dvd recorder blu ray

Overall Rating: ( 53 reviews )

1. ( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jul 25 2008

   Slow Start up - that's new technology for you Movies froze - had to power down the entire unit and start over again Had to update firmware which fixed most of the frozen movies DVD Players say's "CAN'T Play Disc" even when the the tray is open and I putting in the disc for the first time. One unit just failed on me and can't play DVDs anymore (NO DISC Error message). I have to pay to have this shipped back to Sony to fix. There must be a better way and I wonder if the other brand BLU-RAY DVD players are far superior to this Sony.

2. ( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jul 24 2008

   Gonna make this short and sweet... don't buy this unit. Only had it for a few months now and it pops up with the No Disc Error... Great! Hundreds of dollars down the drain. Nothing you can do when this happens, it's dead. I've owned many, many Sony products over the years and they all eventually die prematurely. Maybe it's my fault for buying their crappy product. Save your money and get another unit. TRUST ME! Hope this helps, spread the word!

3. ( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jul 22 2008

   Terrible product by Sony. Yes the picture is great, but it doesn't outweigh the hassle of >2 minute warmup time, flimsy remote, extremely poor upscaling and very few bells and whistles (didn't even have 'time left' feature). Spend your hard earned cash on the new BDP-S350. Same price, half the size, better picture, easier navigation, minimal warmup time, etc. Mine is running on a 52" Sony Bravia and it is incredible!

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Overall Rating: ( 12 reviews )

1. Posted: Apr 8 2008

   Sony's BDP-S1 Bluray player's built quality is like other flagship products (in the ES series) they built: SCD-1, DVP-S7000, DVP-S7700, DVP-S9000 etc. (Sony tends to build their first generation machines with every tools they have, but...) After V3.7 firmware update, I would like to report the following (seen on my LG 32LC2D LCD TV set at 720p): 1. booting procedure is a little faster: about 50 seconds (not the first time booting). 2. disk loading takes about 20 seconds. 3. the machine responds to the remote control much faster: "almost" instantaneous, with at most 1 second of latency. 4. no glitches on most regular DVD playback I have tried so far (>100), and the up-conversion picture quality is as good as PS3, in certain area, it even surpasses that of PS3. 5. it still does not support CD playback! It cannot play SACD is quite strange to me, since its audio DAC (BB/TI PCM1738E, after that 2 dual OPs amps for using as L/R channel current output low-pass fileter and I/V conversion, plus another dual OP used as the second stage stage of LPF, with 3 PCM1738E in this configuration to handle 5.1 audio outputs) is capable of both DSD and PCM decoding. With the design out the output stage, it is very easy to modify the analog output signal to be fully balanced one. However, with PCM recorded red book CD, why BDP-S1 cannot decode? I am not sure whether this "problem" is due to the hardware limitation (first generation BD ROM drive does not read CD pixels), or Sony disabled CD playback in its firmware. Please SONY: enable red book CD playback, if it is disabled in the firmware! Lots of people are debating whether they should get the new BDP-S300/350, BDP-S500/550 or the first generation BDP-S1 or even PS3. The decision depends on what you really want/afford to buy. All-in-one player: PS3 period. For people hunting for a dedicated bluray/DVD up-converting player: S3000/3500, S5000/5500 with warranty or you can buy S1 at really low price off e-bay (with/without warranty). Audiophiles need to keep away from BDP-S1! If you really want the top-of-the-line Sony Bluray player, get BDP-S2000ES (MSRP $1200). From technical side, BB/TI already discontinue the PCM1738 and the suggested replacement is its top-of-the-line PCM1796. Probably that audio DAC will be in BDP-S2000ES. Usually, not too many machine under 3K are using BB/TI PCM179X series DAC chips, stay tuned! (Video equipments using: Sony BDP-S1, Sony PS3, Toshiba HD-A30, XtremeMac 4-1 HDMI switch, XtremeMac HDMI cables, LG 32LC2D LCD TV.)

2. ( 2 of 2 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jan 19 2008

   Pictures do not do it justice.You will have to see Sony's BDP-S1 in the flesh to appreciate the fit and finish.Unfortunately when the market catches on, Blu Ray players will weigh about the same as an average laptop and feel flimsy.Just compare Toshiba's current Hd dvd players to their earlier models(HD-XA1 /HD-XA2)and you'll understand.In the meantime give yourself a treat;get one these before it's too late.And did I mention that the picture quality is excellent?

3. ( 9 of 13 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jan 16 2008

   Well before, I bash the thing to death let me say, when it did play movies, it was short of breathtaking. My Toshiba AX2 is breathtaking! Anyways, the player performs fairly easily on most Blu-Ray titles. Here come the spin on everything. Recently did a firmware update at the service center because I noticed it was having difficulty playing some movies, and could't retreive any special features. SO they did the upgrades and ensured me the player was profile 1.1 compatible. I took the player home, and it wouldn't load any disks. So I hard reset the player over the phone with the service center, and that seemed to work for about 10 days. Then I would load a new movie it would start playing for about 5 mins the beep really loud at me then display an error prompt then shut down. Fair enough reset the player agian and everything worked fine. Well after about 5 days, I got fed up and took it back to the service center. They could not find anything wrong with the player? I brought in some movies, and they worked for about 5 mins then the problem came back. They took the cover off and watched the player do its thing, and no change? The guy was really stumped. The factory reset the player without any firmware updates. Everything was back to normal. The player worked great!!! Eventually after loading update by update, we seemed to have a working player again, untill the 1.1 profile came into play. The had modifiactions of the last update to see which one would work. Don't really know(not that techie). Finally I had a working player after about 5 hours at the repair depot. I took it home, and rented Pirates, and the new Harry Potter. Well, the gong show continued... I have now determined that the profile 1.1 stuff glitches, and I have since sold the player on EBAY for $199 with the last of my movies... Don't buy it and save your money...

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