I have a samsung tv with a sony BDPS1500 blu-ray player. When I watch tv the volume is set at 15 but when I watch a dvd I have to put the volume the whole way up to 30 to hear it. How can i fix this or is this normal with blu-ray players?

I had a similar problem with my Sony BDPS360 player hooked up to a 2.1 channel soundbar using a TOSlink audio cable.

I found these settings worked for me. Your particular player probably has similar audio options.

Audio Out Priority: Coaxial/optical
Audio (HDMI): 2 ch PCM
BD Audio Setting: Direct
Audio ATT: Off
Dolby Digital: Downmix
DTS: Downmix
48 Khz/16bit
Audio DRC: Standard
Downmix: Normal

Double-check your connections, or swap out your cable if you have a spare. I was getting low volume out of one set of speakers, and it turned out that the optical cable was not well seated into the DVD player socket.