Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung BD-P1600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

This is a good value for a blu-ray player with the new online features available such as Netflix, Pandora, and BD-Live. It is small and easy to install and setup. I use the HDMI output to my Samsung HDTV and the Optical Digital Audio output to my AV receiver. The Anynet+ feature is convenient which helps the Samsung components work together reducing button pushing. I hooked up an ethernet cable and easily got it online and setup with my pre-existing accounts with Netflix and Pandora. I've read BD-Live requires a USB 1GB flash drive. I have download cable modem speeds in 6MB/s range so the picture quality is very good from Netflix, I'd say equivalent to upconverted DVD quality. Audio quality from Pandora is also excellent and the commercial-free music service is supreme. Blu-ray DVDs look fantastic and upconverted standard DVDs look great too. This does not have the higher-end HQV chip to my knowledge. The face pushbutton interface is cool and has a high-tech feel to it. Load time is very fast - about 8 to 10s. The menus look good and are easy to navigate. No complaints here. I'm very pleased getting all these features for entry level money.

I bought one of these to replace a PS3 because I hated that it looked like a wart in my setup, had a loud fan, and could not bitstream. Finally there is a small blu-ray standalone that is fast, has a great picture and can bitstream advanced audio. It looks great in the rack and the netflix/pandora features are a nice bonus. I won't be missing the PS3 at all.

BTW, it is known that a 1GB usb drive is needed for BD live enabled titles. If you do not have one installed, and are not internet connected BD-live titles will not play unless BD-Live is disabled under the settings. I don't know why it is enabled by default, but the couple of guys that had unplayable discs could have fixed that problem my disabling BD-Live or inserting a 1GB flash drive. A little research will yield a lot.

Since the player is brand new (almost pre-release) there may be hiccups, but expect firmware to address them as they are found. As is, the player is playing all my blu-rays spectacularly. This is a great player. Don't hesitate if the features meet your needs.

This blu-ray player functions well and is reasonably priced. Blu-ray loading takes about 20 seconds. Picture quality is excellent. My only negative comment is that the motor is noisy, which makes for a rather distracting whirring sound - much more noticeable than my standard dvd player - that is ever present in the background. This would be fine if the unit were stored in a cabinet to muffle the sound.

I got this unit to replace an aging DVD player, relieve some stress from my PS3 and replace an older Netflix streaming video player. The price point for this unit makes it affordable to anyone wanting to enter the Blu-Ray market for the first time. The additional features such as Netflix make it a no brainer in my opinion. If you are already a subscriber to Netflix, why not watch the Instant Movies on your TV instead of your laptop or computer? The biggest issue I see people having is that the wording by Samsung about "wireless" is confusing since it does not have "wireless" access out of the box. They offer a dongle you can purchase separately (not yet available), but I found that for the same price you can buy an Ethernet Bridge Linksys by Cisco WET610N Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge with Dual-Band and just used the wired port. The advantage here is that the bridge can be used for any device, so if you change out the player with something else in the future, your investment in the bridge is protected. I also got the added bonus in that my TV is a Samsung so with their "Anynet" system I could do away with 3 remotes now (TV, DVD Player, Netflix Box) and just use this one.

Bottom Line: The unit is priced to sell and is a great value when you consider the included Netflix streaming video application (requires Netflix subscription). You don't have to worry about firmware updates if you utilize the network port since you can just have the system download firmware updates as required in the future.

I was actually looking to purchase a Sony blu-ray player, one that I use at work. However, I was very intrigued by the Netflix and Pandora options built into some of the Samsung and LG units. After reading some of the reviews here I decided to purchase the Samsung BD-P1600.

The setup was easy (but I don't normally have difficulty with AV setup). The startup time for the unit was faster than that of my Sony and I felt the main menu was more logical too. I was on Pandora in a few minutes as I activated the player on my laptop while setting up the unit. (A note: I decided to run a network cable to this unit). The Pandora service is nice, not great, but it is free. I was also able to activate my box on Netflix's site in just a few minutes. I played a DVD to test, and the picture was beautiful (I have the unit connected to a projector via a component to RGB cable).

At first I was having trouble getting the Netflix movies in my Watch Instantly queue to play on the unit - they were not loading. The unit was able to connect to Netflix to bring up my queue, but none of the movie images or the movies themselves were loading. I initially thought the problem was a memory issue and plugged in a flash drive to the unit...but it was clear the unit was not using the drive when attempting to acquire the movies. After about an hour of searching Netflix and Samsung's site and finding no issues such as this, I checked the log of my network router. I found that the connection to Netflix's site was successful at times (pulling the queue), but that a lot of incoming packets were being dropped. I have had a few incoming services on my Internet connection over the past few years (e.g. VPN, Vonage, etc) so I thought perhaps the player/netflix were using a port assigned to an existing service and were trying to send the packets to the computer hosting those services. I removed all services that I was not using (VPN, Vonage, and remote IP printing) and I also made sure that the samsung unit was assigned a specific IP based on its MAC address. Once I did all these things and rebooted the router, the box was able to pull everything in from Netflix.

Being an IT guy by profession, I should have known better than to try too many things at once, because now I'm not sure specifically what was the issue. But if I were a betting person, I put money on the port conflict. (I set the unit up last night and am writing the review in the morning, so I have not had the chance to try and mess things up again to find the true issue). I felt it was important to note this issue just in case someone else out there has the same problem.

The only reason I give this unit a 4 out of 5 rating is due to the lag in response it appears to have at times. It is not as quick to respond to remote control "clicks" as fast as I would like, but it is not terrible. It just seems like the unit it "processing" your input for a few seconds. If you get a little impatient (like me) and click other buttons in the meantime, the unit can take a little longer. Overall, though, I love the unit.