Samsung DVD-C500 Upconverting DVD Player (Black)

A good, reliable DVD player. I have several DVDs from Anime distributors, which use DVDs that for some reason are harder to play with hardware players. The ones I tested were Yuyushiki and Astarotte no Omocha!, both of which can only be obtained from the anime distribution websites and nowhere like Amazon. I tried some of those anime shows in a Toshiba Blu-Ray player, only to discover that the playback was choppy (referring to video, the audio was just fine). It was the Blu-Ray player, because the DVDs play just fine on my computer. I tried other anime DVDs (Lucky Star collection) on the Blu-Ray player, aware that the collection is known-good. It worked just fine, so it seems the Blu-Ray player just disagreed with something that the third-party distributors did. Hence, I returned the Blu-Ray player and I bought this model of DVD player from Amazon. I immediately tested the choppy-playback DVDs (which were otherwise clean and new) and the playback was just fine. In fact, the quality was just as good as if I were to play the discs on my computer. When you buy this DVD player and turn it on, the only question it asks you is what language the interface is supposed to use. After that, the DVD player goes right to the menu screen. This menu screen is frugal with features and options, but the Settings menu has HDMI, video, and audio options which are staples of any DVD player. There is no network connection possible, which is just fine. Most Blu-Ray players require Internet connectivity to properly play back all features of the Blu-Ray (using the Java virtual machine) and to keep up with firmware updates (often needed to decrypt later discs for which a new key is needed). This DVD player has no such need for updates or DVD connectivity features, which makes it inherently more stable than Blu-Rays that the market wants to sell customers. The only problem with this DVD player is that it does not have a fast-forward capability. It has chapter-skip, but that is not helpful when trying to watch a moment over again (because you have to skip the beginning and watch the entire thing over again to get to the same point that you want to repeat). If this had fast-forward it would have been perfect, but the sheer fact that it plays my third party anime DVDs - that don't work in other players - outweighs this fact for me, specifically. As long as you keep the disc laser and the DVDs clean, this player should never fail to play a DVD properly. I'm very happy with this player, considering it was fairly cheap to purchase. I highly recommend this model.

As I haven't had this long, this will be initial impressions, but for now. First player was DOA, the tray wouldn't open, but Amazon were great about sending a replacement that arrived the next day and UPS picked up the dead player. This player is hackable to make it regionless following instructions at this link: [...] You're looking for the description by Milesy, April 06 2011. It's detailed and easy to follow. On the grid of numbers mentioned, I didn't have 8 or 22 highlighted, so I left them alone and only changed the 3 to a 2 in the first step and then followed the second step of the process and it worked perfectly. As the player is inside a cabinet, we can't hear the DVD tray noise that other people have mentioned, but even with the cabinet open, it's not noticeably loud at all. The firmware on the player, which is one shy of the current one listed on the Samsung website has fixed the issue of the player not turning on when you open the DVD tray, so that you don't have to power it up first, so that's no longer a issue. Set up was easy, I used a HDMI cable I had, but it's a shame that one isn't included, just component cables. The video and audio quality is great and the upscaling does look really impressive, much better than our old Philips player, which also did a great job. Some initial cons would be the lack of full control buttons on the front of the player. You have power, tray open and play/pause. Also it's a shame the player can't play mpeg4 type movie files, even though the info in the settings says the system is a C550, which is the model up that has the USB socket to allow those files. It's also a little slow to load up when switched off, but on the other hand it does go straight back to where you were if you stopped a movie mid way through and it also loads up the movie pretty quickly. Over all I say it's a really good player, especially considering it's $40. I did knock one star off though because it didn't have the newest firmware already installed and the first player was DOA. Edit: I initially said it came with a component cable, I meant it came with a regular red/white/yellow video/audio cable. There are also AAA batteries for the remote.

For a really low price-point DVD player this is great. We bought one some time ago to replace an 12 year old failed unit in the Living Room. The ease of use is amazing compared to the old one, just load the disc and hit "Start" without any additional settings and it plays. If CC or ZOOM is wanted it can be done dynamically while the movie is playing. It works so well on our older Living Room steup, even though it uses component video (RCA jacks), that we bought an additional one for the bedroom. The bedroom hooks up using an HDMI cable to a Plasma TV. The DVDs play far better than satellite on this HDTV at 1080p. We are really Happy with this high level of price performance.

This upconverting DVD player is very small and slim and lightweight. The quality of the picture on my new plasma TV is excellent. I compared the same DVD played on my previous (5 years old) Samsung player with this player and the difference was obvious. I'm guessing this improvement is due to two reasons: the upconverting process plus the HDMI output. The player also has Component and Composite outputs, but the picture is much better using an HDMI cable to the TV. One slim cable for excellent picture and sound compared to the five bulky cables required by my previous player -- that is also a big improvement. ** Update 8/14/2011 ** This DVD player and remote are still working very well. ** Update 9/13/2012 ** Still working perfectly after a couple of years of frequent use. ** Update 10/9/2013 ** Player and remote still working perfectly. ** Update 02/9/2015 ** Everything still working perfectly. In contrast to some other reviews, my player is fairly quiet. And it resumes a disk left in the player right where I stopped it.

The nicest thing that I can say about this DVD player is that WHEN it works, it works fine. Unfortunately, it chooses to not work on a regular basis. This is particularly evident with DVDs of TV shows. Some discs will simply not play (even though every other disc of the season does just fine), and on some discs only a few episodes will play. These discs and episodes play just fine on my laptop. Go back a month later, though, and discs that wouldn't play will now play fine and discs that played fine will play no longer. I also find it annoying (although not disastrous) that when the DVD player is on, it insists on automatically switching your TV's function to the DVD player. Even if you change it to something else (cable, gaming system, etc), it will just change itself right back. The power has to be completely off for your TV to work in any other capacity. Loud tracking and clicking noises are also frustrating. Subtitles will randomly appear at odd times and in different languages (while the remote is 5 feet away, so I know it's not my fault). Also will not work reliably with other Samsung remotes. The biggest problem, however, is it's failure to play DVDs about 50% of the time. I've tried to figure out how I could be at fault, but ultimately I think that the player is just a waste of money. After two months of wrestling with this DVD player, I'll be buying a new one soon and donating this one.

I bought this DVD player because the one I had was the old RCA connection, and I needed HDMI to connect to my TV. The first few times I fired it up it was a bit loud, but after the third or forth use it is rather quiet. It also has the playback feature where when you turn it on it goes to the last spot on the DVD you watched, which is great too. Remote control works great too. All and all I am happy.

No surprises here. It's cheap. On the plus side, it's very lightweight, has a decent menu interface, and it works, for now. It can read several formats I didn't expect it to, and it has an HDMI port. It only takes a moment to boot, maybe 5-10 seconds. It's very simple to operate, only 3 buttons on the front, Eject, Stop/Play, Power. Nothing surprising on the remote. The exterior is constructed of some very thin sheets of metal and plastic. I would not recommend placing anything too heavy on top of it, not even a small flat-screen, as tempting as all that footprint is. If you flip it upside down, you will find only two feet in the back side, and they are some cheap hard plastic ones. Honestly, rubber feet don't cost that much, this is not where they should be cutting corners. Mine did not sit flat. I had to purchase some rubber feet for $1.59 at a local hardware store and stick them on. The noise it generates is bearable, barely. The motor sounds like it's straining to open and close the tray. I don't expect it last long before the tray gets stuck. All it would take to impress me is if this tray keeps working. I can't rate this too harshly, since it is cheap, but I don't think it is cheap enough. I expect this quality from a $30-$35 unit. They could have gone cheap on the remote and the software and spent more of that on the hardware, specifically the motors and the exterior construction. I wasn't expecting lots of features out of a cheap unit. Just one that works well.

I was looking for a new DVD player, one that is region-free and compatible with WMA and AVI files. Well, I did not see any way to make it region-free; the manual says nothing about this, although this player came up in a search for "multi-region DVD players." (And I don't have the necessary tools to activate a code remotely.) Also, it does not play AVI files. Perhaps it was my mistake for not verifying this, but for some reason I thought that it was supposed to. I might have ignored these things if it's regular functions didn't bother me. The most annoying thing is the high-pitched whine that starts whenever starting a regular DVD. (Tried multiple discs.) I've had a number of players and never had that happen. The buttons on front are very basic - only power, open/close, and play. You can't even stop the player. Also, you can only open/close if the power is on, while on other players I've had, that button will also automatically turn the power on. The control isn't very intuitive, and when skipping forward or going to the next or previous chapter, an annoying info box comes up on the screen. In short, this has limited functionality, seems cheaply made, and has some unappealing nonessential features.

One cable, one remote and you're good to go. I am so pleased with this DVD player. Being addicted to British programming, this player is a must and I don't regret the purchase one bit. I was expecting the switch from my satellite to dvd player to be as complicated as my blue ray dvd and it was so simple it took me awhile to figure it out. That done, I can now switch between the two with my eyes closed. I HIGHLY recommend this player for those who purchase European region dvds. Great value for the money and so sleek it takes up very little room.

Excellent delivery and item works perfectly

great! plays dvds from Europe.

VERY NOISY

excellent!