I'm about fed up with my BD-P1200

[Woochifer]

Wooch, I'm not speaking about any specific player or format, but more a general sense that this industry is getting more uncertain. Firmware updates, BSODs, viruses, mallware, etc. used to be something only people with computers used to have to worry about, but now it looks like it will affect everyone who has home electronics. I'm just asking if this is a good thing.

Where are you seeing reports of BD players with BSODs, viruses, or malware? The issues with BD players have been mostly limited to their inability to play certain discs or access certain features. At least now, with most BD players using flash ROMs, the firmware can be updated fairly easily. In the infancy of the DVD format, you had players with firmware issues that could not be corrected unless you exchanged the player or a service tech replaced certain components.

If anything, it goes in the opposite direction from the whole back-to-basics, locally-built-&-supported, and less complicated trends that a down economy should tend towards. Personally, I've lived with this reality since my first C-64 computer, so I'm OK with it, I suppose. I just don't know if we're going a little too far in that direction, and that this may be the wrong time to be going there.

When has technology EVER gone "back-to-basics"? It's always been a game of adding features and making things faster and smaller.

Blu-ray players use Java as the programming language, but they are not asked to perform the wide range of tasks that PCs are asked to. Plus, most of the executable code for a BD player comes with a movie that customers purchase or rent, and those are usually known sources. It's not like you'll be playing files from hundreds of different locations like you do with web surfing on a computer. If you want to get into feature bloat, security holes, and complexity run rampant, look no further than your computer desktop.

That said, Samsung does seem to be slipping somewhat compared to the competition. Reliability and support have not been their strong suits. Is this a sign that the company is slipping in other ways as well?

Again, are you talking about their BD players or are you generalizing about the entire company? Their BD players, like everybody else's, have improved since the first generation models. Where they fall short is in how often they update the firmware to address new incompatibilities that crop up in the market. But, as far as their TVs, cellphones, memory chips, and media players go, their reliability and support have been solid for years.