We'll be straight with you -- we aren't surprised one iota by this one. For those keeping tabs, Samsung's slate of Blu-ray players have been plagued with issues essentially from day one, and while it has released a
flurry of firmware
updates over the years in an attempt to mend a
variety of incompatibility
issues, even its recent BD-UP5000 hybrid player is being
axed early on after giving owners
all sorts of
fits. Apparently, one particular buyer isn't taking things lying down, and has decided to file suit against the mega-corp alleging that it has sold "defective Blu-ray players" to consumers. According to the suit, Sammy was "fully aware of the defective nature of the player [
BD-P1200, in particular] at the time of manufacture and sale," and it also claims that the firm has "failed to provide a remedy consistent with the products' intended and represented uses." More specifically, the verbiage picks on the units' inability to play back select BD titles, and while some fixes have indeed been doled out, we still get the feeling many consumers have been left dissatisfied. Needless to say, this outcome should be interesting.
[Thank, Nfinity and Prey521]
posted Feb 9th 2008 10:57AM
Samsung must have terrible quality assurance procedures to screw this up so badly. There are plenty of HD DVD and BD discs to test against, yet somehow they managed to produce a hybrid player which has problems with both formats.
QA does not prevent you from making shitty buggy worthless products
Say you make concrete life jackets, almost completely worthless.
With QA all that happens is that the Concrete life jackets are all the same as each other
Somone should sue sony for releasing a "prototype" format onto the market while it still being developed!
This is the price people pay for being early adopters.
I was very happy that the PS3's Blu Ray is doing so well.
A consumer is suing a company because their product doesn't work 100% all of the time.
Microsoft may worry.
Apple should worry also, they all should worry...the consumer is really in charge and with a litigious society we live in nobody is safe.
If I may address the court, Ms's issues with the 360 are not compatibility issues, but an overheating issue. This comment implies that not every Xbox 360 game would work with the Xbox 360. An issue no doubt that has no revelation to this particular lawsuit action.
You know, there is a simple solution to this comment problem.
Just don't give your opinion.
Lawsuits are probably ridiculous, but I long ago decided that when it comes to disk players Samsung is not a brand I trust.
Excellent displays, but lousy DVD players (all of em)
Spyvie, I knew a police officer who was murdered by the man in the police sketch you're using. I hope you will consider using a different image.
@ C: Sorry to hear about your friend, but I'm quite certain the Unibomber never killed a policeman. Also, he looked nothing like this FBI sketch...
you dont PAY for engadget, fool.
What I would sue both HD camps for is for putting out ugly VCR looking players. Where have all the designers been sent to? There are plenty of nice looking SD-DVD players. Why can't they do the same with HD players too?
Hahahahaha yes people this is just another indication that bluray sucks! companies cannot even make players to support the format! thats another uppercut the red camp just landed on the blu camp!
An uppercut for HD DVD? How can they throw an uppercut when they are infact lying on the ground with an 8 count?
Right ...
Because Panasonic, Sony, Sharp, Pioneer, and the many other Blu-ray players manufacturers have been sued too. Unlike Toshiba, who is the ONLY HD-DVD manufacturer with rebranded Onkyo and Venturer players. The BDA is facing the same issues a company that licenses their intellectual property to other manufacturers do, they risk dealing with products not manufactured with the best specs. That's why Apple likes to manufacture their own hardware for their OS and software. I'm not saying Apple is perfect because they've had problems too. I'm saying that there's a more efficient way to control things when you're the only one handling the manufacturing of products based on your intellectual property. Unless Samsung does what MS did with its defective Xbox 360; extend the repair warranty, only specifically related to the RROD, to three years. If you buy a product that is continuously plagued with problems, and have issues dealing with the manufacturer, then you as the consumer have the right complain or try to use the legal system "if necessary." Unfortunately, when it comes to class action procedures, the lawyers win, and the plaintiffs get a box of cracker jacks.
You can't manufacture to the BEST SPEC when the Spec's haven't even been finished and released because it was rushed out into the marketplace for lots of suckers to buy. This is only the start of things come for Blu-Ray. Can't way for the day when people are Suing because they can't access features on a Blu-Ray Movie disc that's advertised and they paid for but they can't access it on their $400+ Recently purchased Blu-Ray player. I hope Blu-Ray, the DRM infested format gets SUED out of Existence at the very least. Live on DVD (Not much hope for HD DVD).
I sued my mom last week for not giving me a cookie.
and I just sued you for suing your mom
Touch me and I'll sue you!
I did something else to your mom last week.
I haven't made the switch to Blu-ray yet, and by the looks of it, I'm glad I haven't. I'm willing to go out on a limb for some products, but not ones that essentially replace older products and then don't work at all. I'm actually glad that a corporation is getting sued for not doing its job.
http://www.dontsaynothing.com
There are a lot of Samsung products with a serious lack of quality assurance. It was only a matter of time until it was brought to light that they dropped the ball on these next-gen players. Like the post said, it's not really a surprise to anyone.
If you were contemplating a switch to Blu I personally would have advised you to stay away from Samsung from the beginning. Most BD owners would tell you to go with a Panny, Sharp, Pio, or PS3. The Panny 30 or above seem to be the consensus best players out there now. Don't let Sammy's bad practices scare you away from the other manufacturers.
I wonder why noone has yet sued Microsoft for continuing to sell a defective console!
How bout you work on that ugly ass avatar of yours?
The return of HD-DVD! Mwahahahaha!
I think bob was being sarcastic... and who cares about the profile icons? jeesh.. must be something in the air.
Just wait until people start to realise that their profile 1 or 1.1 player won't play profile 2 disks properly! Not sure about the US but here in the UK, shops (both online and high street) don't list what profile a player supports in the specs, so i'm sure there are plenty of people that have bought into the format thinking it's future proof.
It'll play them just fine. It just won't have the new profile 2.0 features. Given that profile 2.0 adds primarily internet connectivity, do you think that people who bought BD players which didn't have ethernet ports or WiFi will be surprised they didn't suddenly become internet capable later?
why not the LS2/LS7?, if someone puts a disc in the player, I think most people (read: average consumers and not people posting online like we are) would expect it to fully function since they have a Blu-ray disc for a Blu-ray player. And also, like Oliver said, almost no one who is selling you a BR player is showing you what profile it is. So, the main attraction might be fine, but then people will see all these neat extras featured on the box, and get a little mad that they can't access them because the $400 player they bought to watch movies on is already outdated since they didn't know they got the wrong profile dumped on them to keep disc sales up before the complete version finally comes out. I think that's what Oliver was getting at. That's another class action suit coming up. And I would be kind of surprised if it didn't happen. People sued because Halo 3 wasn't exactly 720p, sued for $5mill for a few dollars worth of Xbox Live that they missed out on and were more than compensated for, and then there's the multi-quadrillion dollar lawsuit that people (stupidly) tried to bring up because of Katrina.
i dont quite understand how a case like this works, if he wins does he get a huge settlement or just a functional blu-ray player?
well, i guess that teaches him for choosing blu-ray, HD-DVD FTW!
youre an idiot.
if he wanted a new player, samsung would gladly give him that instead of going to court over it and risk losing lots of moneys
Here's what most likely will happen. Samsung will most likely never let this go to trial. The defense will look over the filing and see what he is demanding, then offer him a tiny sum instead, which will probably equal less than the cost of the legal team's basic research.
This guy will take it, sign some papers saying he won't sue them again or some such nonsense, and be on his merry way with enough case to buy a few new BR players but not enough to do much else.
OR Samsung's legal team will fight tooth and nail so that they don't look like they will settle with everyone who has a bad BR player, which could look like an admission of liability and spur a class action from several disappointed consumers.
Doesn't every electronic device come with a some kind of warranty.
no big surprise here!
i guess next will be something along "my bd1.0 won't play bd2.0 discks!"
Um, the 2.0 discs will still play in 1.0 players. They just won't support PiP or online crap.
I buy movies for movies. And 97% of bluray users own a PS3 according to recent statistics. So this effects a vast minority. About the same amount of HD DVD owners affected by the same missing features in the 360 HD DVD add on
HD DVD is chuckling in its shallow grave!
So this idiot fully knew this was a defective product but bought it anyway? Sueing=desparate for money. Wouldn't he return or exchanged the defective product for another player?
No, the suit says that Samsung knew that the product was defective yet sold it to him anyway, it is the exact OPPOSITE of what you just said.
Good thing everyone wants to go with BluRay over HD. Ill switch to Blu-Ray when someone gives me one for free. I am not spending a dime on this over-rated format.
@ham sandwich
You may not PAY for engadget, but some of us get ads.
Thats Why I have the BD-P1400! I'm Perfectly Happy, Not one problem
I've got the 1400 as well. The picture is fantastic, but the audio and video sometimes get out of synch and you have to rewind it to get them back in line. Pretty annoying. I bought Across the Universe the day it came out, and had to do this 6 times throughout the movie...
Good. Maybe now Samsung will fix the BD-P1200 that I have.
Thats why Ive decided to invest in Red-ray and HHDDVVDDBVD's
Seriously, why would anyone by anything from samsung...ever?
It does not surprise me that someone has taken the step to sue Samsung for providing defective products. The problem is Samsung doesn't offer fixes for their products, in fact, with the case of firmware updates, they usually don't have them on their website, requiring a customer to phone in and explain the problem to a tech for a resolution. For example, if you own the HP-T5064 plasma television (or the smaller HP-T4264 model) and you are using HDMI cables (perhaps from a Blu-Ray player, standard DVD player, cable box, etc), the sound will cut out requiring the user to turn the television off and then on. Samsung makes no mention of this on their site under support for these models, and there are probably a number of people who don't know what to do. The only way I found out about this was calling tech support and they asked if I was using HDMI cables. I told them yes and that the problem was known with Samsung, and the fix was in the form of a firmware download, which you did from their site after acquiring a user name/password and downloaded it to a USB drive, which you then installed into the USB port on the set and flashed the firmware. I asked the tech why they didn't have this fix simply on the website for people to download, and he could not answer it. If there is a problem and the fix is a firmware update then simply provide the update on the site for people down to download. It's that simple. Their site is also plagued with in accuracies about their own products as well as to the specifications of various plasma's they offer, etc. Samsung needs to get their act together and become more customer focused, because in the world of electronics, especially plasma televisions, LCD, Blu-Ray players, there is a lot of competition that offer the same products, with better service.
Wow I wish I could live in the U.S.A and make a living from suing. Anyone able to sponsor me for a green card?
If you want to make a money from suing then I hope you're thinking about law school because it is the lawyers getting the big cash.
Lawyers, FTW!
Shoulda bought a PS3. They're built like battleships.
They are the size of a battleship also. Fail.
Is there anyone who is willing to be non-sarcastic that would know how I go about benefitting from this. I have a dysfunctional Samsung Blu-Ray player that worked well and has subsequently failed me. I will never buy Samsung again, but in the meantime I would love to get my money back. Any help?
If you had registered your product with Samsung, then they would have to contact you about the lawsuit. If not, you can always sue them for not informing you about the lawsuit.
Well, I certainly had to buy the ridiculous firmware upgrade. That doesn't automatically register me or anything user-friendly like that does it?
By the way, thanks for responding without harsh language or calling me any number of unwarranted things. These forums always seem to bring out the best in people.
Engadget gets paid because of us. It's called Ads.
Its about time, but maybe HDMI should be on the list too. we do not want BETA versions make it work the first time.
I've had this exact player (the 1200) for about 7 months now and have had zero problems playing ANY movie (well one, that was a Netflix rental with a hairline crack in the disc). That being said, I imagine i may have received one of the VERY few working models because every board is chock full of consumers that bought this thing and had it tank in one way or another. I'm assuming it's just a matter of time B4 mine gets bricked too. Whatever, i think i paid $210 (new) and got my eye on a PS3 anyway...
ur an idiot blarg. The top samsung LCD's (65, 69, 71, 81) are equaled only by Sony's XBR's, which are far more expensive. The Sony V3000 and W3000 are comparable to the 65, but that's about it. Samsung tv's put out an unbelievable picture, and for far less than equivalent Sony's. Everyone else falls short. So THERE'S a reason to buy something from Samsung...