Samsung BDP-3600 BluRay Player

6/30/2009 2:39 PM EDT

Ah holidays. Canada Day in Canada obviously. Independence Day in the US. Time to get some friends over and celebrate!

On the up side, we are going to have a house full of people. On the down side, it is supposed to be raining so we can't enjoy the outside.

But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy, so if the rain does come then we will end up watching some movies... some BluRay movies!

As a precursor to my surround sound purchase I did end up buying a BluRay player over the weekend. I picked up the Samsung BDP-3600 from the local FutureShop (it was Canada's version of BestBuy until BestBuy bought them now it is just one company having two stores side by side to get all of the consumer spending).

The player seems pretty nice so far. It is definitely aesthetic with the curved edges and touch buttons on the top to control the movie. The picture quality has been excellent. And I am going to assume that the sound will be good as well in the next few weeks.

But there are a few issues that I am encountering. First, one of the reasons that I went with this player instead of the BDP-1600 was that it came with a Wi-Fi dongle. But the dongle does not work. It can see my wireless network, but after entering in my security code multiple times in both WEP and WEP2 (just to be sure) it refuses to connect to the internet. The player is sitting right below my PS3, which is connected to the same wireless network so I know that the router is working. I've gone to a few forums and it might have something to do with the fact that there is a space in the network name, but to me that seems wrong. Why can all of my other wireless devices connect to my router if there is a space in the name but my newest purchase is not able to?

The other issue that I have is having the player remember where I was at in the movie when I turn it off. My son and I started watching Ratatouille on Monday. He was good for about a half hour before we switched to coloring. The next day when we went to watch a bit more the movie started at the beginning again instead of remembering where I had stopped it. This I find quite annoying and after going through all of the menu options, and even trying to set bookmarks, I can not find a way to have it save where we left off.

Aside from these two points I find the BluRay player quite good and am pleased with my purchase. Once I can resolve these two issues I think I will be quite happy with it!