Customer Reviews

Sylvania NB530SLX Blu-ray Disc Player (Black)

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This player does all the important stuff very well. I was able to have it entirely set up in about 5 minutes. The picture quality is great, and I'm especially pleased with the upconversion of my DVD library. It does not have a remarkable number of outputs, but it has the HDMI and Coax outs that I need. The downsides are the cheap-feeling remote, the time it takes initially to load Blu Ray disks, and the fact that higher-end players have higher-end features.

Pros:
-cheap (especially since I got it free with the Amazon deal!)
-has the necessary features (mute HDMI audio, picture settings)
-great picture.
-Really easy to set up and use.

Cons:
-The remote is rather sad and pathetic.
-Long load times of Blu Ray disks (does not appy to regular DVD)
-Lack of high-end features.

I am writing this review because I see that nobody has addressed problems with firmware yet. I have and I am really frustrated. Firstly the player has no ethernet ports so downloading firmware is something that has to be done manually. This player comes with an SD slot which I figured would work for downloading firmware updates but it apparently doesn't even do that. I downloaded the updates to my SD card and the player recognized the updates; only the "loading software" screen stayed on the screen for about a half hour to an hour before the player just shut off from sitting idle too long. Having read a few forums, I concluded that I would probably have to go out and get discs to burn the software onto so just to make my player play newer blu-rays, I have to spend more money. My point is that other blu-ray players have the feature of simply plugging in an ethernet port or connecting wirelessly to the internet; which means firmware happens without doing a thing. The player will be fine for awhile but you'll be pretty irritated when you come across a movie it won't play and need to get the firmware.

The movies it does play it does just fine. I guess I just don't like having to go way out my way just to make a product do what it is supposed to.

We've had this for a month and are real happy with it. Consumer Reports rated it (actually the precursor model) as a best buy and they seem to have got it right. It is every bit the equal, or superior, to the Sony Blu-Ray that we paid 3 times as much for and crapped out just after the warranty was over. The picture quality is execellent and it is simple to set up and use.

I made the choice for this player since it was cheap and I wanted to a bluray player to supplement my Xbox 360. The Sylvania gets the job done. I may not get Bluray LIVE, but I have yet to find the technology developed enough to make it worth my while to invest in. The picture quality is great for the price and lets be honest-- if you're considering this player you probably have an equally entry-level type HDTV as well.

Get this if you're an HD enthusiast on a budget OR a disgruntled 360 owner. Bare bones Bluray at its best!

I have never heard of Sylvania prior to buying this Blu-Ray Player (and I would have not purchased it had it not come free with the purchase of a Samsung LCD tv), but after setting this baby up, I could not give it anything less than 5 stars!

The player itself is easy as macaroni to set up (trust me, you will not need the manual for directions!) and after about 2 minutes, your home theater is good to go!

I played Planet Earth via Blu Ray as well as 2001: Space Odyssey; these movies looked flawless in 1080p. This player is very easy to operate and the upconversion of regular DVD's look amazing as well! To the untrained eye, one may not be able to tell the difference, but if you are a visual techie of any kind, the Blu-Ray v.s. DVD PQ debate is as much a thing of the past as the actual DVD's themselves: Blu-Ray definitely is the way to go! Do your HDTV a big favor and buddy it up with a reliable Blu-ray Player. The Sylvania NB 530 SLX will not disappoint!

As a few other reviews here have mentioned, the load times can sometimes take a while (I've had waits of up to 20 seconds before the player itself powers up and functions). When I hit the power button, the Sylvania NB530SLX will greet me with a creepy "Hello" text on the front panel, but during those 10-20 seconds that it is powering up, the player simply will not respond to any button you press. Even the OPEN/CLOSE button will not even affect its booting. To some, this may be a huge flaw because my understanding is that a PS3 or another expensive BD player can all read Blu-ray movies with speed and ease. But to aspiring Shaolin monks with the patience and tolerance of a banana slug such as myself, 20-30 seconds is something I can easily handle!

Take your pick with the many offerings available online, but the Sylvania is a great buy for the relatively inexpensive price of $128.60 (price as of 9/15)!

This blu-ray player came with a tv that I purchased so I cannot complain about the price. It has had a few problems though. There have been some discs that seem to have absolutely no blemishes or scratches and the player will skip or just freeze. One of these discs was straight out of the package. Other than that, do not lose the remote as there are very few control options on the face of the unit (play, pause, stop). The remote offers several options though and all the features are pretty neat.

I've had this play for about 6 months, and like it. The picture is good, DVD up-conversion is solid, and the optical audio output works well. The remote feels flimsy, but the buttons you use most often are easy to find.

So far, I've not had a single disk that this player would not play. I should point out that I've only run about 6-10 blu-ray disks through it. The DVD up-conversion is good enough that I usually don't pay the premium for blu-ray rentals. (I have a 42" plasma.)

My only complaint is the boot-up time is long, and the load times on blu-ray disks is also long. Compared to my older DVD player, I feel I have to wait forever for the disk tray to eject after powering on the player. But for close to a hundred bucks, I'm not complaining too loudly.

Overall, a good budget player.

No real need for the expensive Blu Rays, especially if all you want is something that PLAYS BLU RAY DISKS. It would take a lot of HD download movies to cover the extra $200 the big ones cost. I would rate this even with the Samsung 1500 that I have in my home 7.1 theater, where I used the optical audio out to connect to my Denon 3800 receiver. In my weekend place I have a good Vizio 42" with HDMI, but I'm using my old Denon 5700 5.1 that is a real pain to program (I could only get it to recognize digital audio if I use the COAX inputs), so the Sylvania was one of the few cheaper Blu Rays with a COAX audio out that didn't have black marks against it in consumer reviews. I would definitely recommend!

I got this BD/DVD player bundled with a Samsung Plasma on Amazon - an excellent deal that I am very pleased to have received. I've had it for about a month now and have used it with Blu-ray, DVD, and SD cards, connected to the Samsung flat screen with an HDMI cable. Set up was easy - took it out of the box, plugged in the HDMI cable, plugged in the power, turned it on, put in a disc and pressed play.

Video, viewed on 42" 720p plasma: To be honest, I wasn't able to tell the difference between Blu-ray and regular DVD discs. I have a few dozen favorite movies on DVD and have viewed a number of them. The picture has been sharp and clear and there has been no instance where I felt the picture had any room for improvement. There may have been room for improvement technically, but whether that would have been enough to have changed the viewing experience is debatable.

SD Cards - this is a nice feature since so many cameras, including a couple at my house, store pictures on these cards. Viewing pictures was easy - put in the card, go to the menu and change the media from disc to SD, scroll and select the folder you want to view the pictures from and press play. The menu provides options for changing the length of time pictures are on screen and a choice of fade in/out or cut in/out. Works fine, too bad it doesn't play the AVI files the cameras produce.

Summary - It seems to be reasonably well made, worked right out of the box, the remote is easy enough, the video is nice and clear, the SD card viewer is a nice option that I didn't previously have, and I got it for an absolutely bargain price. No complaints here!

Got this Blu-ray player as part of a special combo at the end of July/beg. of August '09, where if you buy a Samsung HDTV (ln40b630 in my case) you get an 8' HDMI cable and this Sylvania Blu-ray player for free - the price of the TV was very good ($999) to begin with, so we felt like we got a heck of deal on all of these combined.

We've been very pleased with our upscaling DVD player, so a Blu-ray player was not at the top of our list of "cool things we gotta have" - but given that we were going to have to get another DVD player of some kind for the new TV, I just couldn't pass this up.

Anyway, the Sylvania hooked up very quickly and easily, and within minutes we were watching a Blu-Ray movie in all its full 1080p glory on my current 56" HDTV set. 1080i and 720p resolutions look great in HD, but 1080p looks just that much crisper/cleaner. That being said, part of the reason why I haven't gotten a Blu-Ray player before (and why I wouldn't have gotten one if it weren't free) is that the difference is not so dramatic to justify the extra price. That may change as players and movies get cheaper, but paying 2-3x the amount (or more) of a good upscaling DVD player for just a slight increase in quality doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

That being said, if you're looking to buy a good, more reasonably priced Blu-Ray player (or if Amazon makes this part of another great combo/giveaway deal), I would highly recommend this one! Can't wait to see how it performs on the new LCD once it arrives.

Didn't give it 5 stars for the following reasons: 1) I'm very picky and like to maximize my $$$ when purchasing electronics; 2) Blu-Ray players and movies are overpriced right now in my opinion, and 3) Since it's still new and I haven't owned Sylvania brand previously, I can't comment on the reliability/durability yet - so I'm playing it safe and not giving it a "perfect" 5 stars.

Amazon's speed of processing and shipping the order were both excellent, as always in my experience (I know, not part of the product review, but still important parts of the buying experience).