141 of 157 people found the following review helpful:
Toshiba Samurai Falls On Sword
I gotta admit it: when it comes to electronics, I'm about as brand-loyal to Toshiba as they come. Nevertheless, for me, the whole history of the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD wars has unfolded on the software battlefield. Sony has simply come up with a better DVD. By the time HD-DVD catches up, we'll all either own two fine DVD players, or one that can play both formats. After...
71 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
Great Video, Crippled Audio
We have owned this product for about a month and have been very pleased with the video performance. Audio is great with PCM lossless (but read further for the problem with audio).
Like most HD players, it is slower than the cheapest DVD player, but that is okay, we have come to expect it and that no longer bothers us.
I gotta admit it: when it comes to electronics, I'm about as brand-loyal to Toshiba as they come. Nevertheless, for me, the whole history of the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD wars has unfolded on the software battlefield. Sony has simply come up with a better DVD. By the time HD-DVD catches up, we'll all either own two fine DVD players, or one that can play both formats. After haunting a few electronics showrooms, and seeing and hearing the decks in my price range, this latest Sony player just became a no-brainer.
If you're wondering what's the difference between this and the BDP-S300, so am I. The operating manual that came with my S301 listed both model numbers on the cover. I got mine at a price $50 cheaper than I could have got the earlier model, and I didn't pay shipping. That's the only reason I have one and not the other.
Blu-ray Discs are awesome in every way. I use an optical 5.1 connection, and even though there are better connections in newer systems, the sound quality is still noticeably deeper and more dimensional than standard DVD's, due to the greater bandwidth available on the discs. Colors are far more stable, especially with Blu-ray Discs, but also with standard DVD's. My taste in films doesn't run perfectly parallel to the titles currently available on Blu-ray, so the rest of my comments really pertain to the quality of this deck as a player of standard DVD's.
I have found the transition blip between layers on DL-9 discs to be almost imperceptible. The bit encoding rate of "up to 40 Mbps" is probably the single most important spec this player has to offer. That is slightly higher than the Toshiba decks in this price range, though I doubt few people have eyes good enough to appreciate the difference. The point is, you are going to see a picture that contains every bit of information encoded on whatever disc you're watching, with gradations of color and depth of detail that make the disc the weakest link--and that's a good thing.
The fan motor on the S301 is whisper-soft, another factor that gives this deck superiority over its Toshiba counterpart.
All of that said, it should be noted that Sony is going for complete vertical integration, with all the studios (save Universal) behind Blu-ray, and with this and the S300 designed to work optimally with a Bravia monitor and audio system. They want world domination, and I guess we'll just have to trust the marketplace to sort things out. But for now, this is about as good a player as you'll find in this price range, and it works adequately with systems not designed by Sony.
"Adequately" is about as high a complement as I can pay it, though. Each disc has a certain amount of futzing around that is necessary to get the aspect ratio and video specs right. In other words, this doesn't just magically read the disc you put in and know where the settings should be. It does have a very handy video control center that allows for six picture settings, three preset to "standard," "theatre," and "light room," and three that allow you to make custom presets. By the time you've gone through a few discs and tweaked the color, white and black balance, etc., you'll find yourself flipping through the six available settings and finding one that suits each disc you're watching.
All of this extra "trouble," I should add, in reality arises from the far greater picture fidelity you will be seeing.
Some minor annoyances: 1) although this plays music CD-R's, it won't recognize data CD-R's. So, for example, if you have your jpegs stored on CD-R's, prepare to move them to DVD-R's, if you want to use this player as a slide viewer; 2) note the dimensions of the unit, especially the depth, which becomes about 16.5 inches once you've connected everything up--my player is hanging out about 2" from my other components; 3) there is no true "fast-forward," only a multi-speed "scan" feature that, even on the slowest speed skips over frames of significant action you may be trying to spot; 4) there is no "off" button on the unit itself, which, if you don't want to hunt down the remote, will shut itself off after about 25 minutes; 5) the "on" button on the unit doubles as "open" and "close," which is fine, I guess, but it takes exactly 32 seconds between the time you turn the power on and when the "Blu-ray" insignia appears on your screen. Once it is powered up, though, I found the loading times to be reasonable.
Finally, I would want to mention the aspect ratio issue, namely that it sometimes has to be changed manually, by changing the resolution. Some of this may be due to the fact that I am connecting to my monitor using an HDMI-to-DVI cable, but I rather doubt it. I suspect Sony simply did its best to make a good player, but loading it with electronics that would enable it to decode a wide variety of commercial discs would have made it prohibitively expensive.
Funny thing, though. It reads Universal Studios discs perfectly and without any tweaking necessary. Kind of makes you wonder if they weren't putting in a little more effort to win over the one Blu-ray hold-out.
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We have owned this product for about a month and have been very pleased with the video performance. Audio is great with PCM lossless (but read further for the problem with audio).
Like most HD players, it is slower than the cheapest DVD player, but that is okay, we have come to expect it and that no longer bothers us.
The problem with this player is that it does not output Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA in any way, shape or form. The closest it comes is transcoding the audio to plain old Dolby Digital or a somewhat better DTS. Wow, classic DVD audio performance at a Blu-ray price. The real problem comes from some studios moving away from PCM lossless audio to TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. These include Sony Pictures whose latest release announcements have TrueHD only and FOX who is releasing only in DTS-HD MA, which very few players can play properly at all.
If you care anything about audio, I cannot recommend this player. If you don't have the whole home theater setup, but a nice TV, I guess you can get it if the price is cheap enough.
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I have had this now for about 3 weeks and my first movie was Ghost Rider....simply AWESOME. I read a lot of reviews about the Sony BDP-S300 and there seemed to be a lot of issues with it, especially the load times. Well, I am not sure if this is the 'fix' to the 300, but the 301 has been GREAT! Ghost Rider rocks and I just got '300' to view.
I will admit, I won't buy any movie for Bluray, only super action films, but if you use the same, high-quality HD components, the audio and video are unmatched. I have an Onkyo reciever and a LG LCD tv. I use the HDMI set up for video and a fiber optic cable for audio from the bluray to the receiver as it acts as a thru-put for the TV. With my Polk speakers, you just can't beat it....no slow load times. Just might take about 20 seconds to power on, but I am used to boot times with computers. The operation is whisper quiet and it basically runs cool...no overheating.
GO SONY!
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This player worked fine for the first eight or so movies, but soon after, the video started freezing up until, finally, the "CANNOT PLAY THIS DISC" message appears. After checking the Sony website I requested a firmware update disc from Sony and installed the update. However, that did not fix the problem. The player tends to run very hot, so don't store in a compartment with other A/V equipment such as a wall unit or cabinet with a stereo. Also, be sure to set the "video format" on the remote to 1080i, or you will not be watching anything in HD. The default, believe it or not, is standard 480p. You will have to get used to how slow Bluray players operate. It is really a disappointment after spending so much money for a product that is inferior to cheap $49 dvd players.
My advice is to wait until the bluray player technology improves.
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I've had this player for about a year now. I get incredibly frustrated almost every time I use it. It takes about 1 minute to start up. While its booting, you cannot open the tray to put in a disc or take one out.
I like many others have had the treat of a movie freezing up after about an hour. Then I play games with it for the next 20 minutes waiting for it to restart, and then deciding which part of the movie I am going to skip in order to at least see the end.
Perhaps all Blu-ray players have these problems. I don't care. The technology is not where it needs to be. Save your money and wait for the next generation of players that have fixed these problems. I am much happier using my upscaling DVD player that I bought for half the price. The picture is nearly as good from where I sit, and the audio is just as good.
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I purchased this in February 2008. Once you are playing a Blu-Ray Disc, of course the picture is fantastic on your hi-def Monitor, but this has been a very temperamental piece of gear. Very, very slow load times. Sometimes if you leave a disc in and power down, it will not load properly when you power up. You have to remove it, power back down, power up, reload, wait for the excrutiatingly long load time, then, maybe it will work. I had this less than a year before I had to download a firmware update to my computer, burn it on to a DVD and then load into the machine to update it. Prior to this update, the machine would not play many newer discs, although it was hit or miss as to which ones. Even after the update, the loading times are slow, the machine is temperatmental, and nearly every disc I rent has at least one glitch in it where it skips sound and/or part of a frame.
I would recommend waiting a bit longer to make a Blu-Ray player purchase, or pay more money for a better machine.
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Possibly the crappiest Sony product I've ever owned! The picture quality is indeed amazing, but the drawbacks to this first generation BD player is that it sucks. I remember purchasing a cheap Akai DVD player in 1999 and thinking "Damn, the latency from pressing the button to actually having something happen on the player is terrible!" I can say the same for this second-rate product with a first-class name. Every now and then the player will freeze. I've watched a great deal of BDs on here, courtesy of Netflix. It worked fine for awhile, but then for some reason the BD movies started freezing and I thought it was the discs. Turns out it was the player. Long story short: It's not worth the money yet. Wait to get it second hand if you really need a BD player, or wait until better, newer players come out!
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I got mine refurbished for $250 and got an amazing buy, well considering it is $399 everywhere else. For the price it was well worth it. I considered waiting for one of the new lines of Blu-ray in the up and coming months but I was impatient. I wanted to dive into what I have been seeing displayed at Sears, Best Buy etc. so I got a refurbished Sony 40XBR4 and one of these. The television made the most difference. I received it first and had my DVD player hooked to it... WOW! That 120Hz makes all of the difference. Then of course the Blu-ray came in and I had even more fun. I really don't see a HUGE difference between the DVD and Blu-ray quality wise, but if you have to have one NOW, don't pay more than $300ish for one of these. I have had no problems playing any movies so far and the only really slow to load movie had been the first POTC.
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I have been a dedicated Sony customer, purchasing Sony products for most of my AV requirements. As a rule Sony products are very good performers for the price paid.
I recently purchased the Sony BDP-S300 Blu-Ray player, along with a Toshiba HD-DVD player (HD-A30).
When the Sony works, it's night and day between Blu-Ray and watching DVD's on our old DVD player. We have a very respectable sound system which pushes the audio through the full compliment of all the Klipsch Synergy III, -3 series speakers. It would be nice if we could hear the true audio that is encoded on the Blu-Ray. Strange that Sony has the concept but makes players that don't support it.
And to make matters worse, this 4 month old player began to sporadically freeze up after watching about 1 hour of select, various movies. As of this time, I'm unaware how to unfreeze it other than to turn the player off, then back on, then find where we left off, and hope it begins to play without additional issues. That timespan is usually around 7-10 minuutes, waiting for shutdown, power up, loading the DVD and finding where we were. By then, one has almost lost interest in watching the movie altogether.
In researching the web, many have the same issue, no one has the solution other that what we are already doing.
But this problem isn't unique to just the Sony Blu-Ray. Our Toshiba HD-DVD player does the same thing, fixed by the same process.
Some DVD's play all the way through, most don't. We have returned and replaced a number of HD-DVD's only to get replacements that reproduce the same problem.
I'm almost thinking that the commercial Blu-Ray and HD DVD's are dual layer, as both units freeze (when they freeze) at about the 1 hour timeframe. It almost appears than when they try to begin reading the second layer, they lock up making that transition. When you stop, reboot and reload, you usually go past the layer shift, thus playing the second layer all the way through, along with missing segments of the movie.
I have contacted both manufacturers concerning this, neither have responded.
I never had much experience with Toshiba products, and based on the lack of their customer support (even though it's a discontinued product, it should still be supported under their warranty), it is doubtful that I will ever look to them for consideration of purchasing any of their other products. As far as Sony is concerned, I am genuinely surprised at their lack of support to a problem which is obviously becoming more and more prevalent on a product line that is becoming more and more popular.
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When I bought a Sony BDP-S301, I enjoyed it enough to buy another for my other TV. At first, both worked fine, though a little slow to start up or accept an eject command. After awhile, both started either rebooting while loading or freezing up part-way through a movie. The problem has gotten so bad, I haven't been able to get either to work properly for an entire movie for several months. I've upgraded the firmware through several releases to try to resolve the problem, always without success. Don't waste your money on this one!
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