The Sony BDP-S300/301 Review Thread

[Yeha-Noha]

+1

[JasonR]

Originally Posted by rwojtalewicz

+1

+2

[Maki]

Will it ouput TrueHD over the analogues?

[blurayisking]

Will it output TrueHD over the analogues?

NO

[AJwolf]

I just upgraded to firmware 420. Can I get Dolby True HD at the 5.1 outputs or only with HDMI and a Dolby True HD receiver? Thanks for any help.

[peterfabian]

Hello everyone. I'm new here also. Today i got the new firmware. My receiver doesn't have HDMI, only analog and digital inputs (coaxial and optical). The display of the blu-ray player doesn't show Dolby True HD. However, and in spite my receiver doesn't have HDMI, i noticed a big improvement on the sound quality by optical output (monster optical cable (THX)) after watching Resident Evil and The Fifth Element. I noticed the sound very clear and some sounds that i had never noticed before. The low sounds are louder now also. So i'm very glad with this new firmware.

[littleb00m]

I have just tried putting 4.2 FW on my S300 player and have read all the what to do's and dont's for the update. One of the dont's states not to mess with the player when the disk is ejected until the "DL OK" is displayed. Well my disk has been ejected for the past 30min with nothing else going on. The player is just off and I do not want to do anything to it until i get some advice. Any response will help and be appreciated! Thank you

[Octavio]

Originally Posted by littleb00m

I have just tried putting 4.2 FW on my S300 player and have read all the what to do's and dont's for the update. One of the dont's states not to mess with the player when the disk is ejected until the "DL OK" is displayed. Well my disk has been ejected for the past 30min with nothing else going on. The player is just off and I do not want to do anything to it until i get some advice. Any response will help and be appreciated! Thank you

Everything is OK. That's completely normal. Just press the open/close button on your BD player. Remove the disc. Close the disc tray and check if the update was successful following this instructions:

1. Power on the television and make sure it is tuned to the inputs to which the BDP-S300 player is connected.
2. Power on the BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc™ player.
3. If the player starts to play a disc, press the "STOP" button and wait until the blue Sony Blu-ray Disc screen is displayed on the television before proceeding.
4. On the remote control (RMT-B101A), press the SYSTEM MENU button.
5. At the "System Menu" screen, use the arrow keys on the remote control to highlight "Setup" and then press the ENTER button.
6. At the "Setup" screen, use the arrow keys on the remote control to highlight "Video Setup" and then press the ENTER button.
7. Use the arrow keys on the remote control to highlight "TV Type" and then press the ENTER button.
8. On the remote control, press "BLUE" button.
9. The firmware version currently installed on the BDP-S300 will be listed on the television screen. If the version number is 4.20 or higher, it is not necessary to install this firmware update.

[littleb00m]

Hey thanks very much! Worked great, and now enjoying my movies! Was just worried about touchin the thing when the instructions said not to do anything. =D

[peterfabian]

Originally Posted by littleb00m

I have just tried putting 4.2 FW on my S300 player and have read all the what to do's and dont's for the update. One of the dont's states not to mess with the player when the disk is ejected until the "DL OK" is displayed. Well my disk has been ejected for the past 30min with nothing else going on. The player is just off and I do not want to do anything to it until i get some advice. Any response will help and be appreciated! Thank you

Hello. I thought the same when i got the version 3.95. Sony says it takes minimun 30 minutes but actually it takes no more than 10 minutes the updating. I watched that before the disc ejects it appears "DL OK" ant then the player turns out automatically. The first time i was afraid when i turned it on, but it showed version 3.95. So now with 4.2 version it happenned the same. I don't know why Sony says that the updating takes at least 30 minutes. Sony says also that player settings after the updating are back to default settings, which it's not true. My personal settings are the same even after the updating. So try to turn on your player now and see your firmware version. it should show 4.2 just like mine.

[littleb00m]

Yes I got the player to run now! I am amazed the difference the FW update did!

[AJwolf]

Hello, so do you think it is outputing Dolby True HD at the optical output? I have a similar receiver without HDMI input or Dolby True HD decoding. If the S300 is decoding it, do you need it. Thanks.

[Fatboymart]

Originally Posted by AJwolf

Hello, so do you think it is outputing Dolby True HD at the optical output? I have a similar receiver without HDMI input or Dolby True HD decoding. If the S300 is decoding it, do you need it. Thanks.

I found this thread very helpfull.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...=17648&page=10

[gleff]

I just upgraded to 4.20 and set up the Audio output to PCM and personally I think it sounds worse than if I use Auto.

I have a Yamaha Rx-v1800 receiver, and have tried playing Dolby TrueHD tracks from Celine Dion (A new Day), and also Spiderman 3, and it just doesn't sound as good as when I use Auto.

Am I doing something wrong? I wish there was a telltale sign that I'm listening to Dolby TrueHD.. Eg. via the receiver (instead of PCM), or via the BD player.

Edit: I'm using HDMI from the BDP-S300 to the Yamaha RX-V1800 receiver

I'm also a little confused. If the BDP-S300 now officially supports Dolby TrueHD for onboard decoding, surely you no longer need to bitstream via PCM anyway. Either way, no matter what I do, I don't seem to be able to light up the TrueHD light on my receiver so i'm assuming that i'm not getting DD True HD being decoded anywhere.

[yex94]

Originally Posted by gleff

I just upgraded to 4.20 and set up the Audio output to PCM and personally I think it sounds worse than if I use Auto.

I have a Yamaha Rx-v1800 receiver, and have tried playing Dolby TrueHD tracks from Celine Dion (A new Day), and also Spiderman 3, and it just doesn't sound as good as when I use Auto.

Am I doing something wrong? I wish there was a telltale sign that I'm listening to Dolby TrueHD.. Eg. via the receiver (instead of PCM), or via the BD player.

Edit: I'm using HDMI from the BDP-S300 to the Yamaha RX-V1800 receiver

I'm also a little confused. If the BDP-S300 now officially supports Dolby TrueHD for onboard decoding, surely you no longer need to bitstream via PCM anyway. Either way, no matter what I do, I don't seem to be able to light up the TrueHD light on my receiver so i'm assuming that i'm not getting DD True HD being decoded anywhere.

I think what you are hearing is the processing that the receiver does. When you have the player set to Auto it is sending out standard DD (or maybe DD+?) and the AVR then applies bass management, speaker setup, etc., to it. If you have the player decode the sound then you are getting the TrueHD decoded into PCM and (I think) most AVRs bypass all of the adjustments. If you have a fairly standard setup (like I do) then the AVR processing may not do much and the TrueHD will sound much, much better. If you have a unique room layout or acoustical needs then I suppose it is possible that the standard DD (+) could sound better.

In any event, you will NEVER see a TrueHD light on the receiver. It is decoded internally and your AVR will always perceive it as PCM.

[AJwolf]

Hello, I spoke with a Sony tech about the S300 and the new firmware 4.20. They tell me that the player can now read Dolby TrueHD, but still outputs Dolby Digital. So I am really confused. Does anybody know what this firmware really does about Dolby TrueHD. Thanks.

[blurayisking]

One thing for sure is that no BD player can pass Dolby TrueHD via optical / digital coax connection. Too much bandwidth is required. The only way to pass Dolby TrueHD is via HDMI connection. In the case of the BDP-S300, that means setting the BD player to output PCM.

[Fatboymart]

Originally Posted by AJwolf

Hello, I spoke with a Sony tech about the S300 and the new firmware 4.20. They tell me that the player can now read Dolby TrueHD, but still outputs Dolby Digital. So I am really confused. Does anybody know what this firmware really does about Dolby TrueHD. Thanks.

I spent an hour trying to get some sense from a Sony guy over the weekend (Newport, South Wales) believe it or not he didn’t even know what TrueHD was and DTS Master...well just forget it.

I thought Sony would at least have one sales person that knew what they were selling, goes to show how wrong you can be

[Yeha-Noha]

Originally Posted by yex94

I think what you are hearing is the processing that the receiver does. When you have the player set to Auto it is sending out standard DD (or maybe DD+?) and the AVR then applies bass management, speaker setup, etc., to it. If you have the player decode the sound then you are getting the TrueHD decoded into PCM and (I think) most AVRs bypass all of the adjustments. If you have a fairly standard setup (like I do) then the AVR processing may not do much and the TrueHD will sound much, much better. If you have a unique room layout or acoustical needs then I suppose it is possible that the standard DD (+) could sound better.

In any event, you will NEVER see a TrueHD light on the receiver. It is decoded internally and your AVR will always perceive it as PCM.

When HDMI is set to AUTO and you select DD TrueHD on the BD, the player only streams the lossy DD TrueHD core via HDMI to the AVR which as you said does further processing based on the settings he selected on his V1800. His receiver will display Dolby Digital, the lossy format.

When HDMI is set to PCM, the player does the decoding whether it be lossy DD or lossless DD TrueHD and outputs PCM. PCM is pure digital thus permitting the receiver to do FULL or LIMITED processing depending on the user's selections. I have a Yamaha receiver and bass management still gets applied to PCM inputs. Limited processing would be the STRAIGHT mode which is what I would recommend for him to select. Even in the straight mode bass management is still applied which is a good thing though. In this case his V1800 is going to display PCM.

As a further note, I would recommend to anyone who has the S30x player connected to his/her AVR via HDMI, to leave the player's HDMI setting on PCM. That way you will always get lossless audio from DD TrueHD. The only time I use AUTO is for some rare DVDs like Gladiator that has DTS-ES discrete audio which is absolutely cool if you have a 6.1/7.1 system. In this case you want it in AUTO because unfortunately the S30x has the limitation of not decoding full DTS 6.1 ES Discrete. The player downmixes it to DTS 5.1 if you have the setting on PCM. Most receivers these days can decode DTS 6.1 ES Discrete. That won't matter if you have just a 5.1 system. Then you can just leave HDMI set to PCM and forget about it.

P.S.

I hope everyone especially those of you who just recently bought the Sony BDP S300 or S301 now understand the importance of the HDMI setting. It must be set to PCM and only PCM if you ever want to get lossless audio from DD TrueHD. I'm sorry if I sound a bit pedantic but there has been so much confusion and repeated posts about this issue. The S30x manual is of no help at all here, and it is quite misleading in it's recommendation on leaving HDMI set to AUTO. The manual was written before DD TrueHD decoding became available for the S30x player.

[AJwolf]

So if I understand you correctly, you do get Dolby TrueHD from the S300 with the HDMI output and the settting on PCM. There is no TrueHD output from the 5.1 jacks or optical jack? Thanks.