Sony BDP-S300 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
by Sony
|
List Price: Our Price: $15.99 You Save: $384.00 (96%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony BDP-S300 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
Customer Review: Not Market Ready
Summary: 1 Stars
The video & audio is incredible while playing. The problem is, actually getting the Sony BDP-S301/S300 Blu-Ray disc players to actually successfully play a Blu-Ray disc without the software continuously locking up or crashing. The player will start out alright for about the first 30 minutes until it crashes for the first time. Once that occurs, it will continually lock up about every 5-10 minutes after that requiring it to be completely powered down and restarted. It does this with ALL Blu-Ray and regular DVD's (not just the latest). The player is EXTREMELY slow to power back up.
I have loaded all of the latest software/Firmware updates available directly from Sony but they did not eliminate the problem. It did reduce the occurances on the Blu-Ray discs slightly,although it still happens, but did not help on regular DVDs and only slightly improved the time to power up which is still extremely excessive & unnacceptable.
Sony definitely rushed this product to the Market before it was ready and did not put it through the proper testing & validation. Can you imagine the consumer repercussions if GM or Ford put a car onto the Market that just died or locked up every 5-10 minutes and couldn't even perform it's primary function? Sony should immediately take this product off the market until it is ready for the public before completely destroying their quality image any further.
This is a common problem with many other people who have purchased the Sony Blu-Ray players. Actually, 1 Star may be a generous rating for this one. It is surprising that Sony would even put a product on the market that just doesn't even work.
Customer Review: very disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
This product does not live up to the usual quality standards one would expect by Sony. Even with current firmware update this product is very poor. The unit takes an unacceptably long time to power up, is very slow to respond to simple things like ejecting a disc, and you must cross your fingers every time you use the remote to pause, fast forward, etc in hopes that it wont hard freeze...and even then, hard freeze happens fairly regularly.
Its frustrating to have it lock up during a movie - you have to unplug the device power cable. Then wait 3-5 minutes for the thing to boot up again, another 3-5 minutes for the disc to load, cross your fingers the thing wont lock up again when you try to select the scene you were last viewing, cross fingers again as you fast forward through the scene to the point where it locked up...all in all, takes roughly 10 minutes to get back to the point in the film where it seized. Keep in mind you might have to do this more than once during the course of a movie. My wife now jokes how lucky we are if we happen to watch an entire movie without going through this process.
When it is funtioning normally - the picture and sound quality is what you would expect Blu-Ray to be. But the fact the thing is so slow and locks up so frequently offsets anything good you can say about this product.
I cannot reccomend this Blu-Ray player to anyone - its an embarrasment. Once upon a time I would buy Sony electronics without a second thought. This product has made me very skeptical of Sony's direction in quality, and moving forward, will think twice before buying anything else made by Sony
Customer Review: Expensive paper weight
Summary: 1 Stars
Let me preface my review by saying that I have owned several Sony products (televisions, stereo equipment, video equipment, etc.) and have always been quite pleased with the performance and quality. My experience with the Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray player has been a completely different story. First of all, the Blu-ray player arrived with an out of date operating system, which required a firmware update (the first of two, which had to be sent by snail mail, since updates can not be downloaded onto a Mac). Both updates took several weeks to arrive, rendering my Blu-ray player useless, and creating an inconvenience. Shortly after the second update, the Sony factory 12 month warranty had lapsed. My Blu-ray player would not play any disks (DVD or Blu-ray, new or old). I called Sony customer for troubleshooting assistance, and after several processes to reset the player were attempted, the customer service rep advised me that I would need to send it in to Sony for repair at a cost of $200.00. When I explained that I did not wish to spend that much money to have it repaired, he suggested that I order a new one from him. I had to laugh. Why would anyone purchase a second Sony Blu-ray player after having such a negative experience with the first? My Sony BDP-S300 lasted just over one year. The machine that the Sony BDP-S300 replaced was an inexpensive, 9 year old RCA DVD player, which by the way, was still working when it was replaced. I made the mistake of giving it away. Needless to say, Sony will no longer be high on my list when purchasing new electronics. Buyer beware!Customer Review: uuuugggghhhhh!
Summary: 1 Stars
Quick....buy this player and raise the frustration level of your movie viewing experience to previously unimaginable levels. This player is sooooo slow I actually age while movies are loading. About 25 percent of the time, the following day, when the movie finally does load, the player shuts off after you select "play movie". Several times while in the middle of films the player has just shut off. Knowing that by the time I actually get the movie loaded again and to the scene where I had left off I would no longer be in the intended age demographic of the studio, I have seen several films only half way through. This makes me seem very moronish around the water cooler. Honestly, I don't know how sony, which usually builds quality items, could consider this product ready for the market. In the interest of fairness, once you do get going the picture is excellent. I am running the player through a JVC HD-100 projector onto a 120 inch Stewart screen and have no complaints about image quality. Oh yeah, when you are finally finished with the large chunk of your life you have committed to the process you have to get the DVD out. Pushing the eject button requires you to summon all of your remaining patience to avoid throwing the thing out the window as it takes several minutes just for the tray to move. My theatre is on the first floor, but when I finally do throw this thing out the window I will carry it up to my third floor deck to increase my level of satisfaction.Customer Review: Wait for the BDP-S350
Summary: 1 Stars
Page 5 of the owner's manual (BDP-S300/301) states, "This player supports BD-ROM Profile 1 only. Playback of later versions and BDs other than BD-ROM is not guaranteed. Since the Blu-ray Disc specifications are new and evolving, some discs may not play depending on the disc type and the version...."
If you don't care to watch the extras that profile 1.1 and 2.0 provide, it doesn't matter, as you may not be able to watch the disc at all, i.e. I, Robot. I have latest firmware as of this posting, 3.80.
Key features of the Sony BDP-S350 that is scheduled to come out summer 2008:
Supports BonusView, which means it is Profile 1.1 compliant
BD-Live ready, which means it can gain BD-Live capability with a firmware update
Ethernet port for firmware upgrades
Supports 1080p output at both 24 and 60 frames per second
Onboard decoding for Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD
Bitstream output for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio
About $[...] list price.
[...]
Update: I recently upgraded to the newly released firmware 3.90 and have to say, I, Robot now works perfectly. Good job Sony. However, considering the BDP-S350 is coming out in a couple of months and will cost about the same as the S-300, wait.