Samsung BD-C6900 1080p 3D Blu-ray Disc Player
Samsung BD-C6900 1080p 3D Blu-ray Disc Player
- 3D Capable When Connected to 3D TV
- Internet@TV
- Wireless LAN built-in
- BD-Live? (Profile 2.0), BONUSVIEW
- AllShare?
The Samsung BD-C6900 Blu-ray 3D DiscPlayer allows you to see vivid dimensions in picture depth and action that both leaps off the screen, and draws you deep into the experience. Enjoy the superior picture quality and brilliant color of Full HD 1080p in a way you’ve never seen it before.
List Price: $ 349.99
Price: [wpramaprice asin="B00365EVWO"]
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Blu-ray 3D… Almost ready for prime time,
Samsung’s BD-C6900 is one of the first Blu-ray 3D players on the market (the other being Panasonic’s DMP-BDT300 and upcoming DMP-BDT350). As a first generation Blu-ray 3D player, you have to expect a few glitches (and you’ll get them), but if you’re itching to watch 3D TV at home in full HD 1080p, this player will get the job done, with a few nice perks and one potentially major caveat.
There is a lot to like about the BD-C6900 including super-fast boot-up and load times : 8 seconds to boot, 11 seconds to load a DVD and an almost unbelievable 18 seconds to load a BD-Java Blu-ray title (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl”). This is about twice as fast to load a BD-Java disc compared to the otherwise super-speedy OPPO BDP-83 player, and is less than 1/3 the load time of the Pioneer BDP-320 on the same title. It also offers a wealth of IPTV options and web widgets, including Netflix and VUDU streaming, YouTube and Pandora (among others). And with DLNA networking, you can connect it to your networked computers to access (and stream), audio, video and photo content like nobody’s business.
As a 3D player, it seems to perform exactly as designed – we say “seems” because the only real 3D content we have on Blu-ray 3D Disc to test with is the Monsters vs. Aliens promo disc that Samsung includes in the 3D Starter Kit. When connected to a Samsung UN55C8000 3D LED/LCD TV, the MvA disc looked fantastic using the Samsung active shutter 3D glasses. Yes we did see some “crosstalk” (interference between left and right channels), but this was caused by the TV, not the player.
But as a 3D player, there is one little known caveat – yes the player is compatible with 2D TVs (in 2D mode) and with current HDMI 1.3 receivers, however, if you want to take full advantage of the audio and video capabilities of this player used with a 3D TV, then you will need to have one of the brand new HDMI 1.4-equipped audio video receivers. Current HDMI 1.3 receivers *cannot* pass through the HDMI 1.4 3D video signal to a compatible 3D TV. This means that if you want to take advantage of lossless audio codecs (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio), your only option is to upgrade to an HDMI 1.4-equipped receiver or use the player’s multi-channel analog outputs and let the player do the decoding. And this is neither the easiest to set-up nor the highest quality option as it relies on the bass management and speaker configuration capabilities of the player, which are weaker than the bass management capabilities of most receivers.
Panasonic’s Blu-ray 3D players get around this limitation by providing two HDMI outputs: an HDMI 1.4 3D-enabled output (to connect directly to the display or to an HDMI 1.4 receiver) and a legacy HDMI 1.3 output for connecting to an HDMI 1.3 receiver. Is this a show-stopper? It might be if you don’t want to upgrade your receiver (again). But if you only use the speakers built into your TV (blech!), or you’re happy with the legacy lossy surround formats (Dolby Digital and regular DTS) which you can get from the optical output, OR if you have an HDMI 1.4-compliant A/V receiver then this will not be a problem for you.
As a standard 2D Blu-ray player, we found that the BD-C6900 was a mixed bag – some upconversion tasks like odd cadence detection and correction as well as standard 2:3 film cadence detection, were performed well, as was the player’s treatment of diagonal lines: no jaggies visible here, even on the spinning white line torture tests on the HQV benchmark discs. But we were surprised to see some noticeable digital artifacts on standard Blu-ray Discs such as “Blade Runner” – the intro title sequence looked less than ideal with ghosting in the title sequence and beyond that, some noise and blockiness in the black backgrounds that we have not seen on other players.
Overall, the BD-C6900 is a pretty solid Blu-ray and DVD player, but for the 2D Blu-ray playback artifacts and HDMI 1.3-receiver incompatibility. If these factors are not important to you, then you are likely to be happy with it. If not, then wait for Samsung’s higher end Blu-ray 3D player, coming later this year (not yet announced) or take a look at the Panasonic or Sony Blu-ray 3D players when they become more widely available.
Our comprehensive BD-C6900 review is available on Big Picture Big Sound (dot com).
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|The low down on new 3d Blu ray tech,
First off i would like to set the world strait on compatibility. This blu ray player is not compatable with most HD TV’s. Even if your TV says 3d HD ready it might not be. the reason i explain below in “how it works”. if you do not have a samsung hd tv this will not work for you as of now. Misubishi is making an addapter its not out yet but on mistubishi DLP tv’s that say 3d ready this will work for them eventually with the addapter. to find out if your tv is compatable you need to contact Samsung. go to their website and call them. i have been doing this for a month and finally they have people that know about the product now. you need to varify your hd tv will work.
how it works: and why your tv will or will not work. new 3d uses whats called active shutter technology. the appearance of 3d is made possible by showing your eyes two different pictures at the same time but separated. red and blue lens glasses work because on the screen it will show two different picture one to work with the red and one for the blue the screen would block out the other color giving your eyes viewing different pictures at the same time causing a 3d effect. polarized glasses work by skewing the image in one eye to create a similar effect.
active shutter takes it too the next step. the active shutter glasses connect to your 3d source wirelessly and work with the bluray player to make you see 3d. they do this but blocking and unblocking your view in your eyes so fast that you can not see it. the bluray player will also send the images preskewed to your tv so when your right eye is blocked it will show you one image and when the left eye is blocked it will show the next image skewed from the first one. it does this so fast that with the glasses on you can not tell. now you ask well if its the glasses working with the bluray player why will this not work on any tv. the reason is your refresh rate. the BD-C6900 requires a 120hz refresh rate. not all tv;’s have that, infact most dont. playing the 3d on a regular tv the frams the bluray is giving out will not be able to all be show properlly and the 3d effect will not work.
pros and cons: pros. this new tech gives you a full HD 3d picture. you are talking clear then in a movie theater. with out the different colored lenses you will not have crisp clear picture. this new tech should be the standard for tvs in the next three years. it also is right now only a little bit more exspensive then other bluray products. its a lo tech solution for a hightech product there fore soon it should be around the same price as regular blurays.
cons. the glasses. amazon only sells the third party ones right now but i exspect them to be coming out with the samsung ones soon. on this bestbuy has them right now for $149 a pair. thats right one set of glasses $149 you are talking 300 dollars to see the movie with your significat other. but dont worry because samsung has said that they are going to be coming out with 3d starter kits that should have two pairs and a movie and only cost an arm and a leg. as of right now your movie choices are none. march 21st is when they are going to launch monsters vs aliens with the starter kit. it will probably be 2011 before the movies really start to come out for it.
in reading this you might think well its just not worth it but i will tell you why it is. right now this player is designed that it still can play 2d blurays. thats right 2d. it is also the fastest loading one of the market right now for 2d. if you need a new blueray player go with this one now and to be ready for the new tech coming. if you tv does not work now think about it. by 2011 could you be on your next tv? chances are unless you just bought one in the past year there is that chance. investing now in this now tech will help keep you above the curve in the future.
key points:
- it will not work with all tvs contact samsung to make sure yours will work even if it says 3d ready
- it will play 2d blurays in 2d, and has fast load times
- this uses active shutter technology and will require active shutter glasses for everyone viewing. people with out glasses will not be able to view it.
- limited selection of 3d blurays as of now should be main stream by 2011
- bluray player does not come with a set of glasses.
- it will play 2d blurays and dvds on a regular non 3d tv. it will work on old tvs just not be able to play it in 3d.
overall: i bought this item. i own a DLP samsung that is compatable with this player. i have done alot of reasearch on this tech and hopefully will be able to enjoy this very soon. avatar should be out end of this year in 3d and alice in wonderland should not be far behined.
***Update 24 March 2010***
Player works great, the picture is as clear as my last player. load times are normally under 15 seconds way faster then my old…
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|Be careful with buying this for Netflix HD playback!,
I’m not going to review the Blu-ray player part, as I think it’s been very well reviewed by many other people, and I would totally agree the Blu-ray playback is very good. My 2 stars are for Blu-ray playback only!
However, I am going to write about the built-in Apps, and more importantly Netflix. I bought this player primarily because it played Netflix, and Hulu Plus (in fact it’s the only Blu-ray device currently certified to play Hulu Plus content). I wanted a simple interface for the bedroom that my wife could easily use, and this seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
Unfortunately, after spending an hour on the phone with Samsung Level 2 support they told me that it’s a known issue that streaming HD content from Netflix on this player will cause it to buffer every few minutes (SD content does seem to play OK, but I admit to not using it for hours on end to confirm that). I haven’t yet tried Hulu Plus, but can only imagine it suffers from the same buffering problems. The funny thing is that she also told me to delete everything from my instant queue, as that was known to cause problems too – are you kidding me?!
Now, I’m very tech savvy, and have 20 years IT experience, so I think that gives me license to say that it’s not “User Error”!
So, for the record, I have this connected via a Netgear WNR3500L Wireless N router connected via TWC (clocked at about 14Mbit), and the player and router are about 30-40ft apart (with 2 non-brick walls in between) with a wireless signal of “Excellent” according to the player. I’ve tried setting the player as the highest priority in QoS, added it as a system in the DMZ (to allow all ports), and basically had it running as the only device connected to the router. I have a Wii, PS3, 2 laptops and a desktop, and they ALL stream Netflix perfectly, so I know it’s not my setup.
So, a word of advice to anyone looking to buy this player for streaming. As of firmware 1014 (August 2010) it just doesn’t work correctly. Will they fix it? They tell me “yes”, but gave no ETA, so I’m returning it for a refund and will find something else for the bedroom. After looking at a number of other reviews, it would appear I am not the only one seeing this issue. Buyer beware!
UPDATED (9/17/2010) – I posted a similar review directly on Samsung’s website, but they refused to publish it! They said it “…didn’t meet one or more of the product review guidelines.” Talk about trying to brush it under the carpet. Great work Samsung. I have now lost total respect for them, and will go back to Sony/Toshiba.
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