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.

Really GOOD machine. I've had mine 1-1/2 years. On my unit, the buttons on front have to be touched "just right" or they don't respond, so you have to get friendly with it, which is a small adjustment, no trouble. Good memory, quick load... pretty good with defective discs (I get some from the library that are hopeless)....simple and non-redundant....mostly fool-proof The remote died at about 1 year, but getting a good universal is smart..I did not get a warranty replacement that I was entitled to. I just bought another C500 for my mother, and the RCA RCR503BR remote (which I might wish I had for myself). I WAS shopping for a Sony that comes with a "multi-brand" remote, but the people at Sony had wrong information everywhere, and were a useless and frustrating waste of time just as they have been in my past (very bad) experience. They had very good products 40 years ago, but now I'd rather do business with better companies with intelligent, organized support.

Oct 2014. It has all the outputs I've ever used including the one I needed for proper aspect playback, component. It has HDMI, Component, Composite, L/R audio. This player appears to be very good. The unit played flawlessly through a commercial disk which had multiple confirmed glitches on another manufacturer's player. It has played every DVD I tried including, commercial, DVD-R, Full Screen, Wide Screen on standard definition, and native wide formats such as 2.35, 16:9, 16:9 letterboxed (2.35), and 4:33. One way or the other I managed to get the aspect correct and usually it was trivial. Normally I adjust with the TV but it appears the player will do the adjustments also. The controls are a little weird at times including one time the player had to be unplugged to reboot it. This happened when I was called away after powering up and did not insert a DVD soon enough. The tray opening sounds harsh but might be fine. Only time will determine its long term durability. Check with me in a year if you need to know. Nov 2014. Some non-fatal oddities and one annoying problem have been noticed on DVD-Rs recorded from broadcast recordings on three other recorders. 1) One disk kept changing the speed on the video playback. Sometimes it was faster than the audio and many times slower. The audio was good throughout. On another brand player, the disk played fine. 2) On all DVD-Rs and some commercial DVDs there is an audio pause or pop at the chapter marks. If the chapter is at an ad or other logical place, it is not noticeable but many of the disks have marks every 5 min and it pops on each one. Again, they play fine on another brand player. 3) The player squeaks lightly sometimes. 4) On the DVD-Rs made on one brand recorder, the first show auto-starts and the menu is not accessible. To get to the second and later shows, it is necessary to 'tab' through all previous chapters. This does not happen on any other player I have tried and could be a problem on some DVDs.

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.

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.

This player playing on my new Samsung LCD tv looks great. The upconvert and hdmi connection make a difference versus playing movies on my old memorex DVD player. I've only had it close to 2 months but so far its worked well, at first I had a problem with playback which I found out to be amazon's basic 6' hdmi cable, but with the other cable I'm using it works perfect. The quality of the build doesnt seem superb, but exceeds my expectations for the price I paid (I believe it was $25 at the time.)

Love a lot of the functionality of this DVD player and its uncanny ability to remember where we paused/stopped a DVD even days before, even after taking one out and putting it back in. Only problem is it keeps breaking. Within six months of purchasing it, the player stopped playing discs. As light as it is, it couldn't even be used as a doorstop at that point. So I contacted Samsung. They let me ship it back and honestly I can't remember now if they sent us a new unit or our original one refurbished. If memory serves, it was a new one. In any case, it worked fine—for about six months. Then it stopped rewinding and fast forwarding, either by frame or track. We can play, pause, stop, and go to the menu. If you miss something, sorry, there's no going back. The fact that other buttons on the remote work makes me think it's something with the unit once again. Add to that the fact that it's having a harder time playing discs even if they're brand new, and I think the case is clear. As if it needs to be said, this one's not going back to Samsung. It's going to the old electronics heap in the sky. Took a chance on Samsung over long-trusted Panasonic. Not going to happen again.

This Samsung DVD player is fantastic. It has a super picture even on DVD's recorded at 6 hours. I record my favorite TV programs at home. I purchased two other players, Panasonic and Toshiba, and both players would skip and cause the audio and video to go out of sync when I would play back DVD's recorded on another machine. This Samsung works perfectly. I like that it resumes playback where it was stopped, even when the player is turned off. It also displays the current chapter, total chapters, and other disk info when you skip forward.