Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray Player Review

[Gasman]

Samsung BD-P1400 ($399.99 on several sites) has TrueHD decoding and TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio bitstream as well as Reon upscaling.

Was wondering where that info came from (the underlined in the quote)?

From the best of my knowledge, that is incorrect.
From my understanding the 5000 & possibly the 2400 will have REON chips, but not the 1400.

 

[gliz]

" Nope, it will depend on the content. The hardware will follow the software in the long run."

hmmm ,still kinda proves my point if hardware follows content

 

[patnshan]

So you're saying that yours is faster than this?

My PS 3 boots up in about 10 seconds and loads a Blu-ray disc in about 5. The A3 can't even touch that kind of speed.

I have not timed it, but feel it is more than reasonable given that it is a COMPUTER! Does your PC or laptop boot up in less than a minute? I am saying that people in the audio video world seem to find anything to whine about. This is not a big deal at all. I hit the "watch DVD" button on my harmony, go pour myself a beer, then come back and put the disc in. How hard is that?

Pat

 

[darien87]

I have not timed it, but feel it is more than reasonable given that it is a COMPUTER! Does your PC or laptop boot up in less than a minute? I am saying that people in the audio video world seem to find anything to whine about. This is not a big deal at all. I hit the "watch DVD" button on my harmony, go pour myself a beer, then come back and put the disc in. How hard is that?

Pat

Different things are annoying to different people. Sorry, but I don't drink beer. The hella long boot time is only ONE of the many problems I have with my A3. A bunch of little quirks adds up to a machine that I don't even want to use, unless I absolutely have to.

 

[Gasman]

If you are going to complain about the lowest end current equipment, why not just sell it.
(I have no complaints on my A2, but my flagship model BD player is another story).
You get what you pay for, don't get me wrong there are some quirks with my XA1 as well (another flagship player)

Would I bother complaining about a 100.00 player(A2), absolutely not.
It does exactly what it claims, which plays perfect HD PQ, i never recalled on the box that it said "the fastest HD DVD player on the market"..

If you are so unhappy with it, I am sure there are plenty of people here that would buy it, and probably only at maybe a 10.00 loss to you.

Save the money up, until the next gen comes out, for a faster player (or get a XA2 now).

 

[darien87]

If you are going to complain about the lowest end current equipment, why not just sell it.
(I have no complaints on my A2, but my flagship model BD player is another story).
You get what you pay for, don't get me wrong there are some quirks with my XA1 as well (another flagship player)

Would I bother complaining about a 100.00 player(A2), absolutely not.
It does exactly what it claims, which plays perfect HD PQ, i never recalled on the box that it said "the fastest HD DVD player on the market"..

If you are so unhappy with it, I am sure there are plenty of people here that would buy it, and probably only at maybe a 10.00 loss to you.

Save the money up, until the next gen comes out, for a faster player (or get a XA2 now).

Blah, blah, blah. See, I can roll my eyes too.

Of course I wouldn't really complain about the A2, the thing was only $100. But I paid twice that much for my A3. I guess I was just spoiled by my other DVD players and my PS 3. I've never had a machine that was as slow and quirky as the A3 is. My Panasonic S77 DVD player was less than $150 and that thing was PACKED with cool features.

I'm not saying that I hate the A3 or that I want to sell it. I was just surprised at how much better the PS 3 is.

 

[Gasman]

Blah, blah, blah. See, I can roll my eyes too.

Yeah, that's a mature response.

If you paid 200.00 for the player, sadly it may have been overpriced (as it was just on sale for 169 and something like 8 movies)
The cost of the movies, even if they all were $14.00 each x 8 = 112.00 in free movies.
Hence, offsetting the cost of a ~200.00 player. = Still the lowest line current player.

 

[darien87]

Yeah, that's a mature response.

I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you. That'll teach you to call me immature.

You know, now that I think about it, the very first DVD player I ever bought was a Toshiba. I bought it WAY back when I was agonizing over whether to go with DVD or DiVX, and even that DVD player is faster than my A3. It even has this cool feature where you can zoom in and move around the screen if you want to. It's in my bedroom now. I can't bring myself to get rid of it.

 

[dobyblue]

Was wondering where that info came from (the underlined in the quote)?

From the best of my knowledge, that is incorrect.
From my understanding the 5000 & possibly the 2400 will have REON chips, but not the 1400.

Hmm, my bad. I just presumed with the BD-P1200 having the Reon chip (http://hdguru.com/exclusive-first-review-of-the-samsung-bd-p1200/77/) that the BD-P1400 would as well. I guess they were going to offer the higher model only with the Reon, but it never came to fruition.

 

[DavidW]

Everyone seems to grumble about load times of both formats of next gen HD optical disc players, that they are slower than the DVD players of yore.

Some have come close but no one has hit on the actual awnser yet.

The slow load times and quirky performance are a result of AACS and BD+.

These new HD players, both BD and HD-DVD, are more software driven computer systems rather than integrated circuit based standard electronics like a DVD player. Unlike a computer which has to load software for instructions to develop a circuit for execution in the processor, ICs are hardwired circuits and there is nothing to load beyond the electricity to power up.

AACS/BD+ are also a significant contributor to all the disc playback problems and all the required firmware upgrades.

IC based DVD had a hard coded decription scheme, CSS, etched into the IC during fabrication. CSS was cracked long ago and the studios could not do anything about it. This time around, the studios wanted to be able to fix cracks when they occured which required a flexible system.

But any system that has built in flexiblilty is more likely to encounter unaticipated situations leading to more problems with performance.

BD and HD-DVD have to be software/computer based to accomodate the key revocation and other flexible DRM features demanded by the movie studios and inflicted on comsumers, against their wishes.

The PS3, as well as the 360, are both nearly supercomputers, of course they load faster than what they are putting into a low end player, or even high end player set top player for that matter.

DRM is the real source of the problem. The rest or the problems are the symptoms, not the cause.

So stop wining about the hardware, it is what it is.

Complain to the studios who made the choice of hardware for the manufacturers.

According to the studios, we, the consumers, are all theives and the precious content must be protected so we don't steal all their movies.

Blame the DRM.

 

[Seth=L]

So I should just get the PS3 then eh?

 

[dobyblue]

Blame the DRM.

Sharp seems to have figured out a way to get around it. The load times are under 20 seconds on most discs.

 

[lifamily]

Blu Ray Will Lose To Hd-dvd

What a piece of garbage for $500.00. I hope Sony loses their shirts on the blu-ray format. Maybe, just maybe this will teach them a lesson to play nice and come up with one unified format that everyone can afford and enjoy. I don't hate Sony, I just despise their defiance and ignorant ways of thinking things through, because its the buying public that gets burned, not Sony.

 

[dobyblue]

What a piece of garbage for $500.00. I hope Sony loses their shirts on the blu-ray format. Maybe, just maybe this will teach them a lesson to play nice and come up with one unified format that everyone can afford and enjoy. I don't hate Sony, I just despise their defiance and ignorant ways of thinking things through, because its the buying public that gets burned, not Sony.

It doesn't matter if Sony loses their shirts on Blu-ray, there are more powerful companies like Panasonic and Samsung involved - Blu-ray will not lose to HD DVD.

There are also 17 companies with patents in Blu-ray Disc technology - it is not "Sony's format" as many ignorant people may have you believe.

http://www.mpegla.com/pid/bluray/

CyberLink Corporation; Dell Inc.; Hewlett-Packard Company; Hitachi Ltd.; Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.; LG Electronics Inc.; Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic); Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Pioneer Corporation; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.; Sharp Corporation; Sonic Solutions; Sony Corporation; TDK Corporation; Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.; and Warner Home Video Inc.

Sounds to me like you're describing the HD DVD format as most people were behind Blu-ray as the next optical media disc before Microsoft stepped in and gave Toshiba the extra boost they needed to go ahead with their format. Toshiba are the largest patent holders in DVD technolgy and it is their greed that forced them to go ahead with HD DVD, which keeps the income pouring in for them....or at least it would if the format sold discs!

 

[velcrometer]

Was $500, now $280

OneCall.com has the Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc / DVD Player for $279.77 with free shipping. That's the lowest total price since a deal last week at Circuit City, and that deal required in-store pickup and had far more sales tax hassles. Get five Blu-ray Disc movies for free via this mail-in rebate. "Features include 1080p output, DVD+/-R playback, and HDMI, component, S-Video, and RCA video outputs." Deal ends tomorrow.

http://www.onecall.com/ProductDetails.aspx?id=88133

 

[funked up]

I plan on buying a 42" Panasonic Plasma 720p tv. Would it be worth buying the Sony BDP-S300 to go with? Will this increase picture quailty(when using blu-ray discs) compared to a standard upconverting dvd player? I'm pretty set on the 720p set because of the price. They have them at sears $1099 with two years intrest free financing till Jan 5. Def buying it I can get them to knock a $100 of that price. Figure that might be easier to do if I pick up a Blu-ray player at the same time. So should I go for the blu-ray to, or is it not worth it unless I buy a 1080p tv. Thanks for the input.

 

[allargon]

I plan on buying a 42" Panasonic Plasma 720p tv. Would it be worth buying the Sony BDP-S300 to go with? Will this increase picture quailty(when using blu-ray discs) compared to a standard upconverting dvd player? I'm pretty set on the 720p set because of the price. They have them at sears $1099 with two years intrest free financing till Jan 5. Def buying it I can get them to knock a $100 of that price. Figure that might be easier to do if I pick up a Blu-ray player at the same time. So should I go for the blu-ray to, or is it not worth it unless I buy a 1080p tv. Thanks for the input.

Worth buying? No, I would get the Sammy BD-P1200 despite its reputation for bugginess. At least it internally decodes Dolby TrueHD and provides bitstream audio support. Yes, you will see an increase in PQ even on a 42" 720p set unless you sit far away. (It will still have a better picture!)

 

[Charles Nelson]

Sony BDP-S300 offers HDMI, component video, S-video and composite video outputs. Its HDMI connector also carries digital audio. People are researching for prices on the players.