The Sony BDP-S300/301 Review Thread

[roco]

Originally Posted by krisjan

An industry insider (Paidgeek who posts on AVS forum) has confirmed that TrueHD decoding was added to the 300 with FW 3.7 as an unannounced enhancement. If you call Sony tech support, they will tell you that TrueHD decoding doesn't exist on the 300. Depends on who you want to believe. I think the insider has it right. My experience in dealing with the tech support people of the various CE companies is that they usually know very little about their product and often give bad or wrong information/advice (that's what you get when you outsource this service).

To get TrueHD, you need to set the 300 audio output to PCM and then select the TrueHD soundtrack on the BD. The 300 will decode the TrueHD track and send it as PCM via HDMI to your AVR. Note that if you have a decoding AVR, you will not see any TrueHD light up since the track is already decoded as pcm.

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i've just done it , but i hear not diference betwen DD AND DOLBY THD.
Should i hear any big diference betwen DD and DOLBY THD?

[krisjan]

Originally Posted by roco

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i've just done it , but i hear not diference betwen DD AND DOLBY THD.
Should i hear any big diference betwen DD and DOLBY THD?

Whether you will hear the difference really depends on the quality of your other associated equipment (AVR, speakers, etc).

[dad2erin]

Originally Posted by neto

Have you upgraded your firmware? Mine was upgraded and the first copy of BB didn't work. They checked the disc at the store and indeed, it was a bad disc. Now, the second disc, it works perfectly, but I don't know if you need a firmware update for this title. Anyway, try it with 3.95, if you still get a bad reading, then there are really some bad discs out there.

I had to download 3.95 for it to work. Now it works great just takes a long time to load, somewhere between 3-5 min. But once it loads its awesome. It says loading then goes to a graphic of a disc loading then it almost seems to freeze then all of a sudden the movie begins.

[Scorxpion]

Originally Posted by dad2erin

I had to download 3.95 for it to work. Now it works great just takes a long time to load, somewhere between 3-5 min. But once it loads its awesome. It says loading then goes to a graphic of a disc loading then it almost seems to freeze then all of a sudden the movie begins.

Or you mean Batman Begins

[roco]

Originally Posted by krisjan

Whether you will hear the difference really depends on the quality of your other associated equipment (AVR, speakers, etc).

I have an onkyo 606 conected to my BDP300 with an Monster HDMI cable and a 5.1 speakers sistem from MONITOR AUDIO worth u$s 2200.

I believe all my equipment is pretty good and still don't hear any diference betwen DD and DOLBY THD, setting my player to PCM.

[Yeha-Noha]

Originally Posted by roco

I have an onkyo 606 conected to my BDP300 with an Monster HDMI cable and a 5.1 speakers sistem from MONITOR AUDIO worth u$s 2200.

I believe all my equipment is pretty good and still don't hear any diference betwen DD and DOLBY THD, setting my player to PCM.

Since you must have your S300 set to PCM, how are comparing DD TrueHD with lossy DD? Your AVR is only going to display PCM. So how do you know? Which BD are you making this test with? Some BDs have a lossy DD track with DD True HD but not many do. If yours is one of those, you should be hearing better quality audio from the DD TrueHD track. Otherwise you can't make a valid A/B comparison using the AUDIO button on your S300 to switch between tracks. If you are going back into System Menu and changing the HDMI setting from PCM to AUTO everytime you A/B the tracks, that's not a valid comparison. I don't have a BD with both DD TrueHD and lossy DD tracks so there is really no way for me to compare the two. But there is another way to do it.

What I did was compared LPCM 5.1 to DD True HD 5.1. If you are really decoding DD TrueHD, then it should sound identical to the LPCM track. Get The Fifth Element remastered BD release. It has both tracks. You can switch from LPCM to DD TrueHD using the AUDIO button on the remote. Both are being sent to your AVR as PCM using HDMI. Now you have a valid comparison. I have my S301 updated to FW 3.95. The LPCM and DD True HD tracks sound identical on my player (while watching The Fifth Element).

[roco]

Originally Posted by rwojtalewicz

Since you must have your S300 set to PCM, how are comparing DD TrueHD with lossy DD? Your AVR is only going to display PCM. So how do you know? Which BD are you making this test with? Some BDs have a lossy DD track with DD True HD but not many do. If yours is one of those, you should be hearing better quality audio from the DD TrueHD track. Otherwise you can't make a valid A/B comparison using the AUDIO button on your S300 to switch between tracks. If you are going back into System Menu and changing the HDMI setting from PCM to AUTO everytime you A/B the tracks, that's not a valid comparison. I don't have a BD with both DD TrueHD and lossy DD tracks so there is really no way for me to compare the two. But there is another way to do it.

What I did was compared LPCM 5.1 to DD True HD 5.1. If you are really decoding DD TrueHD, then it should sound identical to the LPCM track. Get The Fifth Element remastered BD release. It has both tracks. You can switch from LPCM to DD TrueHD using the AUDIO button on the remote. Both are being sent to your AVR as PCM using HDMI. Now you have a valid comparison. I have my S301 updated to FW 3.95. The LPCM and DD True HD tracks sound identical on my player (while watching The Fifth Element).

I HAVE 300( SPARTANS) IN BLU-RAY WITH DD LOSY AUDIO AND DOLBLY TRUE HD, AND I SWITCH T THE TWO FORMATS AND THE SOUNDS IS EXACTLY THE SAME.
TELL ME IF I DOING SOMETHING WRONG , I HAVE THE BDP 300 SET TO PCM.
SO I DONT THINK THE BDP 300 IS DECODING DOLBY TRUE HD.

[Yeha-Noha]

Originally Posted by roco

I HAVE 300( SPARTANS) IN BLU-RAY WITH DD LOSY AUDIO AND DOLBLY TRUE HD, AND I SWITCH T THE TWO FORMATS AND THE SOUNDS IS EXACTLY THE SAME.
TELL ME IF I DOING SOMETHING WRONG , I HAVE THE BDP 300 SET TO PCM.
SO I DONT THINK THE BDP 300 IS DECODING DOLBY TRUE HD.

Are you running an optical/coaxial connection from your S300 along with HDMI connection to your AVR? If so, disconnect the optical/coaxial outputs so that the only audio pathway from your player to AVR is through HDMI. Redo your comparsion tests.

If you haven't confirmed that you have FW version 3.70 or later, I would do that just to make sure. (System Menu ->Video Settings -> Widescreen 16:9 -> then press the BLUE button on the remote. After doing a FW update, I always confirm that it actually updated even though nothing seemingly went wrong during the process.

[SS316SRV]

Can the BDP-S300 internally decode Dolby TrueHD with 3.95.

[roco]

Originally Posted by rwojtalewicz

Are you running an optical/coaxial connection from your S300 along with HDMI connection to your AVR? If so, disconnect the optical/coaxial outputs so that the only audio pathway from your player to AVR is through HDMI. Redo your comparsion tests.

If you haven't confirmed that you have FW version 3.70 or later, I would do that just to make sure. (System Menu ->Video Settings -> Widescreen 16:9 -> then press the BLUE button on the remote. After doing a FW update, I always confirm that it actually updated even though nothing seemingly went wrong during the process.

THE ONLY CABLE I HAVE CONNECTED IN THE BDP 300 IS THE HDMI TO THE AVR, AND MY FIRMWARE IS THE 3.95.
I DOING EVERITHING I SHOULD DO THE GET THE DOLBY TRUE HD, I HAVE AN EXELENT AVR AND AN EVEN BETTER 5.1 SPEAKER SISTEM FROM MONITOR AUDIO.
IF WHAT I GETTING IS DOLBY TRUE HD I HAVE TO SAY THAT THERE IS NOT DIFERENCE AT ALL WITH DD LOSY AUDIO.
IS ANYONE OF YOU GETTING A BIG IMPROVEMENT OF DOLBY THD OVER DD WITH THE BDP 300??

[Yeha-Noha]

Originally Posted by SS316SRV

Can the BDP-S300 internally decode Dolby TrueHD with 3.95.

According to PaidGeek, FW updates starting with version 3.70 do have it. But he did mention that Sony could remove DD TrueHD decoding in a future FW update though, but I don't think they have done that yet. At least it doesn't sound to me like they've done that.

[DeLorean75]

National Treasure 2 (region B) doesn't work on my Sony BDP-S300 (firmware 3.95). It SUCKS!!
Tried another disc.. same problem:
"Cannot play this disc". GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
WTF???

[JasonR]

NT2 plays fine in mine, call support.

[Octavio]

Originally Posted by DeLorean75

National Treasure 2 (region B) doesn't work on my Sony BDP-S300 (firmware 3.95). It SUCKS!!
Tried another disc.. same problem:
"Cannot play this disc". GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
WTF???

Maybe a silly question, but it's your player also region B?

[Yeha-Noha]

Originally Posted by DeLorean75

National Treasure 2 (region B) doesn't work on my Sony BDP-S300 (firmware 3.95). Tried another disc.. same problem: "Cannot play this disc".

NT2 (region A) works fine in my player (FW 3.95). Where did you get your FW 3.95 from? Hopefully not from sony.com/us.

[Movie Maniac!]

I have a question: how long was loading time for Batman Begins when any of you played it? So far it's been about 10 minutes since I put it in. I also did install the new 3.95 update, by the way. I just also want to know if it usually takes this long.

Thanks.

[JasonR]

Less than 2 minutes for me.

[Old Geezer]

Originally Posted by Movie Maniac!

I have a question: how long was loading time for Batman Begins when any of you played it? So far it's been about 10 minutes since I put it in. I also did install the new 3.95 update, by the way. I just also want to know if it usually takes this long.

Thanks.

Just a hair over 2 minutes for me. (3.95 updated)

[Movie Maniac!]

Good news. After I turned off the Blu-ray player completely, I turned it back on a couple of minutes later, put the disc on again, and then it loaded for about 2 minutes!

[Stephan.klose]

I wonder. Why is this player so popular? It can't playback HD Sounds. Neither decode them internally or deliver them via bitstream.

The only thing it can playback is Dolby Digital Plus and there are virtually no Blu Ray Discs that utilize that Codec. (There were a bunch of HD-DVD's but that's moot now).

So, why do people waste their money on this player? (it's Number 1 in many sales charts) It'll become obsolete, as soon as you buy a new receiver. One that can work with HD Sound. Like the Onkyo 605 or 606. Or the Yamaha 663.

Tell me, why did you buy this player?