The Sony BDP-S360 Review Thread

[Jimbo976]

I think i've decided that I will be buying an S360 as soon as I find a good price around here in the Great White North. I'm starting to get more annoyed daily by the fan on my PS3.

[robertc88]

BD370 versus Sony S360? The Sony wins for BD playback but neither are all that great for SD DVDs.

[Apophis906]

Just got mine today, and all looks well with it. Will be nice to take the load off of my PS3. I do have one thing I noticed I thought I should point out. It does not decode DTS-MA, only the DTS core. I put in my Star Trek season 1(which has 7.1 DTS-MA) and set it to mix and it only output 5.1 and showed DTS on the on screen display. This isnt a big deal for me, as the only time I need decoding is when watching a pip feature or something.

[icyteddy]

Originally Posted by Apophis906

Just got mine today, and all looks well with it. Will be nice to take the load off of my PS3. I do have one thing I noticed I thought I should point out. It does not decode DTS-MA, only the DTS core. I put in my Star Trek season 1(which has 7.1 DTS-MA) and set it to mix and it only output 5.1 and showed DTS on the on screen display. This isnt a big deal for me, as the only time I need decoding is when watching a pip feature or something.

Really? I thought the specification indicated it internally decode DTS-MA. That was one of the upgrade over the S350. What happen if you set it to DIRECT? So the S360 is pretty much a S350 but with different exterior designs?

[Apophis906]

Originally Posted by icyteddy

Really? I thought the specification indicated it internally decode DTS-MA. That was one of the upgrade over the S350. What happen if you set it to DIRECT? So the S360 is pretty much a S350 but with different exterior designs?

With direct it works like it is supposed too, I get 7.1 DTS-MA. Its just when I set it to mix and let it decode that it outputs 5.1 and shows just DTS on the on screen display. I guess the DTS Master Audio Essentials means it will bitstream but not decode. I just tested with another 7.1 DTS-MA disc I have,and on mix it only puts out 5.1 and the display says DTS.

[Jimbo976]

Originally Posted by Apophis906

With direct it works like it is supposed too, I get 7.1 DTS-MA. Its just when I set it to mix and let it decode that it outputs 5.1 and shows just DTS on the on screen display. I guess the DTS Master Audio Essentials means it will bitstream but not decode. I just tested with another 7.1 DTS-MA disc I have,and on mix it only puts out 5.1 and the display says DTS.

Well if that's the case I will not buy one. My receiver does not decode DTS HD MA. Might as well just get a BDP-S350. I thought the main reason to get a 360 over the 350 was DTS HD MA decoding?

From Kris Deering`s review at Home Theater Mag it says this:

The BDP-S360 includes full internal decoding for all of Blu-ray’s advanced audio codecs, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

I wonder what the confusion is.

[phish00]

let me know some feed back on the player I'm thinking of upgrading from my 350. I just want to know if it is worth it to upgrade.

[Apophis906]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

Well if that's the case I will not buy one. My receiver does not decode DTS HD MA. Might as well just get a BDP-S350. I thought the main reason to get a 360 over the 350 was DTS HD MA decoding?

From Kris Deering`s review at Home Theater Mag it says this:



I wonder what the confusion is.

I really dont know. All I know is that when set to mix it is decoding the core of the DTS-MA track, outputing a 5.1 from the 7.1 DTA-MA track. It even says it if you hit display when you have it set to mix, by showing DTS and not DTS-HD Master Audio.

Not unless its just my player doing it, and someone else gets 7.1 out when it decodes a 7.1 DTS-MA track.

[fredm6463]

Originally Posted by arthursiew

Okay, cool. I thought it was weird that they didn't have an eject button on the remote... Let me know as soon as you try it with Quantum of Solace so I don't bring a bad BD player all the way to China as a father's day gift.

I bought a Sony S360 on Friday after my Panasonic BD80 went back for repair a second time for randomly pausing during two Blu ray discs: Batman Begins and 2001 A Space Odyssey. Both played OK on S360.

But upon playing James Bond film Casino Royale, the S360 randomly skips a few frames. It did this three times before I stopped watching the movie.
As with the Panasonic BD80, the problem happens randomly and is not repeatable.

I beginning to think Blu ray disc manufacturing and player manufacturing has not gotten the bugs out of this format.

I will be returning my Sony to the dealer for a refund and wait and see what becomes of my Panasonic BD80.

So far I am very disappointed with the Blu ray format. I have two Pioneer DVD players and two Panasonic DVD/VHS recorder players (w/ HDMI) and have had zero problems with DVD playback, both purchased and rentals.

Anyone have a similar problem with the Sony S360?

Many thanks,

Fred

[fredm6463]

Originally Posted by Cortiz

Has anyone here tried the new Terminator 2 Skynet Edition on this player? If so, did it take long to load? Were the menu navigation sluggish? I have a Panny BD60 and it took over 2 mins to load and the menu navigation was extremely sluggish.

It's the way the disc was designed, manufactured.

[fredm6463]

Originally Posted by Apophis906

Just got mine today, and all looks well with it. Will be nice to take the load off of my PS3. I do have one thing I noticed I thought I should point out. It does not decode DTS-MA, only the DTS core. I put in my Star Trek season 1(which has 7.1 DTS-MA) and set it to mix and it only output 5.1 and showed DTS on the on screen display. This isnt a big deal for me, as the only time I need decoding is when watching a pip feature or something.

It does decode DTS HD.

You must go into audio settings menu and change a setting for I believe Blu ray secondary audio, from "MIX" to "DIRECT." Then you will get the DTS HD Master audio from your ST blu ray discs.

[Apophis906]

Originally Posted by fredm6463

It does decode DTS HD.

You must go into audio settings menu and change a setting for I believe Blu ray secondary audio, from "MIX" to "DIRECT." Then you will get the DTS HD Master audio from your ST blu ray discs.

On direct I get DTS-MA bitstreamed to my recever, which is fine and what I want. My point was,that on mix it is decoding internally and mixing all audio together and sending out a PCM track. With this setting it will decode a True-HD track correctly, a 7.1 True-HD track will have 7.1 PCM come out. With a 7.1 DTS-MA track however it will send out a 5.1 PCM and show DTS on the on screen display instead of DTS-HD Master Audio it shows when set to direct and my receiver is decoding the track. Now if someone has a receiver that can not decode DTS-MA and has it set on direct and gets 7.1 PCM when a 7.1 DTS-MA track is selected,then I guess it does decode it. Just from what I can see it does not decode a DTS-MA track,but decodes the DTS core of it, same as the 350 did before.

[Jimbo976]

Well if it decodes internally then it is only going to send PCM out. The receiver should only see it as 5/7.1 PCM. I don't see how the receiver could tell if it was originally DTS HD MA (or True HD for that matter).

[Apophis906]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

Well if it decodes internally then it is only going to send PCM out. The receiver should only see it as 5/7.1 PCM. I don't see how the receiver could tell if it was originally DTS HD MA (or True HD for that matter).

Let me try this again. The receiver sees only PCM with the player doing the decoding. I have been talking about the display that the player shows on the tv screen when you hit display on the remote for the player. With it doing the decoding, set to mix for me. It shows DTS and not DTS-HD Master Audio, and will output only a 5.1 PCM when their is a 7.1 DTS-MA track selected. On the other hand if a 7.1 True-Hd track is selected it will show True-HD like it should, and output 7.1 PCM like it should. My whole point has been that with the player doing the decoding it only outputs what the core has, and even shows this on its own on screen display.

[Jimbo976]

What about a DTS HD MA 5.1 track? Is the issue only with 7.1 DTS HD MA tracks?

[Apophis906]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

What about a DTS HD MA 5.1 track? Is the issue only with 7.1 DTS HD MA tracks?

Well you were in luck, watching one right now. Same thing, when set to mix it shows DTS on the on screen display, with direct it shows DTS-HD Master Audio. From what it looks like it only decodes the DTS core internally. The Sony website is not clear on this. It implies that it does decode it internally, but on the specs page it only list bitstream for DTS-MA, where it shows bitstream and decode for True-Hd. As for as I can tell when my player is doing the decoding it is only decoding the DTS core and not the full DTS-MA.

[Jimbo976]

On the Sony page here for the BDP-S360...

http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/ser...=100421n100265

If you go to the Specifications tab and scroll down to the Audio section it says this...

Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio Decoding Yes
DTS-HD High Resolution Decoding Yes
Dolby TrueHD Decoding Yes
Dolby Digital Plus Decoding Yes
Dolby Digital / DTS Decoding Yes
HDMI: DTS Bit-Stream Out
DTS HD Master Audio Bit-Stream Out
DTS HD High Resolution Bit-Stream Out
Dolby Digital Bit-Stream Out
Dolby Digital Plus Bit-Stream Out
Dolby TrueHD Bit-Stream Out
LPCM 2ch (192kHz/96kHz/48kHz) Out
LPCM 6ch (192kHz/96kHz/48kHz) Out
LPCM 8ch (96kHz/48kHz) Out
Dolby/DTS Downmix to 2ch LPCM Yes
Coaxial, Optical: DTS Bit-Stream Out
Dolby Digital Bit-Stream Out
LPCM 2ch (~96kHz/~24bit) Out Yes
Analog 2 ch
Audio DAC 192kHz, 24-Bit
A/V Sync Yes

I'm going to have to get to the bottom of this before I buy.

[Apophis906]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

On the Sony page here for the BDP-S360...

http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/ser...=100421n100265

If you go to the Specifications tab and scroll down to the Audio section it says this...

Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio Decoding Yes
DTS-HD High Resolution Decoding Yes
Dolby TrueHD Decoding Yes
Dolby Digital Plus Decoding Yes
Dolby Digital / DTS Decoding Yes
HDMI: DTS Bit-Stream Out
DTS HD Master Audio Bit-Stream Out
DTS HD High Resolution Bit-Stream Out
Dolby Digital Bit-Stream Out
Dolby Digital Plus Bit-Stream Out
Dolby TrueHD Bit-Stream Out
LPCM 2ch (192kHz/96kHz/48kHz) Out
LPCM 6ch (192kHz/96kHz/48kHz) Out
LPCM 8ch (96kHz/48kHz) Out
Dolby/DTS Downmix to 2ch LPCM Yes
Coaxial, Optical: DTS Bit-Stream Out
Dolby Digital Bit-Stream Out
LPCM 2ch (~96kHz/~24bit) Out Yes
Analog 2 ch
Audio DAC 192kHz, 24-Bit
A/V Sync Yes

I'm going to have to get to the bottom of this before I buy.

On the Sony page for the BDP-S360 here on the specs page.
Audio Features
•Dolby® : Yes & Dolby® TrueHD bitstream out over HDMI™ (V1.3)
•Dolby® Digital plus Decoding : Yes
•Dolby® True HD Bitstream Output : Yes
•Dolby® TrueHD Decoding : Yes
•LPCM : Yes (multi channel decoder): Yes (HDMI™ bitstream out)
•MP3 Playback : Yes (BD-R/RE/DVD+RW/+R/-RW/-R/CD-R,RW)5
•dts® Decoding : Yes
•dts® HD Bitstream Output : Yes
•dts® Output : Yes, & /DTS®-HD bitstream out over HDMI™ (V1.3)"

The Sony US sight does not say DTS-MA decoding. If the player decoded DTS-MA internally then it would output a 7.1 PCM track when it had a 7.1 DTS-MA track selected. I think its another case of marketing making it seem it does things it does not. I would suggest that you email Sony and ask them if it does decode DTS-MA internally, or just decode the core DTS track.

[Jimbo976]

Well it's looks pretty clear on the site in Canada where I live. I would give them hell if I bought one and it does not do this. I guess it could be a typo though.

I don't understand what's going on here as others have said it decodes (like Kris Deering's review).

Anyone else here have one already?

[djc11369]

Actually if you go to the Sony US sight and click on the marketing specifications it says it decodes DTS HD MA.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/mod...=BDPS360&LOC=3

I don't have any 7.1 discs currently but I have a 5.1 I'll try to give a go around tomorrow and see if I get different results.