. If I wasn't going to wall-mount it, they would have taken it out of the box and set it up for me. I bought the 4 year Square Trade warranty from Amazon, too...repairing this thing only once would have to cost WAY more than the price of the warranty!

Very satisfied, very happy customer.

SAMSUNG TV
THE TV IS AWESOME! YOU DO NEED TO HOOK UP A SURROUND SOUND SYSTEM TO GET THE QUALITY OF SOUND.

Great Blu-ray player that exceeds my old one
This is my second blu-ray player. My Sony S350 died after only 21 months of use and about 50+ blu-rays and 100+ dvd's. I was pretty disappointed with that track record, so I opted for a Panasonic this time.
On setup, it loaded MUCH faster than my Sony did. Power on was a matter of seconds. Setup took about 30 seconds at most.
There is a quicker boot time option, but it uses up more energy.

The remote is much smaller, which is preferred to the rather large remote Sony had. The menu is really easy to navigate for me. I can automatically choose from disc, sd, usb, or Internet apps right at startup.
Setup is much easier to navigate than the Sony.

I put in a DVD to begin with and I was less than impressed by it's up-conversion. After looking at the manual, I was able to use USER settings to alter the settings a bit and back to SETUP to set the resolution to the highest ( 1080P/1080i/720P depending on your set ). Huge improvement after that.
It upconverts better than my Sony did. After an hour of use I had a weird cut out on the HDMI signal. Resumed in 2 seconds, though. May be my TV.

Next, I put in a Blu-Ray. Looked the exact same as the Sony. Perhaps a little bit sharper, but mostly the same. I was testing it with Shutter Island. Then I put in Monsters vs. Aliens and amped up the user settings and activated 24p. NOW, it looks better. I'd say a noticeable improvement over the old Sony.

Tried the SD card, and was able to load pictures rather quick. Unable to play video, though. Have not tried the USB connection yet.

Internet setup I used a wired connection over At&T Uverse. Connected in seconds. Netflix picture is not quite as good as my Roku, but barely noticable in picture quality. Roku is still better and completely wireless. I'll rarely use the Net on the blu-ray unless my Roku dies. Youtube is sort of fun.

The audio is vastly improved over my Sony. There is a dialogue enhancer and a night surround which even with headphones make s difference. We have little kids, so it's important to have good sound without a large system.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed. It's an upgrade from my Sony and loads pretty much any discs I throw at
it: BD, DVD, CD, DV-R, DV-RW, SD.

It's also much quieter than my old Sony S350. Less heat too. Sony lost me, I'm sticking with Panasonic from now on.

Full-featured, high performance, 1.5x speed playback, lackluster remote and menu
I was in the market for a Blu-Ray player with streaming capability, in order to save wear and tear on my PS3 (which I had been using for both in addition to game play). Now is a good time in the market for this, as BD players with these capabilities near the hundred mark in cost.

OK, let me get this player's flaws out of the way:

-The remote has neither Subtitle nor Angle buttons. Instead, these functions are hidden in a sub-menu requiring no fewer than 5 button presses to alter. Also, the button that accesses this menu is not on the main hub of buttons, but is a smaller one above - very hard to see in a darkened room. The non-backlit remote had a myriad of buttons intended to control your television and a/v receiver. These buttons should have been axed in favor of more direct control over the player itself. Serious enthusiasts will never use this remote to control their other gear.

-The menu system itself has a very antiquated feel and is not organized particularly helpfully. In order to engage this player's 24 fps mode (which sends Blu-Ray video encoded at 24 fps to compatible televisions with no frame interpolation), you have to dig through a bunch of menus, only to find it under "HDMI Setting" (not "Video" or "Output"). And naturally, this mode is set at default to OFF. This is but one example of a lack of user friendliness that pervades the menu. Newbies to home theater will probably run into difficulties and confusion, and may never discover the options they're missing out on. I've used a lot of machines, and this menu was among the worst.

-The player itself is a bit small. This is a personal preference which other users may not share, but I would have preferred a depth of 10 inches or so to allow component stacking, as opposed to the 7 inch depth of this player. This means I'll have to buy a shelf to put my PS3 on.

-The player does not have digital coaxial output for audio, which many older receivers have. You must either use HDMI or optical digital (SPDIF).

All right. That pretty much covers the faults. Everything else is roses from here on out:

-Blu-Ray playback is at least as good as the PS3 Slim I had been using. Detail, black level, and color performance are all comparable. There are several picture-affecting settings hidden away in menus, but most should be left OFF or DEFAULT, as with most players and TVs. DVD playback is also good, and, like the PS3, this player allows you to view a video in Fast-Forward with stereo audio (at roughly 1.5x speed). This is a great time-saving feature that my wife and I utilize frequently, especially with TV shows on DVD.

-Netflix streaming quality is also comparable to the PS3, with the added benefit that there is no need to put a disc into the drive. It is hidden on the "Viera Cast" menu, an ugly-looking collection of onscreen boxes that is accessed with the similarly named tiny button on the remote. Anyway, the player had no trouble locking into "HD" resolution, even though we have an average cable modem connection. We run a wired network through the house, so I cannot speak to the connection quality with the wireless adapter (not included). Your mileage may vary, but I can say that compared to the other Netflix streaming devices we own, this one is in the upper tier (my TV frequently drops out of HD mode on the same wired connection).

-Power consumption is low (17-20w) and heat generation is negligible (i.e. not as warm as the PS3 Slim). It's nice to know that I don't need to run the PS3 at 70-80w any more just to watch a DVD.

Summary:

All in all, especially for this price, you really can't go wrong with this player as a standard bearer for your video needs. Throw in CD and MP3 capability (whether on disc or on USB media), and you've got a multi-tasking workhorse for cheap. If only they packaged a better remote, I'd give this 5 stars. I don't feel bad docking a star, because a remote control is the primary means the user has of interacting with the machine. Adding extra layers of annoyance alters the user experience. But let's not damn with faint praise. This is a great unit in every other respect that offers a lot of bang for the buck.

Verizon FIOS user beware
Overall, this is a good Blu Ray player and reasonably affordable. However, I have Verizon FIOS TV/phone/internet-bundle, and this Panasonic model has problem connecting wirelessly to the router. Ethernet connection is great, but wireless connection won't work. Tried to change encryption method on the router, but still no go. Will need to call Verizon and/or Panasonic for wireless assistance. BTW, unlike other units, AVATAR blu ray movie disc works flawlessly on this one.

Great Blu-Ray and NetFlix player
All positives for this Panasonic Blu-Ray player. I got it out of the box, plugged it in, connected the ethernet cable and then sat back to watch outstanding video. Setup time was less than 15 minutes and it was really easy to get it plugged into the surround sound amp. The sound from the Blu-Ray is probably the most amazing part of this technology. The sound puts you right in the middle of the movie - far better than anything I have ever heard from DVD. THe picture quality is excellent - very sharp and clear - as it should be. I just ordered another for the other TV. The remote control is very intuitive and the buttons are well laid out. It is fairly easy for everyone in the family to learn. Great player.

The Future Today
Streaming video is the future of in-home entertainment and the BD65 is a capable unit. It pairs up well with my Panasonic Plasma. Boot time is a smidge slow but on my network the setup was as easy as plugging it in. No IP addresses to enter and the detection process did all the work. The video quality is perfectly acceptable but the feature set of the unit is not as rich as other manufacturers. Panasonic recently provided a ROM upgrade to increase the number of video-on-demand options on the BD65 - a nice feature - but the update process was complicated and not automatic on my network. Panasonic could work on making this easier when the automatic update fails, as it did on my unit and network.

Great keyboard, weak mouse
I got this for the shape of the keyboard and t he fact that it was very slim both vertically and in depth. They keys feel nice and responsive and it is very easy to fit on even a cluttered desk. However the mouse is basically unusable, with a sticky wheel and only two buttons and an uncomfortable shape. For occasional use it would be alright, but not as a working mouse. Luckily I had a nice mouse already and all I really wanted was the keyboard, so it worked out for me.

Pretty slick products
This pair replaces the keyboard that came standard with a Dell desktop, and a Logitech wireless mouse that was new in 2002 that eats batteries. Both are great improvements. The keys are standard sized and type crisply. The mouse is super-sensitive, as another reviewer mentioned, and I love it. I hope the battery gobbling days are gone. I cannot believe the quality for the modest price for the pair. Installation instructions were easy to follow, and the process took about ten minutes.

Good value, sleek form factor, works with Ubuntu/Crunchbang 9.04
I hemmed and hawed between this, the HP Wireless Elite Keyboard and Mouse, the Logitech Wireless Desktop MK 300, and the IOGear Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel, 2.4GHz Wireless GKM561R (Black). I went with this because it was cheaper than the HP set, sleeker than the Logitech set, and had a number pad and separate mouse, unlike the IOGEAR set. I haven't been disappointed. The mouse works well and the keyboard keys feel nice and responsive, the range is solid, keystrokes never get dropped, the battery life has been good for the few weeks I've owned this set, and the set works out-of-the-box on both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux 9.04 without the included software. Extras like that software are the only flaws, really; I use the product with a monitor to make a desktop environment for my Asus Eee 1000HE running Windows XP, and the software doesn't enable functionality on the media keys. All it did was add a little window to the corner of the screen as a virtual indicator of when caps/number/shift lock are on/off, which I just close anyway because the stock Asus overlay already has a pop-up for that. I get the feeling that the extra keys were specifically meant for Windows Media Center, or another program that I never run. In Windows, the program launcher keys do work - they launch Windows Media Player, My Computer, and Calculator - but the extra functions, such as skip/play/pause and volume, do not, even in Windows Media Player.

Overall, really, the lack of functionality on gimmicky extra keys is a very small gripe; the keyboard and mouse have both been great, especially for the price. The mouse and keyboard work pretty well as media center controls from the couch using the mouse against pillows, the armrest, etc., although juggling both can be a little awkward. Because I use these mostly as desktop peripherals, I think this set works better for me than the IOGEAR set would have; however, if I were using primarily from a couch, I'd give the IOGEAR set a lot more consideration, mostly since I wouldn't have to deal with both devices separately.

slimmmm
this is a great keyboard. slim and elegant. the mouse is quite sensitive which i kinda dont like but doesnt bother me. some people may enjoy this feature.

Too "Flat" For Me
I tried this keyboard out and it is just not conformed enough for me. I had a hard time hitting the keys properly thus making my typing harder than normal. It greatly reduced my speed and it is something that just doesn't work well with me.