Samsung Sued Over "Defective" Blu-ray Player 222
Anneka notes that, although both Netflix and Best Buy threw logs on HD DVD's funeral pyre today, things are not all going Blu-ray's way. A Connecticut man is suing Samsung, the maker that brought the first Blu-ray players to market, over its "defective" BD-P1200 player. The lawsuit seeks class-action status. The problem is that the Samsung BD-P1200 is a "Profile 1.0" player that can't play some Blu-ray discs and Samsung has no intention (or ability) to upgrade these players via firmware. Quoting Ars: "The meager requirements of the 1.0 profile mean that Blu-ray players which fail to implement the optional features won't be able to take advantage of picture-in-picture, which requires secondary decoders. 1.0 players are also unable to store local content, lacking the 256MB of storage mandated by the 1.1 profile. Profile 1.1 discs should still play on 1.0 players, however, but the extra features will not work."
There's a reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There's a reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
These companies need to stop doing this. People need to stop accepting the planned obsolescence excuses and realize they are milking us. These players should not have "versions" or "profiles" make it a single deployment standard and stop trying to add features the competition already has. They should have added those in the beginning.
Im just getting tired of seeing folks who bought in early getting porked by companies like Sony and Microsoft. I understand software revisions. And I don't mind it, but why are vital things like a second decoder not in the spec to make it at least upgradeable. Or even just disabled until a special disc is put in to flash the firmware to activate it ? I am tired of us folks paying to be alpha and beta testers for the corporations.
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Re:There's a reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a start: my laptop has a 10Mbit Ethernet port. Now 100 Mb is standard, and 1 Gb available. Is there any reason why I should expect my laptop to get a free upgrade? I don't think so.
Do I have reason to expect it is compatible with 1Gb networks? Maybe. Albeit at a lower speed. Same for these BluRay players: they were up to standard when sold, and are now the newer disks still play - without the new features of course. Why should the old player get a free upgrade? No reason for that.
People should buy products (hardware, software, whatever) based on the CURRENT feature set. Not based on promised upgrades, that is a nice extra but not relevant.
Wouter.
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It's more like saying that your nic is rejecting cat6 because it is newer then cat5e. It's just not right.
Re:There's a reason... (Score:4, Informative)
In the end, we'll probably see Sony screw it up in another way to make his older player break completely, but that's a different story. BD+ will probably be on the receiving end of a lot of curses...
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Re:There's a reason... (Score:4, Informative)
This is false, according to all the information I've read. The movies will play. But the "extra" features will lack capability.
As for Blu-ray's reputed "more" space, show me a dual layer disk.
Half of all current Blu-Ray movies are dual-layer. The first was "Click" a year and a half ago. Hitachi has a 4-layer Blu-ray disc they claim play in current players, and TDK has prototyped an 8-layer Blu-ray disc.
As to the codecs, HD DVD supports more advanced codecs.
It's true that some of the sound codecs are optional on Blu-ray players but mandatory on HD DVD players. That being said, on Blu-ray they are required to have substantially higher throughput if supported. For video, they both support exactly the same codecs (MPEG2, MPEG4/AAC, and VC-1). In addition, Blu-Ray requires the player support almost 50% more throughput-- that, combined with the higher capacity, means that Blu-ray discs can be compressed less and therefore have much higher quality audio and video. That's why a side-by-side comparison of the two almost universally favors Blu-ray on all the AV sites.
Blu-ray is largely old technology with a new specification that makes them incompatible with everything else out there.
To be fair, that more accurately describes HD DVD. That's why HD DVD players are easier to produce.
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Its not like the manufacturers didn't know this was coming.....That was one of the problems with Blu-Ray, it was rushed to market to compete with HD-DVD (and for the PS3) and they hadn't finalized the standards...
Don't forget we still have BD Live compatible players to come (Profile 2.0), which will mandate an Ethernet connection and more local storage (1GB) for downloadabl
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There are a lot of HD-DVD players that limit you to 1080i.
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Re:A software update can't add missing hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
The article mentions that there isn't enough RAM for a paticular decoder to operate. There isn't a single software upgrade that can get past the lack of the physical memory. The boards in most of the players isn't laid out where memory can be just plugged in. A small run to produce new boards and the
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While I agree with you , I do feel for the folks who bought these players when they were $600 + , there is no reason that features should have been missing from the players when they came to market.
Just to add a little more noise to the thread, I do not agree with you at all and I do not feel for these people at all.
Anyone dumb enough to buy into a format war (ensuring constant changes for both sides and devaluing of the losing side) deserves whatever they get. If they really needed to throw away that money, the least they could have done is donate it to a charity or, if they really had to gamble it on something, buy some penny stock.
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You mention networking gear. It doesn't really hold up here. When people bought "pre-N" gear , and "draft-N" gear , they knew what they were getting themselves into. These blu-ray players were sold as blu-ray players. Meaning they would play all future blu-ray movies. Funny I have an old RCA dvd player that plays new dvds, yeah I guess I am expecting to much for it to not randoml
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Ummm...Even the summary, which is usually wrong in most cases, points out that it will play Blu-ray disks but lacks some of the special features found only in players that support the new standard. What this guy is bitching about is two different things. First, the fact that he can't upgrade (via a flash ROM or something) to t
Purpose (Score:2)
A blue-ray player that does not play discs labelled as "blue-ray" does not seem to serve the primary function.
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What happens is that if the disc contains v2.0 features, you won't see -those-, you will still be able to play the disc and see the movie, but you may miss out on some of the advanced features, such as the possibility of PiP (let's say the director commenting upon the film from a separate video-track in a corner of the picture)
I don't see the problem. You bought a blue-ray player, it plays blue-ray discs. T
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Everyone who hasn't been living under a rock KNOWS that buying the latest-and-greatest new bleeding-edge standard before it is established in the marketplace means:
a) There's a significant chance that it'll be obsolete in 3 years because some other standard ends up owning the game.
b) There's a 100% chance that you're paying a MUCH higher price for a MUCH poorer product, compared to those who wait a bit.
c) There'
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Re:There's a reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
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When I ssh into a machine and start using it I consider myself to be running programs, since I am the one causing the instances of them.
I'd hate to try this:
"Why did you 'rm -rf
"I didn't! The server was doing it!"
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Defective CD Players (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Defective CD Players (Score:5, Informative)
2) A DRM-crippled "CD" will not bear the Compact Disc logo, as it doesn't conform to the standard. It is a separate format that just happens to sometimes sort-of work in CD players.
Meanwhile, the movies mentioned in the article all come with a "blu-ray disc" logo on them, despite there being two distinctly different formats involved. That's misleading advertising, and I hope he wins his case. You can't create a so-called standard and then say "whoops, need to change a few things here, sucks to be you if you were an early adopter!" I understand that the bleeding edge sometimes cuts, but that's usually a result of bugs in the players or the manufacturing process, not because some idiot changed the specs of the format!
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Discs with the logo will still play. There is backward compatibility.
Are they also going to sue all the manufacturer of older HDMI devices ? Because you know, you might not be able to enjoy some of the newest feature that HDMI 1.3 brings if one of your device is only HDMI 1.2
This is just a plain stupid lawsuit....
HDMI (Score:3, Interesting)
Meanwhile, the movies mentioned in the article all come with a "blu-ray disc" logo on them, despite there being two distinctly different formats involved. That's misleading advertising, and I hope he wins his case. You can't create a so-called standard and then say "whoops, need to change a few things here, sucks to be you if you were an early adopter!" I understand that the bleeding edge sometimes cuts, but that's usually a result of bugs in the players or the manufacturing process, not because some idiot
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So I don't know why you're claiming that these different formats have different logos, when that's just false. The failure of DRM CDs to meet the CD format spec, and therefore fail in CD players, is well known on Slashdot.
Re:Defective CD Players (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you see any of these logos [google.com] on the front or back paper inserts, on the OUTSIDE of the case (not inside, as in after opening the case,) SPECIFICALLY the one that says Compact Disc Digital Audio?
If you don't see the CDDA, then it's safe to assume that the CD does not follow the CDDA format, and therefore has DRM. CDDA does not have provisions for DRM, and any disc carrying DRM, or is 'enhanced' (extra data track after audio tracks included) may not display that logo on the case. The actual part that holds the disc in the case will just have the plain Compact Disc logo most often.
If you have any discs that display the CDDA logo and they have DRM or any 'enhancements' for our computer, the maker of that disc is in violation of the rules that Phillips set forth in specifying the format. You should immediately notify them of the breach of contract between the music company that made the discs and Phillips. And you should probably go ahead and lawyer up, because once you stir up the snake nest they're gonna come crawling and biting at your ankles.
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You may not have to, since Philips, t
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I bet it gets thrown out (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I bet it gets thrown out (Score:5, Informative)
At issue are some significant title-compatibility problems with the player. In his complaint, plaintiff Bob McGovern says that a number of movies he purchased after buying his BD-P1200 wouldn't play on the device.
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As one of our readers pointed out via e-mail, the P1200 has a checkered reputation when it comes to hardware reliability.
So it may not be as simple of an issue as "profile 1.0 can't use spiffy new 1.1 features". It may be more an issue of "Samsung rushed buggy new product to market and now won't support it."
Re:I bet it gets thrown out (Score:5, Informative)
Samsung needs to figure out what the hell is wrong with their firmware and correct it so that it'll actually play movies, and they need to be more transparent about what's going on. They rarely acknowledge issues, and never document what fixes are in new firmware revisions as they're released. Perhaps they could give some test units to the shops that are authoring Blu-Ray discs, or, you know, get an advance copy of the disc so that firmware can be ready on the day the movie hits the streets. Follow this thread [avsforum.com] at AVSForum for more info.
The PS3 (Score:2)
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Re:I bet it gets thrown out (Score:4, Interesting)
More accurately, Samsung put a player out onto the market that met the demands of the (currently unfinished) Blu-ray disc standard.
Blu-ray was rushed to market before it was ready - HD DVD's release ensured the BDA couldn't wait until the standard was completed.
The Blu-ray trade assosciation admitted as much at CES 2008, and then noted that only Sony's PS3 had any hope of being upgradeable to Profile 2.0, due in October. (I'm sure Sony was more than happy to hear that... and I'm betting it really annoys the other manufacturers in the BDA).
In contrast, HD DVD was a polished, complete standard at the time of release, and the first HD DVD players can handle every feature of every disc made - including features that Blu-ray does not currently have.
I'm officially format-neutral - I have both (Samsung's BD/HD DVD player).
I think it's funny to hear various fanbois pitting it as a Microsoft vs. Sony thing - it's more Toshiba/NEC vs. Sony/Panasonic/Philips, which is more or less what almost happened with "regular" DVD, except this time, Sony & co. decided to push its product, instead of suffering the "disgrace" of following someone else's lead. Rivalries among Japanese companies are a lot like college sports - sometimes I have difficulty telling the difference between rivalry and a full-on holy war. And HD DVD vs Blu-ray is very similar - the battle was faught in the DVD forum for years, with Sony, Panasonic, and Philips doing everything possible to prevent HD DVD from happening.
Many of the ignorant thing that the menu system used by HD DVD is Microsoft's - which is completely false. HD DVD uses "Advanced Content" - an open standard defined by Disney & Warner Brothers. The most popular implementation is Microsoft's HDi. In other words, HDi is to Advanced Content as Internet Explorer is to HTML. HDi is one implementation, and is from Microsoft; Advanced Content is the standard, and is from Disney and Warner. HDi is the most popular, much like how IE is the dominant web browser for HTML.
In the end, HD DVD's release forced the BDA's hand - the BDA had to either give up entirely (no format war and only HD DVD) or release a product based on an incomplete standard. Not wanting to give up royalties, the BDA released a half-baked product.
The part that's not forgivable is that the BD player makers had a very good idea what the final standard would be - things like internet connectivity, two decoders for picture-in-picture, built-in storage - you know, stuff that its HD DVD competitor does.
All things told, I like that HD DVD is a "finished" standard - HD DVD owners are unlikely to get "burned" - even if the format fails, the discs will still play, after all. Blu-ray can't say that - early adopters are getting burned, and will continue to be burned until Profile 2.0 players are common, if not longer.
As far as being "burned" by "losing" the format war - I remind readers that iTunes sold more movies than either HD DVD or Blu-ray in 2007. It's quite likely that both HD DVD and Blu-ray will "lose" in the end - though the discs will still play, and both discs are already rippable.
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No,I'm more inclined to agree that the 1.0 spec was incomplete and a lot got added in 1.1 because they (the creators of the spec) wanted to get the devices to market.
My now 8+ year old Toshiba DVD player is completely incapable of reading burned DVDs or playing MP3s -- something to do with laser wavelength I think. Heck,
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I've probably got the same Toshiba DVD player as you, and have found a fix for burned disks. Basically you need to change the "BitSetting" feild in your DVD burner so that the disks get marked as "DVD-ROM" instead of "DVD-R" or "DVD-R/W". This has fixed nearly all of my issues.
There's several different bitsetting programs around depending upon the drive manufactuerer - try google.
Re:I bet it gets thrown out (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should it? If he bought something marked that it plays Blu-Ray it should play any media that is also marked Blu-Ray, regardless of when either was bought. Just because it was the first player to market doesn't make it exempt. If they change the spec they should change the marking to at least show that the two aren't compatible.
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But I digress, no lawsuits were ever brought over that completely stupid spec over anything over 480p must go
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Treat the player as faulty, and take it back to the store where it was purchased. Take the disc that it won't play, and show that it works on another player (which is bound to be a different model). Make very sure that you know your rights under the law (print them out if necessary), b
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A lot of the times, the limitations of hardware are down to the way the firmware compiler is implemented. You can work around a lot of these compiler limitations by rearranging your code (loop unroll
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It can't possibly win.
After reading the court papers [courthousenews.com], paragraph 5 states that the nature of the case is that Samsung was aware the player was defective, however if you look at the conditions provided by SONY, the system met ALL profile 1.0 standards and is not defective. Due to this wording alone the claim is damaged.
Paragraph 7 says that selling thie Blu-Ray player cause injury(not physical) to the plaintiff. What injury, the world knowing how much of an ass-hat he is? Obviously this is completely trum
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Anyway, Samsung didn't just screw up with Blu Ray, their BD / HD DVD player also has problems with disks in both formats.
Meanwhile virtually every other manufacturer of Blu Ray kit appears to be doing fine. So I think we can blame Samsung for the screw-up, rather than the standar
How I love the american legal system. (Score:4, Insightful)
These frivolous lawsuits need to stop. They really need to start tossing these people out on there asses or pressing some criminal negligence charges against them.
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Does it play Profile 1.0 discs? Yes? Fine. It is a Profile 1.0 player.
As for Profile 1.1, they key here would be: was it a requirement of the Profile 1.0 spec to support a Blu-ray profile upgrade path? If not, I don't see what this man can expect. And if not, if he's pissed about that, he should rather direct his complaints at the full Blu-ray Disc Association instead, who collectively took that
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How is this a fault of a manufacturer? Especially one that is not the creator of the Blue-Ray disk.
Good grief. Samsung has sat on the Blu-Ray board of directors since 2002, when it was called the Blu-Ray Founders. How exactly are they only a manufacturer?
Just a subtle reminder, Blu-Ray is not a Sony format
perfect (Score:2)
BTW if you are one of the early buyers of my game, I will not shit on your face. In fact, I will do my best to be friendly, supportive, and civil!
BluRay vs BluRay - Not created equal (Score:4, Informative)
At the least, it's misleading advertising. The Profile 1.0 player being defective is a bit of a stretch, but it's not unfounded.
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DVD-Video != DVD-ROM (Score:3, Informative)
Devil's Advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless they're changing the name, ol' Joe is going to get upset when it doesn't work like it says on the box. Joe is used to auto recalls and static products, and I think BluRay forgot that in their little war to win the format.
Profile 2.0 (Score:2)
Read before you complain (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing these companies getting a slap on the wrist for a changing definition of what Blu-Ray is by changing the profile but not making the differences obvious (it's a little tiny box on the back of a case).
That said, sounds like the guy has a case to me. Read this part:
It was defective. It sounds like the bought a DVD player (let's pretend) that wouldn't play a good percentage of DVDs. Not "doesn't play every neat feature". Not "doesn't support 12.16 theatrical sound". Just plain "won't play". They could fix it with a software update, but they don't seem to want to.
That part is bait-and-switch. He bought a player that should play any good Blu-Ray movie (possibly san-extras). It won't play many of them. Either all those movies are defective, or the player is. If it is the player, he was ripped off. At the very least, they should have replaced his player with something that would play movies.
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Not Bait and Switch (Score:2)
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Anyone remember the early days of DVD? Certain manufacturer's players wouldn't handle certain style manufactured dual-layer discs (among other things). I remember the fiasco with nearly all high-end Sony players and the movie "The Matrix" causing a lock-up at the menu.... and guess what? Some of those players didn't have the ability to update their firmware either. I
It's more than Profile 1.1 with the Samsung (Score:5, Interesting)
We're not even talking about Profile 1.1 discs either. Some standard releases refuse to play, and Samsung's support has been sluggish. Problems with the PS3 and Panasonic players have been addressed within a week or two of problems occurring. There are a number of discs that have been out for months that still don't play, even with the latest firmware:
Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (12/3/07)
Blade Runner (12/18/07)
Pixar Shorts (11/6/07)
That's over a month and a half with no fix! The profile 1.1 discs (3:10 to Yuma and Sunshine) don't play the movie successfully. They sputter and freeze. This problem isn't observed on other Profile 1.0 players from Panasonic, Sony, and Pioneer. The Samsung player really is defective.
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The player was protecting people from that steaming pile of crap.
Hooray Format wars (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Movie menu crap sucks (Score:2, Interesting)
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That reminded me of a picture I saw somewhere on Internet that was a parody of an anti-pirating ad. It said something like "Do not buy original disks, if you do it you will have to wait until they tell you you are a pirate, wait more for the s
Here's a much better summary (Score:2)
If you Google for BD-P1200 Lawsuit, you'll see the profile 1.0 vs 1.1 is not the issue. I'm guessing Samsung released this thing, and now the software patches are eating them alive keeping up with the changing spec (and probably a bad design to begin with). Based on the scant information, I'm guessing Samsung realized at some point they couldn't patch their player to fix all the incompatibilities. Perh
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In other news... (Score:2)
He shoulda read the owner's manual (Score:2)
The only thing I don't like, even though the Samsung upscales norma
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If they don't have the disclaimer in large letters on the outside of the box, it isn't legal. They hide it in fine print that you can't read until after you've paid for it. That doesn't work.
Return it to Samsung, through their window (Score:2)
Not that I'm promoting violence against the consumer electronics industry, but I'd return the Samsung player to Samsung, by finding one of their buildings in the nearest corporate park, and ch
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Insanity (Score:2)
Judge: "Please explain."
Blu-Ray Lawyer: "The plaintiff purchased the product in question when it was untested, unproven, excessively priced, and played a format that was at risk of going the way of the Dodo. Clearly he is insane."
Judge: "That is insane. Case dismissed!"
Plaintiff: "I'm Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"
Lets not (Score:2)
Not Helping the Industry (Score:2)
My DVD (one of the first-generation Sony) and TV are both about 10 years old, and despite usually being on the "cutting edge" of technology I've held off buying replacements for quite some time.
I'm very hesitant to buy either HD or Blu, or even a new TV, with all the new standards and versions that seem to be coming out left and right. And I won't
Re:And the problem is? (Score:5, Informative)
He isn't expecting the extra features - he just wanted to have the discs play in the first place. According to the lawsuit, the player refuses to even read them.
The problem has nothing to do with Profile 1.1 - it's a flaw with BD+ [wired.com].
He got screwed over by DRM. I would have thought Slashdot would be more sympathetic to someone screwed over by DRM than to instead blame him for buying "too early" whereby "too early" is apparently six months ago.
That's a problem with BD+ (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:And the problem is? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes.
If he had stock... (Score:2)
Re:Blu-ray victory is a joke at this point (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect the $150 players were the result of the retail channel seeing what was happening and deciding that the Xmas season was their last chance to unload inventory that was about to be worthless. Add in a little inside info paranoia and deliberate postponing of the studio shifting, etc to allow retails time to dump and things make a lot more sense.
Everyone knew that only one would survive and at the first hint that the market was picking a winner the desire not to be left holding a big stack of dead inventory created a huge bandwagon effect. If I had to guess it was the PS3 finally starting to sell as the price dropped. It became obvious there was soon going to be far more BD players just on the strength of the PS3, one studio flips camps (actually just stopped doing both) and it snowballed. At this point I doubt even Sony can manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Me, I haven't even bought a HD set yet and haven't owned a console since the 2600. Waiting for the pricing to plateau out, no sense getting in a hurry to go HD just to be able to pick from a few dozen crap/blockbuster titles.
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And don't we all look to someone so enthusiastic about the gadget industry that they haven't bought a game system since the Atari 2600 .
(/snark)
My best recall on what 'everybody knew' would happen in the high-def format wars wasn't any sureness that only one could win. Like with the early days of DVD+ and DVD-, there was a lot of shrugging and guessing that we'd probably soon enough see dual-format players, some specialists
Fact Check (Score:3, Informative)
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Sony owns the rights to movies, and continues to make movies. So long as they were willing to suck up some potential losses there were always going to be movies you couldn't get on HD-DVD.
Toshiba doesn't own movies, and so in order to hold out they would have had to bribe/coerce a media company that had no vested interest in which technology would win out to hold out, or generate sufficient momentum via superior quality/price/features that Sony
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However, what if things like interviews and commentaries started using the picture in picture feature to work? What then?
(Of course I'm making things up, but I dont' think its too far out of the realm of possibility.)
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m tv dont have HDCP, it's a 1080i set. Bluray and HDDVD is useless as nither will output anything but 480p out the Component output. In fact this is mentioned in EVERY HDDDVD and BluRay players manual.
"720p and 1080i output is disabled on component out on discs that have the copy protection flag set." EVERY SINGLE DISK HAS THIS FLAG SET!
I'm not buying it. If I ever buy one it will be whatever is easiest to rip with anydvd.
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Quite honestly, I'd want to