The Sony BDP-S300/301 Review Thread

[Dreedree]

I searched the entire thread and site but i still got a question.

Which drive-unit is in the BDP-S300 ?

I hope someone can help me.

TIA

[RIPSeanTaylor21]

any positive reactions towards the 4.3 update, still havent done mines yet,

[RIPSeanTaylor21]

I guess not...

[Carlsberg19]

Originally Posted by RIPSeanTaylor21

I guess not...

The only difference i see is one it decodes TRUE HD and discs load "a little" faster

[JasonR]

Originally Posted by RIPSeanTaylor21

any positive reactions towards the 4.3 update, still havent done mines yet,

You'l need it to play the Bond movies.

[Dreedree]

Originally Posted by Dreedree

I searched the entire thread and site but i still got a question.

Which drive-unit is in the BDP-S300 ?

I hope someone can help me.

TIA

Well, I guess i have to open the machine itself to discover which drive-unit is in the BDP-S300.

I just hoped someone would know.

[tek101]

Originally Posted by Dreedree

Well, I guess i have to open the machine itself to discover which drive-unit is in the BDP-S300.

I just hoped someone would know.

Why....?

[Dreedree]

As the BDP-S300 uses the same drive as the BDP-S500 I found out that the unit is the BPD-100


This image is from :

http://hdtvpolska.com/MEGA-TEST-SONY...ONY-t8082.html




@tek101, just curiosity

[Yeha-Noha]

Who cares.

[tek101]

Originally Posted by Dreedree

As the BDP-S300 uses the same drive as the BDP-S500 I found out that the unit is the BPD-100


This image is from :

http://hdtvpolska.com/MEGA-TEST-SONY...ONY-t8082.html




@tek101, just curiosity

Its cool.

[polmack2000]

Got firmware update 4.30 and thought the problems of discs and player completely freezing up would be fixed, but it just froze, probably on the layer change whilst watching wall-E ?? Only time its done that was on the film jumper but the upgrades seemed to fix it...So whats up now..Only way to fix it was to unplug machine reload it up again and choose the chapter after the freeze..Also on every chapter change, you can actualy here the change, never heard it before? strange...Anyone else had this problem on Wall-E..Hope this isnt going to be problems for all new releases...Rant over.

thanks

[Buddy Repperton]

Originally Posted by polmack2000

Got firmware update 4.30 and thought the problems of discs and player completely freezing up would be fixed, but it just froze, probably on the layer change whilst watching wall-E ?? Only time its done that was on the film jumper but the upgrades seemed to fix it...So whats up now..Only way to fix it was to unplug machine reload it up again and choose the chapter after the freeze..Also on every chapter change, you can actualy here the change, never heard it before? strange...Anyone else had this problem on Wall-E..Hope this isnt going to be problems for all new releases...Rant over.

thanks

This is my first post as a long time fan of the site. Love the reviews and all the info and went Blu (never went HD) when Blockbuster went all in. Glad Blu-Ray won.

Anyway, I am having the same problems with Wall-E. Loaded 4.3 firmware for Dr. No and since that is the latest figured it would be just fine for Wall-E. On my 3rd viewing (well, my son's 3rd) it froze 3 times during the movie. Obviously, this is not acceptable but before I return my only Blu-Ray player I want to narrow this down:

Is this a firmware issue, BDP-S300 or a Wall-E issue?

[tron3]

Same issue with Wall-e freezing. I end up having to restart the player. If I scene select to where it froze it plays fine. So far it has frozen in two different places. But so far, freezes past the prior freeze point when I replay it.

I suppose we will see 4.35 firmware soon to fix this. 4.20 was great but 4.30 did nothing to improve to the load times of Madasgascar. That tells me speed tweaking did not take place.

Glad the disc is not bad. I am confident Sony will fix the issue. Love the movie.

[vltor]

I'm still on 4.20 on my BDP-S300 and I've experienced my first BD freeze with Wall-E. Just 2 or three times so far. A player shutdown/restart was required. A little annoying but not bad considering I don't know how many times I've already played it for my kids.

[billt928]

I spent a few hours on the phone with SONY support yesterday.

Firmware 4.3 caused a few issues, When the player is set to PCM both DD HD and Uncompressed outputs from the player as 2 channel L+R and Sub.

The Level 2 Tech stated they were getting alot of calls about FW 4.3 causing many issues. Seems that the display is showing "DL OK" even though it did not complete the update.

Tech said that FW 4.3 did not address many of the issues the S300 was having. So my options were to send it in or wait for the next update.

With the hollidays here, Think I'll wait for the Firmware for now, and if that does not fix the issue its getting sent to Texas for repair.

[CrabbyAzz]

Originally Posted by billt928

I spent a few hours on the phone with SONY support yesterday.

Firmware 4.3 caused a few issues, When the player is set to PCM both DD HD and Uncompressed outputs from the player as 2 channel L+R and Sub.

The Level 2 Tech stated they were getting alot of calls about FW 4.3 causing many issues. Seems that the display is showing "DL OK" even though it did not complete the update.

Tech said that FW 4.3 did not address many of the issues the S300 was having. So my options were to send it in or wait for the next update.

With the hollidays here, Think I'll wait for the Firmware for now, and if that does not fix the issue its getting sent to Texas for repair.

I wonder if you send it in, will they fix it or replace it with a S350? I'm sure they are tired of customer complaints with the S300.

[Rob1956]

I got a pre-street copy of "Wanted" and had a few problems. Have update 4.3
Three times the player locked up after going thru the blue bar "loading" cycle. On the 4th attempt loaded fine. Absolutely no further playback problems.
Just a heads-up.

[CJS]

Originally Posted by billt928

I spent a few hours on the phone with SONY support yesterday.

Firmware 4.3 caused a few issues, When the player is set to PCM both DD HD and Uncompressed outputs from the player as 2 channel L+R and Sub.

The Level 2 Tech stated they were getting alot of calls about FW 4.3 causing many issues. Seems that the display is showing "DL OK" even though it did not complete the update.

Tech said that FW 4.3 did not address many of the issues the S300 was having. So my options were to send it in or wait for the next update.

With the hollidays here, Think I'll wait for the Firmware for now, and if that does not fix the issue its getting sent to Texas for repair.

I suspected there was something wrong with the 4.3 update. Right after I installed the 4.3 update on my BDP-S300, it had to automatically restart once before it could successfully load some Blu-Ray disks that loaded without problem before the update. Some examples are:

- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
- Kung Fu Panda
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I've done several firmware updates before without any problem, and this is the first time I've had trouble with this player.

Sony had me send it to Mt. Pleasent, PA. It's been with a service technician for three days. Sony says it takes anywhere from 7 to 10 days for the repairs to be completed. Then it'll be another four days for them to ship it back.

I plan on selling the player when I receive it back. I got a Panasonic DMP-BD35 player for $200 at Best Buy on 11-26 after price matching an advertised special for the same player from HHGregg.com. I'm very happy with the new player.

[billt928]

Originally Posted by CJS

I suspected there was something wrong with the 4.3 update. Right after I installed the 4.3 update on my BDP-S300, it had to automatically restart once before it could successfully load some Blu-Ray disks that loaded without problem before the update. Some examples are:

- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
- Kung Fu Panda
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I've done several firmware updates before without any problem, and this is the first time I've had trouble with this player.

Sony had me send it to Mt. Pleasent, PA. It's been with a service technician for three days. Sony says it takes anywhere from 7 to 10 days for the repairs to be completed. Then it'll be another four days for them to ship it back.

I plan on selling the player when I receive it back. I got a Panasonic DMP-BD35 player for $200 at Best Buy on 11-26 after price matching an advertised special for the same player from HHGregg.com. I'm very happy with the new player.

In not so many words that is what I got from the Tech. That it was a FW issue. I have done 5-6 updates to the player, this is the first time I lost audo output after the update though. every thing was fine with FW 4.2 as far as audio goes

[Old Geezer]

I just installed the 4.3 update from Sony. I played;

Wanted - it loaded in 2 min before the update; 1 min 50 sec after; playback was perfect.

Kung Fu Panda. - it loaded and played perfect. Took a little less than 2 min to load.

Indiana Jones; Kingdom of Crystal Skull - loaded and played flawlessly in about 1 min 45 secs.

So far I have encountered absolutely no problems with the firmware update.. I have no Bond movies to try out but I did want to keep up with the latest updates. I have an Onkyo 606 receiver and Polk surround speakers if that makes a difference.