Customer Reviews

Samsung HT-Q80 XM Ready Five-Disc DVD Changer Home Theater System (5.1 Channel)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was a little taken aback by the negative reviews on the HDMI pass through feature of this machine. I'll tell you what, not only is it working perfectly for me, the sound and video are both breathtaking and the setup was a breeze. I'll be sure to post a follow-up should things go sour, but for now I can't help but be 100% satisfied with this purchase.

Purchased 6/06... First issue was that the sound was OK for CD / DVD playback but poor for FM. There are not bass or treble adjustments...only an EQ function with some "preset" settings. If this unit had an actual EQ, the sound quality issues could be probably be eliminated.

Also, a known "bug" (as I have seen this issue on other sites) is red dots on the screen with DVD playback using the HDMI cable. Unfortunately, my wife threw away the box so I could not return the unit... Now I have been waiting almost a month to get my unit back as I had to take it in in for warranty repair to have the HDMI port replaced.

As this is the system was intended for use in my living room, I will probably end up selling it or using the HT-Q80 as a DVD player in the bedroom and purchasing a better sounding home theater system.

For the average home theater person this is entirely adequate. The setup is incredibly easy and only requires the purchase of (1) HDMI cable to link up with your 1080p set. If you want to eliminate the wires running to the back of the room for the rear channel there is an available wireless rear reciever. (Note: the rear speakers still must be plugged into the wireless rear reciever in order to get power, this just eliminates the potential for tripping over a cord if the room the system is in doesn't have sufficient carpets to cover up the wires.) I did not purchase the wireless channel because it was out of stock everywhere.

The sound from this set is very very good, especially for the price. It also has neat features like the ability to pulg in an external USB drive. The lights on the display can be dimmed during a movie, a nice feature so your eyes are not engaged somewhere other than the screen. The compact size is also admirable. A 5 disc carousel and the ability to run a 5.1 system out the back with XM capability seems like a lot to fit into such a small box, perhaps thats why it doesn't work.

The very first time I set out to play a disk everything worked out great, until the time came to take the disk out. The player held the disc and showed me five empty slots in the tray. It refused to give the disk back. It refused to close, even when the power was turned off. After spending 15 minutes on hold with Samsung tech support they told me to send it in at my own expense becuase they didn't know what was wrong. Fed up, I physically pushed the drawer back into the unit and somehow that triggered the unit to work properlly again.

The second issue is far worse. On an entirely different occassion the player took a disk, went into standby mode and refused to do anything. It wouldn't power on for more than 2 seconds because making an electric shorting noise and reverting to standby mode. The tray would not open, either from the button on the unit or the remote. I have yet to call tech support back, but I have a feeling they will just tell me to send it in.

My thrid gripe with this system is the remote. There are too many small buttons that look exactly the same. It has a strange feeling in hand that is not conducive to reaching all the major buttons at once with only one thumb. Fortunately it can control the TV, but only just. The DVD functions on the remote are good, if you can make the reciever see the remote. When the tray door is open on the unit it blocks the IR reciever for the remote to communicate with. I pracctically have to hold the remote on the floor to flash the DVD player with the beam. If you do get this sytem, mount it at eye-level so this problem will not occue.

Overall I would give this about a 4.5 out of 5 for sound and ease of setup. Samsung gets a 1 for tech support and reliability since we have had this machine break on 2 out of 5 dvd's thus far. It is possible that I got a defective unit. If that is the case I would highly reccomend this, other than the flawed remote. If you see other reviews like this one about DVD's munching, power shorting Samnsungs then steer clear.

Very hapy with the Samaung ht-q80, I have it hooked up to my 56" JVC 1080p tv and the picture is great, the sound is very good for the price.

I got this system to use with playstation 3 since it has hdmi in/out and my old samsung HT system did not. I set it up easily and was ready to go in minutes. The sound quality is excellent even with FM. The unit certainly has enough power to rock the room I have it in. I haven't gotten the rear speaker wireless amplifier yet since it is on backorder everywhere (including amazon) but if it is anything like the wireless system on my old unit, it should be great. The picture was crystal clear on standard definition and I look forward to seeing what the unit can do when it up encodes to high def. Overall, I would say that this is a great system, particularly for the price.

1. Remove discs from tray.

2. Close tray wait for 'no disc'

5. Press enter on remote. (There will be no on-screen response.)

6. Press 8, 4, 2, 6, 9 on the remote. (There will be no on-screen response.)

7. Press enter on the remote. Player will automatically shut off.

8. Turn player on.

9. turn off.

10. Turn player off then on again.

11. Player is now region-free.

Enjoy your REGION FREE DVD PLAYER!

I own a PS3 so I've been shopping around for a package that's ideal for a small bedroom but capable of producing solid sound. I opened the box and all components were packed neatly and securely. Set up and instructions were simple. When I fired it up I began listening to FM stations. They were grainy at first. But after moving the antenna, I was able to get a better signal. At the time, my main concern was that all speakers worked and they did after performing a test tone.

Now came the real test, I hooked my PS3 via composite (red and white) cables to the unit and popped in COD3. The feeling of being in a war was certainly present with this system. The subwoofer produced a clear but powerful rumble for explosions and voices, gunshots and the soundtrack sounded very clear. I ordered a digital optical cable to connect the PS3 to the unit. Hopefully that will produce a better effect than composite. To tell you the truth I've never really heard anything in Dolby Digital before so it will be interesting.

I would recommend this system.

I got this item from a friend as a present, and let me tell you what, it's been well worth it. I read through the reviews and wanted to write one to share my personal experiences with this product so that people aren't turned off due to bad experiences of others. Sounds like a couple other reviewers got a bad product, and it's much more common to have people writing reviews about bad experiences they have, rather than constructive, good opinions after having a good experience!

That being said, I love this player. I have had no difficulties with it playing DVD's, or having DVD's getting "caught" in the player. It's played everything I've thrown at it, MP3 CD's, normal Audio CD's, DVD's, everything. To the reviewer who was adressing the USB port - The USB port on this device is not a powered USB port, which is why it reads it but never recognizes the device correctly. I ran into the same issue with my MP3 player because it does not run off of the battery when you plug it in, it depends on the USB port to provide power. Now, when I plugged in my camera, it worked fine and I was able to browse and select a background picture through that.

The DVD's on this player look amazing, and I'm only using a composite cable. I'm not sure about HDMI quality as I don't have a TV that can handle that, but I will edit this review when I do as my wife and I are getting ourselves one for Christmas. The sound quality is great, I have the wireless amplifier for the rear speakers and it sounds AMAZING, I was worried at first as it took a bit for the rear amp and the main unit to sync up, but once it did, it's worked right away perfectly every time. The preset EQ's, especially the Dolby Surround Pro Logic II, sound great when I run my Gamecube and PS2 through them.

For the beginner home theater user, this is the perfect set. It's inexpensive and great quality, as I've come to expect from the Samsung products I own. My wife's cell phone is Samsung, and now this system has convinced me that the HDTV we will be buying in the next week or two will be Samsung as well because of the quality of this system. Don't let a bad review or two turn you away from this great product, because you will seriously be impressed! If you're looking to tweak every individual EQ and picture setting, as an advanced home theater user, this probably is not the system for you. But for the average home consumer like myself, this has worked out great and I would recommend it to anyone!!

We bought this HT system 12/06. Like another reviewer pointed out, didn't come with brackets for the speakers - fine, didn't really expect them to be included. The surround sound works great, not complaints. DVD player is another story. It freezes while the DVDs are playing, making it impossible to enjoy the movie. Contacted Samsung, had to mail the DVD unit to their service center -- received it back, the problem was still not fixed. Now we have to mail the DVD unit back to them AGAIN, hoping they'll find what the problem is, and either fix it or replace the player. Very disappointed, very frustrating, wishing we bought a different brand.

I should first say that the sound from these are great for a HTIB. The lack of an EQ is a given for this range of home theaters in a box, so that should not be an issue. The upscaling works fine, the sound is more than satisfactory for my small room, and initial set-up was a breeze.

Now on to the bad...The HDMI passthrough on this system only supports up to 1080i not 1080p which was a complete let-down for me since i wanted to pass my PS3 through it. I now use HDMI from pS3 to TV and digital in to HT80. Also, when playing divx and other burned media, this player only supports recorded resolution of 480p. Anything else higher cannot be played and will give you a message accordingly. For this player to upscale to 720p and 1080i but not be able to play divx at those resolutions is also absurd to me. Finally, I had a problem connecting storage to the USB of this unit. It could not read it, and just continually tried.

So...I enjoy using this system every day for its sound, it's variety of connections, and it's very good DVD playback, but for the reasons stated above, it had its faults. Pay close attention to what you are getting and make sure this is the right unit for you. But hey, I got this for $299 with free 2-day shipping so I can't complain TOO much.