The Samsung BD-UP5000 may have offered the best of both worlds for fence-sitting indecisives unable to choose a side in the Blu ray/HD-DVD war, but it seems they’re paying for that compromise now. Multiple complaints are being heard about the BD-UP5000’s inability to play the new Avatar Blu-ray, a problem which Samsung confirm is down to the firmware.
Initially, online support chats with Samsung’s technical team only confirmed that the company was aware of the problem; they wouldn’t, however, attach any sort of timescale to the release of new firmware that might address it. Since then, however, it looks like someone at Samsung has woken up to the number of complaints about the Blu ray playback, as one technical support person has apparently said that “I see that the issue is already escalated and a new firmware will be released with in a couple of days.”
That revelation came earlier on today, which suggests that the BD-UP5000 will get its new software sometime early next week. However, with the last update all the way back in 2008, there’s understandably some skepticism that Samsung will address things so quickly this time around.