If you’ve read our full already, you’ll know that we’re more than a bit disappointed with the set top box’ Freeview HD recording skills, especially for the price Samsung is asking. But it’s not all bad news: the Samsung BD-C8500M is much more adept when it comes to network skills. Read on and find out what we mean in this part of our Samsung BD-C8500M review.

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Look around the back of the Samsung BD-C8500M and in amongst all the ports, you’ll see an Ethernet jack, but this isn’t just for mere firmware updates or BD Live dross (Though it is for that too). Hook up this set top box to the net (and your network), and you can pipe all sorts of media and more through: how much of it you’ll actually want to is another matter entirely though.

Samsung’s Internet@TV service has been around for a while now, but we’re a bit disappointed at what’s on offer. Most of the widgets you can download are try me once, never again, purely because of the remote control input. You might occasionally check Twitter from your sofa this way, but you certainly won’t want to type out 140 characters with the cluttered included remote control. The same goes for entering addresses in the Google Maps widget, making it completely useless.

The IPTV offerings could rescue the Internet@TV platform from mediocrity, but unfortunately they don’t. YouTube can’t keep us entertained for as long as we sometimes like to sit on the couch for, and as for the promised BBC iPlayer support? Yeah, that’s not here.

Of more interest for some will be the Lovefilm streaming service. Subscribers to the service will be able to log in straight through the Samsung BD-C8500M and stream movies to their HDTV. It’s a nice touch, but however, this is an extra monthly bill to pay, and until Lovefilm’s online catalogue really grows to match its DVD postal library, we honestly prefer the option of being able to rent movies over Xbox 360 or PS3.

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What makes the Samsung BD-C8500M stand out however is its fuss free home networking. Streaming media over your home network is rarely idiot proof, but we found it was close as you could get, and the Samsung BD-C8500M performed an admirable job of hooking up to our servers and playing back video and music, and if you’re having trouble with that, you can always play anything through the USB port tucked behind a door on the front of the set top box.

Samsung’s developed a reputation of late for playing nice with plenty of video files and formats, and we found that to be the case here too: the Samsung BD-C8500M merrily played through AVI, MP4 and MKV files, which should keep most people happy.

We’ve also got to give props to Samsung for sticking Wi-Fi in the Samsung BD-C8500M, no additional dongle required. Reception was particularly impressive, and we got the Samsung BD-C8500M up and running online in a room away from the router where most laptops struggle. It’ll be a blessed relief for anyone who lives in a house where the TV isn’t next to the router, a rather large market almost every AV company seems to have ignored until recently.

The Samsung BD-C8500M is probably overkill if all you want is a network media streaming device. These can be had for under £100, and HTPCs for under £200 – but if you’re looking for a set top box that slings Blu-rays and tunes into too, with enough space for storing music on, the network skills are icing on the cake.

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