The Samsung BD-H5100 is a small-form Blu-ray player from South Korean company, Samsung, released in Mar 03, 2014.

Samsung BD-H5100

Samsung BD-H5100
Developer	Samsung
Manufacturer	Samsung
Release date	Mar 03, 2014
Introductory price	$255.00
Discontinued	Yes
Profile	2.0
Region	A, 1
Media	BD (BD-ROM, BD-RE, BD-R) DVD (DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW) CD (CD-DA, CD-R, CD-RW, MP3-CD)
Operating System	Linux
CPU	MediaTek MT8551
Storage	?
Networking	Yes
Online Services	Opera TV Store (discontinued), multiple web apps
Display	HDMI 1.0
Sound	Dolby Digital Dolby Digital Plus Dolby Digital TrueHD DTS DTS-HD HRA DTS-HD MA PCM
Power	AC 100-240V, 50-60Hz
Dimensions	26.9 x 3.9 x 19.3 cm (10.6 x 1.5 x 7.6 inches)
Weight	0.5 kg (1.1 lbs)

Overall, it's a basic BD player with good performance, a nice UI, and cozy form factor, an improvement over Samsung's previous models. It was originally priced at $299, but has gone down since discontinuation. For the operating system, it uses Linux and the player's latest firmware update was released in Jan 11 2016, fixing playback issues.

This player is capable of connecting to LAN/Internet, but does not come with WI-FI built-in, so, users are forced to use an Ethernet cable for connection. 

For audio, it is capable of playing DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD, however, when selected and enabling one of these two codecs (under unprocessed bitstream), the player will not play Interactive and Secondary Audio, only the Primary Audio is played. When PCM is selected (HDMI or Coaxial), all audio is converted, played, and mixed in PCM, but in only in stereo unless it's native PCM. BDs with native PCM audio will play surround sound. When processed bitstream is selected for Dolby or DTS, it will decode all audio in PCM and then re-encoded into either DTS or Dolby. 

This player is one of the first models from Samsung starting around 2014 to show BD metadata (thumbnail and name). It uses the small version of the disc's thumbnail, until Samsung's newer Ultra HD BD players, starting from 2016, to show the larger thumbnails.

The BD-H5100's UI

CD Ripper: This player is one of the few models that lets you rip audio files from Audio CDs to a USB, converts it to MP3 format (a la Xbox 360 and PS3). Additionally, you can copy data files (video/photo/music) from data disc to a USB.

Media Player: Play video, audio, and image files from a USB or DLNA server. It's capable of playing MP4, VC1, AVC, MPEG2, (AVI, MKV, WMV, PS) MP3, WMA, JPEG and PNG files. It does not play BD ISOs or folders. 

Opera TV Store and Web apps: This player used to let users use the Opera TV Store, an app store that lets users downloads apps and games. However, as of 2019, the Opera TV Store was shutdown, not long after the company, Vewd, acquired the store from Opera. Its URL was "samsung.tvstore.opera.com".*

The Opera TV Store's apps and games are HTML apps written in HTML5 and JavaScript, using a custom-embedded version of the Opera web browser. This is unrelated to Blu-ray's HDMV/BD-J for apps and games, as these are different technical standards.

Opera TV Store before the shutdown

 
As of 2025, only two of the built-in apps still function, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube, while the rest are unusable. However, both apps are slow and do not preform well, Youtube performing the worse with sometimes low quality video (best for music and podcasts).

Technical Specs

This model contains the MediaTek MT8551 (Arm-based) system-on-chip.

The BD-H5100's System-on-Chip with heat sink removed

Samsung K4B2G1646O-BCK0 specs:

• Type: DDR3 SDRAM
• Capacity: 2 Gbit (256 MB)
• Organization: 128M x 16 (16-bit data bus width)
• Voltage: 1.5V (standard DDR3)
• Package: 96-ball FBGA
• Speed grade: "-BCK0" suffix indicates DDR3-1600 (800 MHz clock, 1600 MT/s effective data rate)

• Type: DDR3 SDRAM
• Capacity: 1 Gbit (128 MB)
• Organization: 64M x 16 (16-bit wide)

  Inside the BD-H5100 with heat sink on CPU and cover on powersupply

  
  
• Voltage: 1.5V
• Package: 96-pin FBGA (Fine-pitch Ball Grid Array)
• Speed grade: The "-BCK0" suffix typically indicates DDR3-1600 (800 MHz clock, 1600 MT/s effective)

These two RAM chips are for running the OS, UI, decoding buffers, and apps.

An additional chip, the Texas Instruments TPS65251, is a high-current, synchronous, triple-output buck converter with integrated FETs, designed for applications requiring multiple power rails. 

Similar Models

Samsung has made similar models with the same UI and similar form factor but adds addtional features such as WI-FI, Blu-ray 3D playback, etc. In some models (HT-J5500W), the Opera TV Store in under a different name as "Vewd TV Store".

• BD-H5900
• BD-H6500
• HT-J5500W

Links & Sources

• *Used Wireshark to find the URL
• BD-H5100 Manual PDF
•  https://semiconductor.samsung.com/dram/ddr/ddr3/k4b2g1646f-bck0/

Author(s) : Æ Firestone