Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have owned this device for about 1 month now. The 3 reasons why I bought this was to take advantage of: 1 Blu-Ray player at a reasonable price 2 Online content (eg. Netflix, Vudu, YouTube, Pandora etc.) 3 Network video streaming from Windows Home Server (or any other Media Connect, DLNA ready streaming server, etc.) Based upon the description, this unit would seem to cover all 3 of my goals. HOWEVER! there are caveats, and failures along this path... #1 yes it is a reasonable price for a BluRay player. However, prices are coming down for these players across the board, everywhere. If what you want is simply a BluRay player at a low cost, go elsewhere. #2 yes, it is easy to set up, and access the internet to stream from the Netflix, etc. No worries here at all (assuming that your connection has sufficient bandwidth for video, and you know how to setup/correct your connection, etc., should they arise). #3 Total Failure. On the outside of the box, the sales hype would lead you to believe (as I did) that this player was further enough along the line of the development path to support streaming content from your own in-house network, whatever it may be, including basic network shares, or more sophisticated media servers such as WHS, MMS, Niveus, etc. However, even with a Window Media Connect, DLNA enabled server this unit will not stream your content successfully. Reasons why it fails: The C5500 (or C6500, no difference between the units except for the inclusion of a WiFi connection) will not be able to maintain a connection--you will be able to connect the device and stream content, but the unit will not be able to maintain a connection to your source server. Between 10 to 50 minutes into your stream, this unit will declare "network connection lost". This, despite the fact that every single other device on your network is still connected, fully functional, and no log errors anywhere to help you correct this problem. This connection problem occurs regardless of whether you are using a wired or wireless connection (for wireless, you only have the option of purchasing the Samsung wireless connector, which is basically the difference in price between this unit and the C6500). Once this happens, all you can do is turn the unit off, turn it back on again, reconnect to your media streaming server, find your media, start it all over again, then find your place again for viewing. A long, tedious, unwanted procedure. This unit is limited in the content it can play. Very limited. Especially audio. The limitation on network connection sustainability plus content playability could be a firmware issue. Samsung has already released at least 1 firmware upgrade since this product's release only a short while ago (this is a very new product, as of Q1 2010). However, for the price, and what is available as an alternative (with much higher playback quality), this unit fails for your home theatre streaming requirements. Yet another reason why this device fails: it has a very short time span between being paused and going into device shut down. After a resume from shut down, you must renavigate to your content from square one. No bookmarking! This results in an unacceptable amount of time and remote control clicking just to get back to where you last left off: you must restart the device, locate your content, resume play, and then somehow find your last viewing spot in the content.... I do NOT recommend this product.