Anybody here have a Blu Ray player?

John Pollman

Member
Messages
1,332
Location
Rochester Hills, MI
Two or three months ago our DVD player died so I decided to upgrade to a Blu-Ray player. I picked up a Pioneer BDP-120 from Radio Shack. It came in and I hooked it up. I had a little trouble at first because they apparently don't work like DVD players. They take a lot longer to start up when you insert a disc. Well I fumbled around a bit but was able to get the movie to play. My wife bought the new Star Trek movie on Blu-Ray. The quality was phenomenal. We've only watched it a couple times. The player plays DVD's with no issues. But earlier today I wanted to see what happened if I tried a Blu-Ray again. It took me almost a half hour of screwing around but was finally able to get it to work. That was this morning. About 8:00 this evening I stopped at Blockbuster and picked up a Blu-Ray copy of District 9. I got it home and screwed around with it for a half hour and no matter what I did could not get the disc to play. I took it back to Blockbuster because they're only two minutes from home. The guy said that occasionally customers have trouble with some movies because the firmware in their player needs to be updated. I figured I'd try that first. After screwing around for another hour and fifteen minutes I got the firmware updated. So I popped District 9 in again. Same old story. :mad::mad::mad: I messed around for another ten minutes and got completely fed up and ejected the disc. I'm going back to Radio Shack tomorrow. This is ridiculous! Have any of you out there had any trouble getting Blu-Ray players to work?

John
 
Last edited:
I've got a sony that is actually able to update its firmware over the interwebs.

We have netflix and I can say that every Blu-Ray we've gotten has played fine.

Haven't tried District 9 yet though, but we have had newer movies than that.

Used to have trouble with our old DVD player. It seemed very sensitive to rented movies, i.e. smudges, and smears. Haven't had to return a blu-ray yet for not working...
 
At this point I'm not ready to blame the discs. I think it's the machine. When I got back to Blockbuster, the guy said that not long ago they had a promotion where if you bought a Blu-Ray player you got a free copy of Dark Knight. I guess a lot of people couldn't get them to play. They had to update their machines.

The machine I got is compatible with BD Live where you can apparently upload extra content from the net. But it also came with a USB flash drive. I just had to download the firmware upgrade to my laptop and copy the file to the flash drive. Then insert the flash drive into the machine and tell it to update the software. I did that but it still doesn't work.

What drives me nuts is that none of the menus work. You're supposed to be able to insert a disc and after it's done reading the disc, push one of THREE menu buttons and select what you want to play. Well that menu has only worked ONE time since I've had this machine. The other two only work about one in fifteen attempts. This is just maddening. It was too late and Radio Shack was closed by the time this came up tonight. I think I'm going to take it in there tomorrow with the remote, a disc, and a cable and have them show me that it works. If it doesn't, I want a complete refund for this piece of JUNK!

It's too bad too because watching a movie in Blu-Ray is head and shoulders above a standard DVD.

John
 
I bought the LG because I can download movies directly from Netflix and it connects via wireless to my home network, It automatically goes out and checks for firmware updates on its own. Have played 30 or 40 movies over the past 6 months, at least half of them BR, and not a single problem.
 
Thanks guys!

I went back and looked at my records last night. Unfortunately I ordered the unit on November 24, 2009. I went to the Radio Shack site and found that they have a ninety day return policy. :( I'm barely over that at this point. I don't use the player much at all but I wish I'd jumped on it earlier and gotten it taken care of then. I deal with my local Radio Shack all the time though and spend a lot of money in there. They all know me there and usually help me out if there's ever an issue. I'm going to see what they'll do for me. If they give me
the "Sorry, your ninety days are up" speech I'll pull out the Radio Shack Gold Card I've had for years and cut it up right in front of them and tell them that I'll never darken their door again. It's almost 9:00 so I'm going to head over there in a few and see what they'll do for me. Wish me luck! ;)

John
 
John,

I have an OLD Blu-Ray player -- had to do a flash-update after the first year plays anything I put in the tray now.

Beautiful picture--- most DVD's will not let me skip to menu if upcoming previews are playing -- wait and wait and wait.

Radio Shack vs. Best Buy ---> ?????

Hope they make it good for you -- are they still a tandy leather company?

paul
 
Well I just got back from Radio Shack. It turns out that the manager there is a big BD user. She says that's all she'll buy anymore. No more DVD's for her. From what she says, occasionally on a BD you can fast forward through the previews but on most you can't. That really irritated me but I came home and popped District 9 in again. It took just shy of NINE MINUTES before I could get to the main screen and start the movie. That's absolutely ridiculous! I'm getting so sick of merchandising being shoved down our throats that I can hardly stand it. But I guess that's the world we live in now. It's just the cost I'll have to pay to watch a high quality picture. It's on right now and I will say that it is the absolute best picture I've ever seen. It's incredible.

John
 
Thanks Paul,

unfortunately from what I've seen so far the movie wasn't worth the effort. Granted I was working on the laptop when I finally got the movie to start so I wasn't paying very much attention to it. But in the first 45 minutes, I saw very little that warranted my attention other than the beautiful picture. ;) I doubt that I'll even waste the time to finish watching it. From what I heard, Distritct 9 was supposed to be a good movie. Well not in my eyes it wasn't

John
 
Top