Quote Originally Posted by ForeverAutumn
My brother has a Samsung Blu-ray player that he bought in December, 2008. He rented a couple of Blu-ray disks over Christmas and had trouble playing them. He was told by someone at Blockbuster that he had to upgrade the player's software. So he did. But it didn't help.
Though Samsung has probably the worst Bluray players next to the cheapies, he probably needs to clean the disc thoroughly before putting them in the player. Rented disc get awfully dirty changing hands, and it could be that the Samsung is sensitive to smudges.

So, he went into Best Buy, where he bought the Samsung and someone there told him that Sony owns the Blu-ray technology and that they code the Blu-ray disks so that they can't be played in other brands. The guy then told him that he should only ever buy a Sony Blu-ray player (yet it was also a Best Buy employee who sold him the Samsung!).
Man, I need boots to get through this bull. Bluray disc are compressed and authored in various houses all over Hollywood. Secondly Bluray technology has many patents spread out over many manufacturers, not just Sony. Sony owns a few patents, Panasonic and Pioneer have others. Some Japanese and Taiwanese disc makers have patents on disc pressing, and others on the disc layer technology. If this were true, Bluray would not have ever gotten to the point it has.

He has a bunch of Blu-ray disks that he bought in 2008 and early 2009 that work fine. It only seems to be new disks that won't play. Also, one of the movies he rented played fine for the first half and only the second half wouldn't play. He took it back to Blockbuster and exchanged it for another disk and had the same problem. In all he tried three disks...same problem on each disk.
Did he download of order the disc for the firmware upgrades? With the exception of my PS3's, I always order the disc for firmware upgrades just to be sure that there are no hiccups during downloading.

The Sony explanation sounds like a load of crap and bad business to me. Is there any validity in this explanation, or should my brother be looking for another reason that his BR player isn't working?

Thanks.
Its a load of ca ca. I would have him send it back to the manufacturer under the warranty and ask them to find the problem, or call customer service (I hate to send him down this hell tunnel, but it may be one of the only answers.)

If he can take it back and get a Panasonic, Sony, or any other comparable model from the major's other than Samsung he would probably be better off.