Sony BDP-S550 1080p Blu-ray Player
by Sony
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List Price: Our Price: $125.00 You Save: $274.99 (69%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony BDP-S550 1080p Blu-ray Player
Customer Review: Sony BDP-S550 1080p Blu-ray Player
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading a lot of reviews on this player as well as many others by various manufacturers, I decided to buy this blu-ray player. It had the features I was looking for and it had a lot of positive reviews. There seemed to be many other players with a significant lag once you turned the player on and inserted a disc until the time the movie would actually play. This Sony player does have some lag, but not as much as some of the other players do. So far, this unit has played every disc that I have put into it, another problem with other players. I haven't had much experience getting the BD-Live features to work because very few discs really utilize this feature. I am very happy with my purchase of this player with one exception. There does not seem to be a slow motion feature with this unit. There is the play, pause, and stop features, but it seems to lack slow motion capabilities. There is nothing at all about slow motion in the owners manual. This is only a small irritant but it does not affect my overall satisfaction with this player. I would not hesitate to buy another one.Customer Review: Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray player
Summary: 5 Stars
I returned a Panasonic player due to the abysmal upconversion it did on standard discs. The Sony unit does a superb job at this and it is quicker to be ready to play. I used an HDMI connection to my Sony KDL 52XBR6. Sony has a feature that configures their equipment connected with HDMI cables. So, when you turn-on the player it signals the TV to change inputs automatically. I have a Yamaha AV Receiver so I still have to manually switch it over. When you turn off the player the TV automatically returns to its' previous setting on satellite. I may never use the internet connection, but I got this unit at the same price as the model below, so I couldn't pass it up. I have yet to play a Blu-ray disc in it, but I'll add to this review when I get around to it.
Part II: I got the movie "300", in Blu Ray widescreen. I don't have the means to do a side by side comparison, meaning identical players and tv's. My impression is that Blu Ray is not as good as people might think. The upconverted standard dvd is pretty damn good. The difference is not dramatic.
Customer Review: So far, so good
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this machine to replace a Samsuyng BDP 1200. The picture is great on the 1200 but there are so many playback issues it makes it almost useless. Many movies have lock ups and audio sync issues, and it seems like most BD Live new blu ray releases require a firmware update and Samsung is not all that quick to issue updates. Plus it does not decode the advanced audio formats. So I picked up the Sony and so far it has performed as advertised. It has played every movie perfectly. I use the analog outputs and get full HD sound in all formats. It also loads fast. On my 56 inch DLP the picture looks very good on both BR and SD discs. Overall I can not complain. I imagine in a side by side comparison, especially on SD dvd, the 1200 has a slight edge due to the Reon chip, but the Sony more than suffices for my purposes, and guess what. It also actually plays the movie! Go figure?
I expect a few firmware updates will be required in the future, but hopefully not the constant ones I was seeing before, since the S550 is BD Live and 2.0 compliant.
Customer Review: Nice product - worth the price
Summary: 5 Stars
I was looking for a new toy to buy, and I always wanted to own a blu-ray player to see what the big deal is about. All I have to say is WOW.
While some BDs seem to appear at the same quality as my Sony upconverting DVD player, others definitely are far superior in picture quality over DVD.
Also, this player has the 7.1 analog out. You can tell the player what speakers are hooked up as well. This is a nice feature, as I don't have to spend more money replacing my old (6 years old) 5.1 AV receiver. It hooks right up to the multi channel in ports in the back. The sound is crisp and fills my media room nicely.
The only somewhat negative thing I could think of to note is that it loads discs slowly compared to a normal DVD player. I would say the load time is 2-3 times as long as my 5-disc DVD player and 4-5 times as long as my single disc DVD player (which is lightning fast). It's not like you're waiting for eternity for it to load. In fact, I've gotten used to it. Just thought I'd mention it.
Customer Review: Player decodes lossless DTS-HD Ma Dolby True HD
Summary: 5 Stars
This player DECODES both
By default the unit has the setup selected in Mix, then it uses the core DTS and core Dolby instead of the lossless codecs.
But changing the setup to Direct it decodes lossless formats to PCM when the receiver does not.
The test was "Final CountDown" using a Yamaha 861 (It does not have DTS-HD MA, Dolby TrueHD, but accept PCM 8 ch over HDMI 1.2b ).
Final CountDown has both lossless formats.
Evaluation
Sony S550 in Direct mode
Audio track 1: The player reports on screen DTS-HD Master 3/4.1. The receiver report PCM 3/4/0.1 (7.1)
Audio track 2: The player reports on screen Dolby True HD 3/4.1. The receiver report PCM 3/4/0.1 (7.1)
Sony S550 in Mix Mode
Audio track 1: The player report DTS 3/2.1. The receiver report DTS 3/2/0.1 (Core 5.1)
Audio track 2: The player report Dolby 3/2.1. The receiver report Dolby 3/2/0.1 (Core 5.1)
The sound in Direct mode is more depth and realistic.