Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 slow start up,still no free movies September 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
superb picture and sound .very good value for money.
Very dissapointed with Sony one of the key attractions was the 4 free dvds promised in 28 days (Ha Ha) .
28 days long gone and still not here ,rang Sony and they will try to rush it along they SHOULD be here in 3 weeks .
Watch this space.
Sony shame on you
 Pick up a bargain. September 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Now that the new S350 is out, you can pick one of these up for a bargain price. Remember this was originally a 400 machine aimed at early adopters and videophiles, and the build quality is therefore superb.
Picture quality is fantastic and I doubt whether most people would be able to tell the 1080p output apart from any other machine, as it is basically perfect.
Sony continue to support this product with firmware updates, now on version 4.20 and the speed of operation is now more than acceptable. Latest firmware supports Dolby TruHD too.
Okay, so it's only profile 1 and won't support some advanced features, but if you want a well made player just to watch movies, I can highly recommend this Sony.
 HD? August 11, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've had this BDP S300 for a few weeks now & over all it's an ok machine. Yes it is slow to power on & load Blu Ray discs but I think this is a problem not unique to Sony machines. The picture is indeed sharper with richer colour but I'm not sure that it's the 5 times quality of DVD often used to describe Blu Ray or HD. I think where you notice the picture quality differance most is with lots of detail in big wide shots, on DVD compression started to kick in and cause break up or softness of the picture. The other plus is the HDMI out if you have an LCD which does away with any analogue colour bleeding. But I still not sure if it was worth paying out nearly 200 for these few niceties. My advise is if you've got a high end DVD connected via SCART stay with it until it starts playing up, then you might as well upgrade.
 Decent Picture. No HD Sound. Equals= Don't Buy July 16, 2008
20 out of 23 found this review helpful
Granted, this player has a pretty decent picture. The Handling is nice. The Sound is not bad. Sound? Yes, but only if you enjoy the regular DTS or DD Tracks.
If you want to take advantage of one of the most important features of Blu Ray. The HD Sound. (True HD, DTS HD Master), which has about 30 times as much information and therefor quality as regular DD or DTS sound this player would be a bad decision. Why? Because it can't decode it internally or even bitstream it via HDMI.
So if you ever planning of taking advantage of HD Sound, (Which is featured on ALL new discs) you need to buy a player that can handle it.
There are 3 good candidates. 1.) Samsung BD-P 1400, 2.) Samsung BD-P 1500 3.) Panasonic DMP-30
Those players can do both. They can decode the sound internally, so that you can even play it back with older receivers that have HDMI input. Or they can bitstream it via HDMI to your Receiver (like the Onkyo 605).
Trust me, you'll notice the difference. It's like comparing a mono VHS Tape with a THX certified DVD.
Personally I can't understand why Sony, the inventor of Blu Ray can't produce a decent player.
There are 4 new audio Codecs. 1.) Dolby True HD 2.) DTS HD Master 3.) DTS HD High Resolution 4.) Dolby Digital Plus (for that one this player actually has a decoder, but sadly there are practically no Blu Ray's out there which utilize this outdated codec).
My advice= Go with one of the 3 players mentioned above. Don't waste your money on one that will become obsolete once you buy a new receiver!
 Slow slow slow July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have a Toshiba HD-DVD player, and this Sony Blue-ray player. Both of them have left me with the impression that HD technology is very immature yet.
In short: SLOW. It takes at least a couple of minutes to start up and load a disk, sometimes several minutes. (Ratatouille: SIX minutes!)
And it takes a second or two, at least, to react to every button press.
And this machine freezes if I use the rewind and play button too fast after each other.
If I was in Hardware in these companies, I'd be embarrassed.
|
