Digital Home Thoughts: Samsung's BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player: Dysfunctional in the Extreme

This is the review I posted to Amazon.com. I figured I'd share it with the esteemed readers of this site - you'll want to avoid this product.

As a Blu-ray player, I have no signifant complaints other than by default the Bonus View is turned on and it will say the words "Bonus View" in every second of the movie. You have to go into the settings to turn this off - you can't turn if off with the remote, which is hugely irritating. Oh, and it's pretty sluggish starting up and with most menu functions. The REAL problem, and trust me when I say this, is this player's incompatibility with regular DVDs. Out of the box, I had problems with the player sputtering and stuttering while playing regular DVDs. And these were brand new DVDs, with nary a scratch or smudge. I tried updating the firmware - same problem. I used a DVD head cleaner - same problem. I called Samsung and sent it in for repair, got it back, and the third regular DVD I tried it it ("Cellular") started skipping wildly about half-way through. This is a brand new DVD, the first time playing it. Samsung released a buggy product, and they've already released a newer version (the BD-P1600), leaving all owners of this current product in the lurch. Do not buy this product - it's a classic case of a big company releasing a flawed product them quickly replacing it.