Polk Audio SurroundBar360° DVD Home Theater System (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Observations
Pros: Built like a tank
Simple setup
Cool factor of 10
Cons:
Should have blue ray at this price point.
Frankly I think it needs a subwoofer, Tried it for a few days with a Polk subwoofer and without. Yes it sounds decent without a sub, but only decent, not great. I have yet to hear anything even close to 5.1 or any type of surround. Upon contacting Polk, I was advised that this bar was NOT (unlike the soundbar series) designed to be used above the tv only below with the optimal placement directly in the front of the tv. Frankly the soundbar sitting in front of a 56 inch tv looks horrible, under it it looks built in. Polk indicating that could affect the sound field. Well thats just cute, the whole POINT of this system was it was supposed to give you the 5.1 effect regardless of placement or your position in the room!
It is a nice system, could use a tad more volume, not amazing with the surround, even though the wide open setup I heard at best buy was nothing short of amazing, but in my 12 X 12 living room, far less than spectacular.
Finally save your money, at this price point the 360 is not ready for prime time. If you are looking for solid tight sound in a high end soundbar this is it. If you are expecting the results Polk claims you will be badly disappointed.My old 5.1 theater in a box $300.00 system sounded a tad better frankly.UPDATE:
After owning this a few months I must say it is a complete waste of money.
There simply is no separation in the soundfield regardless of the input signal.
I have tweaked this system to no end with lackluster results.
For a grand there is a endless amount of equipment that you could purchase that would put this system to shame.
Polk missed on this one, if your heart is set on one, wait a while as the price is certain to go down due to the LARGE amount of people disappointed in this system.
This is nothing more than a fancy expensive 2.1 system. Save your money.

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Polk Audio SurroundBar 360-degree DVD Theater is a complete home entertainment system. It incorporates the enveloping sonic benefits of our SurroundBar SDA technology and our patented PowerPort bass venting technology with the convenience of a control console that is a DVD/CD player, amplifier, and an AM/FM radio. The SurroundBar 360-degree has sleek, contemporary design and simple, single-cable speaker hookup which makes it ideal for anyone who wants big, rich surround sound home entertainment without any of the hookup hassles of multiple speakers and wires. The SurroundBar 360-degree DVD Theater employs 8 drivers. A patented combination of signal processing and acoustical geometry produces the vivid three dimensional surround field that exists on the original recording. What you hear is essentially the same as if sounds were actually coming from all around and behind you.

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LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I just received my player a few days ago, so there are definitely some out there in the market. So far, I am very impressed. Netflix setup is easy, and the quality of the streaming video is better than I expected.
Blu-Ray and standard DVD's play great.
My only nickpick so far is that standard 4x3 DVD's are stretched to fill my 16x9 screen, and there doesn't seem to be a way to turn that off. (Netflix 4x3 content is correctly displayed with sidebars.) Hopefully they'll fix this with a firmware update. Oh, and firmware updates are pretty much automatic, directly through the internet.
Update 11/23/08: This weekend, the player downloaded a firmware update. The aspect ratio problem described in the previous paragraph has been fixed!!!

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Blu-ray Disc Player w/ BD-Live & BonusView.Full HD 1080P Output via HDMI.Netflix Instant streaming ready.DVD 1080p Up-conversion.

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Samsung BD-C7500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Review

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(More customer reviews)This player worked well for about 1 week. Then, since I had auto firmware updates on, The firmware updated to the current version (1010.4). No problem. Then a day later auto updates ran again. This time updating to version 1015.2 (which is not listed for this product). I have been having problems ever since.
Every time I would turn on the player, I would get an error stating "Model Information in your upgrade file does not match with your player. Please check and retry". Everything I would try to do would pop up this error. So I had to disable auto firmware updates to be able to do anything. Now, when I insert a DVD, the player will eject it at least three times before it successfully reads it. When I try to connect to Netflix, it freezes. I have to power off and power on and try connecting again. This happens anywhere between 3 and 10 times in a row before it will work. When I do finally connect to Netflix, the player asks if I have a Netflix account and makes me "authorize" the player for the millionth time. Then sometimes, the player freezes when I am scrolling through my queue.
I have tried to use a usb flash drive to update the firmware to the current version of 1010.4 but the player does not let me. Probably because the version on my player (1015.2) is supposedly after 1010.4.
Now, onto Samsung's technical support....After about a month I got fed up and decided to try to get this problem figured out. I called 1-800-SAMSUNG. Jumped through their hoops to get to the right person. I explain the problems I am having with the firmware. They tell me that the error message I am receiving when trying to update firmware is "because their server is busy" and to try again later. I told them I did not believe that their server was busy for a month. So they tell me to fix the problem "disable auto updates". I told them I already had and that is by no means a fix. I had to repeatedly tell them that the firmware in my player did not match what was on their website to get them to believe that anything was wrong. So they escalated me to Level 2 support and tell me I will receive a call in 24-48 hours.
Three days later still no call from Level 2 support. I call back, jump through hoops, give my reference # and the person tries to help me. I told them I did not want to talk to them, that I was escalated to Level 2 support and would only talk to them. They connect me to Level 2. I tell them the problem. They tell me that the reason I am getting that error is because the server is busy. (I am thinking to myself "Do these people think I am an idiot?") They tell me to try a USB update. I already tried that. After more useless conversation, they escalate me to a "Product Specialist" and tell me I will receive a call back in 24-48 hours.
One week later, I find myself calling Samsung back because I have still not heard from their product specialist. They tell me that there is not one available for me to speak with and they will have one call me back in 24-48 hours. I'm not holding my breath.
Everyone I spoke with at technical support was arrogant and would talk right over me. Luckily I am pretty tech savvy so I know to call their B.S. when they try to give me a fix like "just turn auto updates off". So my advice is if you buy this product, turn auto updates off as soon as possible, but better yet don't buy it. I got suckered in because of the wall mountable feature. I have had bad luck with Samsung players in the past so luckily I purchased an extended warranty on this one. So if tech support fails me, I can fall back on that.UPDATE:
After several more calls to technical support, they agreed to ship the unit to them for them to repair. Have not received it back yet.
I tried to submit a review on Samsung's website several times. Every time, I get an e-mail a couple of days later saying that they could not post my review because it didn't meet their guidelines. I reviewed their guidelines in detail and nothing I said violated any of them. I think that what it boils down to is that they don't want a negative review on their product site. They want to scam everyone into thinking this is a great player. Well, they're not fooling me.

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The BDC7500 can also has a wireless LAN adaptor included. Add to that AllShare™, which enables content to be seamlessly streamed between DLNA® devices, allowing you to play files stored on your PC through your Blu-ray Player. The Samsung BDC7500 Blu-ray Player is also wall-mountable.

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Sony BDP-S360 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Review

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(More customer reviews)I'll start with the bottom line about this player-it just works! If you're looking for a nice, fully functional Blu Ray player that's going to just WORK as you'd expect it to, on anything you throw at it, this is a nice, safe buy. You'll have no problems upgrading from a normal DVD player to it.
Like a lot of people, my first Blu Ray player was my Playstation 3, which I bought last year. If you don't already have a PS3, that's worth considering instead of a stand alone player, because it doesn't cost much more, handles Blu Rays (and DVDs) well, and of course plays Playstation 3 games.
I even toyed with getting a second one, but decided a stand alone player would be a bit cheaper, and I didn't really need the second Playstation 3. (I've also since bought a Blu Ray drive for my computer, so I can watch Blu Rays on it too.)
Impressions of the s360:
-Audio and video are excellent. I can't notice any difference from my PS3.
-The unit is physically SMALL. It's actually smaller than my two stand alone DVD players (though is the same width as normal stereo components, so fits in fine)
-The unit is very quiet in operation-quieter than my two stand alone DVD players in fact. I don't think I can hear it at all except when it's first starting up, loading up a disc (and that only if the room is dead silent). Interestingly, the disc drive's seek sounds sound IDENTICAL to the drive in my Playstation 3! I'd be shocked if it's not basically the same drive.
-Remote is decent-I mean no remotes aside from Tivo's are particularly good, but this works as well as any other (the oft-noted omission of an eject button is a bit surprising, but not really missed, since you have to get up anyway, and the eject button on the unit is pretty large). (And thankfully unlike the PS3 remote, it's normal infrared, not Bluetooth.)
-Performance is very good. I think it takes SLIGHTLY longer than my PS3/PC to load the fancy interfaces some discs use (some discs replace the normal fast forward/rewind interfaces with their own themed interfaces, and loading that interface adds a few more seconds before the disc's ready-so far I've only run across this on two discs, and it's kind of pointless, but this player DOES seem to handle them just fine). Rewinding/fast forwarding on this isn't quite as smooth as my Playstation 3, but it works as you'd expect a normal DVD player to.
-Power usage is very low-the unit says it draws a *MAX* of 22 watts in operation
-Boot time takes...well I haven't timed it, but I'd guess maybe 15 seconds. To me that's plenty fast, but that can actually be cut by setting the player to use more power when it's "off" (essentially it presumably actually stays on, so it appears to boot faster). Players that claim they have faster boot times are probably just doing that same thing, without giving you the option of actually shutting the unit off.
-It has all the features and ports you'd expect from a unit like this, and has an excellent menu system, that's ripped straight off of the Playstation 3 and Portable (of course once you've set it up with the settings you want, you'll probably never really use the menu again, but it's easier than any DVD player's menus I've ever used).
-Unlike some players, it doesn't have internal memory to store "BD Live" internet features, but it does have a USB port where you can connect a USB memory device to enable those features. I have a spare one lying around, but haven't bothered hooking it up because I never use those features. I mean Blu Ray has some great additions over DVD, like the pop up menus that can adjust settings without going back to the main menu-but the internet features are pretty gimicky to me, and I've never used them. Still, this player does support all of that if you care.
(Also unlike many of this year's players, it lacks support for online services like Netflix's streaming service, etc. I don't use those (I just use Netflix's disc service), and if I did use them I already have other devices that connect to them, but if you check reviews, the s360 is a better BLU RAY PLAYER than those other devices-and I'm buying this to be a good Blu Ray player.
I'm probably forgetting something I'd like to mention, but honestly I could have quit after the first paragraph. If you're like me and just want something that WORKS without hassle, this is a great choice.

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The Sony BDP-S360 Blu-ray Disc player provides a movie experience worthy of your HDTV. Plays Blu-ray Disc movies in Full HD 1080p quality and upscales the quality of your DVDs. Supports BD-Live technology to download bonus interactive entertainment on select movies. Supports Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD audio codecs for up to 7.1 channels of high-definition sound. With QuickStart Mode your movies will start approximately six seconds from the moment you turn on the player.

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Samsung BD-C6500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is my first Blue Ray player and I love it.
Took a chance on this Samsung and ordered it without a lot of information availabe because it is so new but glad I did.
Just got it out of the box today and everything works great. Easily set up the wireless to my home network (and it saved the IP address and encryption key info so I do not need to sign on each time).
There are few units (if any) with all the features this unit offers at this price.
This unit offers solid access to You Tube, various videos on demand services, Pandora (love Pandora!), and it sees all my videos and photos on my computer in multiple ways (with their Samsung PC Share Manager and direct acess) all through the network. The pics load a little slow, but the files are big. Pretty sure if I reduce them down access will speed up.
Decent You Tube search feature (for a TV remote as a typing device). Easily found my own You Tube videos.
In any case, all locked in solid with minimal hassle.
I would give it 5 stars except there is still a learning curve on managing my PC folders and I am still getting the hang of some Samsungs apps, but I am confident it will all work out. I initially entered the encyption key incorrectly and did not get a password error but instead it just said the IP address was wrong. A restart with the right key resolved all.
The first HD video I played was a home video made on my Canon HD Vixia HF200 consumer video camera and it looked absolutely great. For a first view, this player is excellent. Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder with 15x Optical Zoom
I already have a Samsung 40 inch LCD HD TV so I also figured they would compliment each other.
Oh, by the way, I had a customer service issue that was not the fault of Amazon and they resolved it in grand fashion. Absolutely superb customer serivce. Superb.
Yep, I am a happy camper with the whole deal
============================================================
March 17 - update
I continue to enjoy this player. I had one blue-ray disc that did not work right - a rental, subsequent discs worked fine. I also see services being added. A few free games (nothing great, but there), Blockbuster on Demand is now installed, weather, USA today, and more is coming. Still, my favorite feature by far is being able to view shared files on the TV from my laptop computer through a wireless connection via the home network.
Viewing seemed a bit slow at first, but once I began compressing the JPEG's to a more "uploadable" size, they snapped through slideshows with ease. Camcorder videos formatted to WMV are easily played from my laptop and watched on the TV - and they are smooth. It is just so cool to create it on my laptop and watch it on my TV. Just amazing stuff. Love it.
Had to re-enter my encyption key once right after a software update but other than that one time, have not had to enter a password again. One other software update had no effect.
I upped the rating to 5 star. It is excellent. I am already beginning to take it for granted like a good chair that always just works. Not sure what else I can possibly expect at this price.

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The Samsung BD-C6500 Blu-ray Player offers Internet@TV, which delivers the best of the web straight to your HDTV, with downloadable widgets and apps like BLOCKBUSTER, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Pandora and more. You can shop online, share pictures, catch up with friends and connect to a wide range of streaming digital content at the touch of a button. It also has wireless LAN built-in. Add to that AllShare, which enables content to be seamlessly streamed between DLNA devices, allowing you to play files stored on your PC or even to use your telephone through your TV.

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