Sony X800M2 is terrible.

[SpaceDandy]

I generally don't complaim about products but here there are too many flaws this what should be an intermediate-end Blu-Ray player. I saw only one vague comment of this on the net but I thought it was a single occurence and it was not meaningful. Oh boy was I wrong.

The X800M2 has serious issues with deinterlacing and video buffering. The internal deinterlacer (which is just yadif with 50p luma with 25p*2 chroma – the worst) will randomly crash/stop deinterlacing for a few second every now and then on selected scenes. I suspect Sony tried to implement a comb detection filter which simply does not work. So, out of nowhere in the middle of any scene, it may just give you blended fields then deinterlace again. Back and forth.
I have also noticed strong flickering with faint black lines showing up on certain surfaces, which I never had before with my (now broken) Panasonic UB150 or Toshiba player. Checking numerous software deinterlacer on VLC and the likes and I could never get such bad results and artifacts.

I wish I could deactivate the catastrophic video processing of the X800M2, but of course you can't. It is there and there's nothing you can do about it. The only nice thing is the casing and the silent mechanical parts. Whoever handled the software for the video processing should consider a career change.
The UI is also questionable. Pressed "Menu" or "Audio" when the disc disallows it ? You get an entire overlay over the movie reading "Operation not permitted" for >5 seconds. Bloody hell.

TL;DR: don't purchase it if you plan to play ANY DVD or interlaced BD on it. It is just bad and probably can't even be fixed by upcoming FW updates.

All of these are not due to a single faulty unit. I already returned one player and the new one has the exact same issues. Even with the latest firmware.

[SpaceDandy]

One image express a thousand of word.


I can hardly illustrate the deinterlacer shitting its pants every minute or so unless I record a video but you can already guess the mess from that photo.

[cochon]

If you don't like the operation not permitted complain to the studios, they are the ones who code that into disc, warning or not you will still have to wait until the disc permits anything to be done, that applies to any player.


You should consider selling it and buy a different brand, I am very pleased with the PQ of my Sony.

[SpaceDandy]

As much as we all hate soft-locking certain operations during the splashscreens or changing an option in the middle of the movie, the UI could have found a better way to inform the user that the operation is not permitted. Obfuscating the entire screen is definitely not a good approach.

I'm happy to hear you're fine with your unit. But going through the rest of the topic on this forum brings up numerous people reporting crashes with the same units or sister products. It is definitely a flawed product.

[Thomas Veil]

Dude don't know if your particular player is crap but I have nothing but love for this machine. Does everything I throw at it and I haven't seen this on the DVD's I play on it. I tried a Panasonic and it was nothing but glitch after glitch but this has handled every problem disc I had with the panny. For the price it's awesome.

Have you updated it?

[Bolo Seagull]

I've found this machine to be a big disappointment too. It has tons of issues.

The audio dropping out late in some movies is the big one. I've made a mental note about which discs do the weird audio drop out and remember to watch those one my Xbox, but I can't believe my Xbox is a more reliable movieplayer than my dedicated player.

And for some reason the audio output on DVD's is way lower than on blu rays or 4K discs, so I have to crank it way up for those discs and remember to turn it back down at the end so that I don't get blown away next time I put a blu ray disc in.

The tray locking with a disc trapped inside is another.

Overall, I am not impressed. My blu ray player had been a Sony machine that functioned flawlessly. I was really looking forward to upgrading to 4K, but it's been a letdown.

[eselv73]

Pardon my ignorance, but are interlaced blu-rays a thing that was common? I always assumed blu-rays were at the 1080p standard. I have a X800 (not M2) but haven't had any issues with it, although I use a Panasonic UB820 as my main player.

I seem to recall people saying that this player did a good job at upscaling older discs (including DVDs), so this is somewhat surprising to see.

[slimdude]

Sony Blu-ray players were always known to be problematic.

[jedilips]

I had to go back to my 700 to play triple layer 4K discs. Very disappointed with this player, even after firmware updates.

[Panson]

Originally Posted by slimdude

Sony Blu-ray players were always known to be problematic.

[kevin87]

Originally Posted by slimdude

Sony Blu-ray players were always known to be problematic.

I'd always heard Sony was best... but lately every disc I play is out of sync, but up until sometime in May it was all fine. It can't be my soundbar because cable box and Roku are all fine, and it's not the particular HDMI cable or the specific port because I just swap it around between 4K player and Roku because I don't have enough HDMI ports. It only messes up on the player (though it's 700 not 800). I even dug through and got my normal BD player (also a Son) to test the BD discs it was doing it on and it's the same. Makes me wonder if either my TV or Sony had some update that broke it.

[cminer72]

I found it a solid player. Both this player and the X700 do have freezing problems if connected to a network. Using them solely as a player, they are very good. I'm currently using a Panasonic 420 on a Samsung TV. The picture is phenomenal and leaves little need for the useless Dolby Vision branding.

[cminer72]

Originally Posted by kevin87

I'd always heard Sony was best... but lately every disc I play is out of sync, but up until sometime in May it was all fine. It can't be my soundbar because cable box and Roku are all fine, and it's not the particular HDMI cable or the specific port because I just swap it around between 4K player and Roku because I don't have enough HDMI ports. It only messes up on the player (though it's 700 not 800). I even dug through and got my normal BD player (also a Son) to test the BD discs it was doing it on and it's the same. Makes me wonder if either my TV or Sony had some update that broke it.

I have my player going into the Soundbar, not TV, and still get lip sync issues with certain discs like Jaws (Atmos only, mono has no sync issues). I can correct for it, so no big deal.

[kevin87]

Originally Posted by cminer72

I have my player going into the Soundbar, not TV, and still get lip sync issues with certain discs like Jaws (Atmos only, mono has no sync issues). I can correct for it, so no big deal.

This is literally every disc since mid May, even old discs I have previously watched. I did find out my TV has a sync thing where I can correct it, but it's still crazy how it just all of a sudden started happening.

[KubrickKurasawa]

Originally Posted by kevin87

This is literally every disc since mid May, even old discs I have previously watched. I did find out my TV has a sync thing where I can correct it, but it's still crazy how it just all of a sudden started happening.

My XBOX One S (2016 player) and X (2017 player) used to play every disc BD-66 or BD-100 but I noticed this year it won't play some of my BD-100's. Old and new. Even some of them that used to work up to 3 years ago now give me an incompatibility error code and screen.

I know just last year I was watching Halloween II Scream factory 4K (released OCT. 2021 and my Lionsgate Halloween 1 (1978) 4K from 2018. But like you stated something like March-May this year it no longer plays. I have never seen a BD-66 not play in either of them... But Halloween II and IV are BD-100's and play... then some others that used to always run problem free (like Lionsgate Halloween 1978 BD-100) now won't even boot they just go to a black and white text screen with an error code. Ran fine for 2-3 years now WTF screen... I R PERPLEXED and of course no scratches ever on my discs I have OCD.

[Max Solo]

I’ve had one for a few years and have never had one problem with it

I use it to play SACDs. I have a usb stick with music plugged in and it plays that flawlessly.

Never had a disc freeze or sound being off synch.

Maybe I’m just lucky.

[sa5150]

Originally Posted by Max Solo

I’ve had one for a few years and have never had one problem with it

I use it to play SACDs. I have a usb stick with music plugged in and it plays that flawlessly.

Never had a disc freeze or sound being off synch.

Maybe I’m just lucky.

Never had a problem with mine either and dvds look better then any other player I have owned .

[SpaceDandy]

Originally Posted by eselv73

Pardon my ignorance, but are interlaced blu-rays a thing that was common? I always assumed blu-rays were at the 1080p standard. I have a X800 (not M2) but haven't had any issues with it, although I use a Panasonic UB820 as my main player.

I seem to recall people saying that this player did a good job at upscaling older discs (including DVDs), so this is somewhat surprising to see.

Interlaced Blu-Rays are not the most common but they aren't rare either. Typically, anything specifically produced for TV broadcast or in the SD era that has been upscaled as-is will be interlaced. Probably a 1/10 ratio (interlaced/progressive) is not too far off to reality.

Originally Posted by Thomas Veil

Dude don't know if your particular player is crap but I have nothing but love for this machine. Does everything I throw at it and I haven't seen this on the DVD's I play on it. I tried a Panasonic and it was nothing but glitch after glitch but this has handled every problem disc I had with the panny. For the price it's awesome.

Have you updated it?

Yes and different units showed the exact same issue, so the whole production run is affected.

[Discofever]

Originally Posted by SpaceDandy

I generally don't complaim about products but here there are too many flaws this what should be an intermediate-end Blu-Ray player. I saw only one vague comment of this on the net but I thought it was a single occurence and it was not meaningful. Oh boy was I wrong.

The X800M2 has serious issues with deinterlacing and video buffering. The internal deinterlacer (which is just yadif with 50p luma with 25p*2 chroma – the worst) will randomly crash/stop deinterlacing for a few second every now and then on selected scenes. I suspect Sony tried to implement a comb detection filter which simply does not work. So, out of nowhere in the middle of any scene, it may just give you blended fields then deinterlace again. Back and forth.
I have also noticed strong flickering with faint black lines showing up on certain surfaces, which I never had before with my (now broken) Panasonic UB150 or Toshiba player. Checking numerous software deinterlacer on VLC and the likes and I could never get such bad results and artifacts.

I wish I could deactivate the catastrophic video processing of the X800M2, but of course you can't. It is there and there's nothing you can do about it. The only nice thing is the casing and the silent mechanical parts. Whoever handled the software for the video processing should consider a career change.
The UI is also questionable. Pressed "Menu" or "Audio" when the disc disallows it ? You get an entire overlay over the movie reading "Operation not permitted" for >5 seconds. Bloody hell.

TL;DR: don't purchase it if you plan to play ANY DVD or interlaced BD on it. It is just bad and probably can't even be fixed by upcoming FW updates.

All of these are not due to a single faulty unit. I already returned one player and the new one has the exact same issues. Even with the latest firmware.

The not permitted overlay is a mainstay of Sony players all the way back to their DVD and BD players if I remember correctly. It is absurd. Since I only use the player for 4k discs, that and having to manually select DV are my only complaints. But really, being locked out of the remote for 5 seconds is infuriating.

[SHOCKWAVE6464]

I can't say I have the same issues you have with mine. The only thing that bothers me about the Sony is having to manually switch between Dolby Vision and HDR. I'd have a freeze up just about every other month, but that doesn't bother me too much.