The Sony BDP-S1 Review Thread

[vick vega]

Well I hooked my bdp-s1 up to my brothers hdila 1080p tv and watched mission impossible 3. I must say I was throughly dissapointed. Sending it back to amazon for a refund not worth 1,000 dollars IMO.

[Blu-Light]

Originally Posted by vick vega

Well I hooked my bdp-s1 up to my brothers hdila 1080p tv and watched mission impossible 3. I must say I was throughly dissapointed. Sending it back to amazon for a refund not worth 1,000 dollars IMO.

Why?


BTW, the menu system on the Sony is much nicer than the usable but crappy ones on the Panasonic.

[vick vega]

We watched MI3 on BD, then he put in pirates curse of the black pearl on dvd for a few minutes and his dvd player was hooked up via hdmi also, there was no difference, sureley not a 1,000 dollar difference. Gosh I'm kinda jaded towards blu-ray now.

[daveyg]

Originally Posted by vick vega

We watched MI3 on BD, then he put in pirates curse of the black pearl on dvd for a few minutes and his dvd player was hooked up via hdmi also, there was no difference, sureley not a 1,000 dollar difference. Gosh I'm kinda jaded towards blu-ray now.

I have both Panasonic and Sony Blu-Ray players. Im returning the Panasonic.

Ive compared them side by side with the same few BluRay and Standard movies and here is what i found. The Panasonic is nice and its a very close call, but the Sony has better definition and upscales std DVDs much much better. Motion seems more fluid with the Sony as well.

Sony does not play CDs, but i dont care b/c i have an audio setup that i would much rather listen to anyway, this is just for films. The panasonic is much lower in build quality, Sony wins here by 10 fold. Much nicer build, heavier, silent operation (Panny sounds like a pc disk drive), nicer remote, menus, looks and such. Im completely unbiased as i was looking forward to the Panasonic, but ending up with the Sony. Plus its a few hundred cheaper which doesnt hurt. After spending a week with both playing movies every night and comparing same scenes between them i am returning the Panasonic.

For reference I have a Panasonic TX-50PX60U Plasma TV and use RAM Electronics HDMI cables (pretty sweet performance, might want to check them out)

[mickmmd]

I agree totally. I compared both extensively and found similar differences. I actually like the fact that all $1000 are devoted to creating a beautiful picture and sound. I have a turntable for my music.

[tyler10]

The Descent won't play on my Sony. It loads but then it sort of locks up and there is no picture or sound. Other discs play fine. Has anyone else had this problem?

[Smallville206]

I'm a little nervous reading through this thread, I just picked up this player last week but haven't set it up yet. It seems for the people that are not experiencing problems it's great, but many seem to have issues with discs not being read etc. It seems like a fairly healthy mix of both good and bad which concerns me.

[roninvii]

Ditto for me Tyler10. Very frustrating that the DESCENT does not play on my $1,000 BDP-S1. This looks like a firmware (or lack thereof) issue which would allow BD-J discs to play. Oddly enough it plays on my $600.00 PS3... oh well I guess the BDP-S1 is going back.

[mr.hidef]

Originally Posted by vick vega

We watched MI3 on BD, then he put in pirates curse of the black pearl on dvd for a few minutes and his dvd player was hooked up via hdmi also, there was no difference, sureley not a 1,000 dollar difference. Gosh I'm kinda jaded towards blu-ray now.

Ya'll need your eyes checked...

[dvdirv]

My small gripe with the Sony is its inability to display remaining time on the disc.

Yes, it displays elapsed time on both the chapter and disc as well as total time on the disc, but I can't find any way to display remaining time.

Since most of Sony's other low-end DVD players have this feature, I would have expected this display would be on the BDP-S1 as well.

[Jim L]

I've only had the opportunity to do this with jpeg files on a DVD+RW disc, but it does work very well. Not only are the digital photos beautiful on a 1080p 60" display, but they display very fast! Some pictures that are rotated from landscape to portrait take a second or two to rescale, but this is way better than my old DVD player. (My Denon DVD player does this as well, but displaying pictures is very slow.)

Accordiing to the user manual, you can do this MP3's and video files. It lets you create playlists or sort the media files by date, title, size, etc.

You can really store a ton of MP3's on a DVD+RW.

Give it a try. This is a nice feature.

[James Northrup]

Newest BluRay Pixar Disney discs do not play on the Sony BDP S-1

Ironically, have played dozens of other non Blu and some Blu discs

But Ratatouille and other Pixar releases stall, freeze, etc.

With a caveat to install the newest firmware . . .

[CAB]

Originally Posted by James Northrup

Newest BluRay Pixar Disney discs do not play on the Sony BDP S-1

Ironically, have played dozens of other non Blu and some Blu discs

But Ratatouille and other Pixar releases stall, freeze, etc.

With a caveat to install the newest firmware . . .

^^^^^^^

On crack. All play like a champ on mine.

[MRMOTA]

Originally Posted by James Northrup

Newest BluRay Pixar Disney discs do not play on the Sony BDP S-1

Ironically, have played dozens of other non Blu and some Blu discs

But Ratatouille and other Pixar releases stall, freeze, etc.

With a caveat to install the newest firmware . . .

The last line in your post is your answer.

The latest FW is 3.2 and should be in place for the the PIXAR titles. Both 3.1 and the 3.2 fw updates are JAVA updates that these titles are heavy loaded with.

[john_1958]

Originally Posted by vick vega

Well I hooked my bdp-s1 up to my brothers hdila 1080p tv and watched mission impossible 3. I must say I was throughly dissapointed. Sending it back to amazon for a refund not worth 1,000 dollars IMO.

What exactly was wrong with M-I-3?
HD-ila 1080p is a great HDTV

[Kierre]

MI3 actually helped me with my purchase choice... it also made me realize I didn't need to see Tom Cruise with that sort of clarity. HD will be realistic, but in can also be cruel!

[Kierre]

I know we have scraped over this subject a few times, but I'm not aware of anyone posting success, or lack there of with the new sound formats. All documentation I have read concerning this player point to it recognizing the new formats, however only outputting regular DTS or Dolby Digital. Plus, I'm currently connected via HDMI directly to my projector and fiber to my receiver. I believe the only movie in my vast blu-ray library of 5 with DTS-HD, is Kingdom of Heaven. Has anyone actually attempted to output to their receiver via separate analog channels or directly via HDMI with any success other than regular Dolby and DTS? I'm sure you have guessed by now that I do not currently have a receiver that accepts HDMI, but I have invested a lot of time and resources into my theater sound system. I spend a lot of time tuning and tweaking DD 5/6.1 and DTS-ES 6.1. All my friends say it's perfect, but I'm my worst critic.

[kroorda]

Originally Posted by vick vega

Well I hooked my bdp-s1 up to my brothers hdila 1080p tv and watched mission impossible 3. I must say I was throughly dissapointed. Sending it back to amazon for a refund not worth 1,000 dollars IMO.

You should be ashamed of yourself for rating the quality of the player on a single movie. As you can see by all the other postings, the Sony unit is the best around and others' are enjoying incredible pictures and sound. I would be ashamed of wasting Amazon's money. You took advantage of their good-heartedness. Shame.