Sony Blu-ray High-Definition Disc Player with 1080p Output
Sony
- BDP-S300
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Reviews
(25)
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Takes too long to start up, open up and to run blue-ray. Don't understand why this would be the thing to replace all DVD's. Sure great picture but so much would need to improve to make this worthwhile. I never received the DVD that was to come with it!
Cannot recommend. I may return.
Cannot recommend. I may return.
9 price(s)
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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!
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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!
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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I run LG's Super Blu and Sony's S300 next to each other. The Sony is by far the most irritating piece of equipment I've ever owned.
Everything is painfully slow. Walk up to it and press the open button, and you wait about 70 seconds (no exaggeration) for it to open.
Loading Blu-Ray's typically takes anywhere 5 to 15 minutes. Sometimes it will have an error where it justs loads forever (eventually you figure it out). I usually open it up and put a disk in, come back in 5 minutes when the menu is up, then hit play, then come back in another 5 to 10 minutes after the movie has actually loaded and just rewind a little.
The fast forward settings are irritating. It just takes seconds for it to change speeds.
It even takes 9 seconds for my LCD to disconnect from it. I don't know if it's the TV or the player, I just know that everything is painfully slow, as if it were running a poor quality computer inside.
Everything is painfully slow. Walk up to it and press the open button, and you wait about 70 seconds (no exaggeration) for it to open.
Loading Blu-Ray's typically takes anywhere 5 to 15 minutes. Sometimes it will have an error where it justs loads forever (eventually you figure it out). I usually open it up and put a disk in, come back in 5 minutes when the menu is up, then hit play, then come back in another 5 to 10 minutes after the movie has actually loaded and just rewind a little.
The fast forward settings are irritating. It just takes seconds for it to change speeds.
It even takes 9 seconds for my LCD to disconnect from it. I don't know if it's the TV or the player, I just know that everything is painfully slow, as if it were running a poor quality computer inside.
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I had been looking for a Blue Ray player to compliment our new HDTV and Bose home theatre, and this price for the HD DVD player was so good we took the chance on the refurbished version. It was easy to install and has played fine for several weeks (we have been seeing about 4 to 5 discs a week now) and have been impressed with the high visual quality of the Blue Ray player.
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When it worked it was fine, with great image and sound... much better than DVD. But at only 5 months old, it now refuses to play the disc inside, and won't even eject it. I'm sending it back to Sony for repair.
Our company bought three of this model; one of them died within a week under very light usage. So, of the four models I've used, TWO of them failed. That's a staggering 50 percent failure rate.
Our company bought three of this model; one of them died within a week under very light usage. So, of the four models I've used, TWO of them failed. That's a staggering 50 percent failure rate.
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The unit arrived sooner than expected, the shipment tracking was very helpful and accurate. The unit arrived in perfect condition and the set-up was easy and well documented. I believe the refurbished units have received a more thorough check over before shipping than the new units. I am very pleased with the unit. If you have not experienced Blue-Ray, it is fantastic. Nearly 3-D.
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Enjoyed the player for 6 months, then it died. We put in a movie, the menu came up for a second and then the player showed "No Disk". We sprayed it out with canned air, ran a cleaning disk through it, tried CD's, DVD's, other BD movies, no luck.
We have owned lots of CD and DVD players over the years, this is the first one that has ever died. We now have a big expensive paper weight, boo.
We have owned lots of CD and DVD players over the years, this is the first one that has ever died. We now have a big expensive paper weight, boo.
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The picture and sound are great, there's no doubt about that, but this player is slow as a tortoise to do anything.
I actually own two high definition TVs and each one has a Blu-Ray player attached. On one I've got the Sony BDP-S300 and on the other I've got the Panasonic DMP-BD30. There is a huge difference in speed and responsiveness between the two players! Let me give you some very specific examples:
The Sony is powered off because you haven't been using it. You decide you want to watch a movie. So, you push the eject button to open the disc tray so that you can load a movie in to it. Well, after you push the eject button you might as well go pour yourself a Coke... because the disc tray doesn't open for an agonizingly slow 45 seconds after you push that eject button! The Panasonic boots up and opens in less than half the time: just 20 seconds.
OK... so now you've got the disc tray open. Stick in the disc and push the play button. Now wait for anything to show up on
I actually own two high definition TVs and each one has a Blu-Ray player attached. On one I've got the Sony BDP-S300 and on the other I've got the Panasonic DMP-BD30. There is a huge difference in speed and responsiveness between the two players! Let me give you some very specific examples:
The Sony is powered off because you haven't been using it. You decide you want to watch a movie. So, you push the eject button to open the disc tray so that you can load a movie in to it. Well, after you push the eject button you might as well go pour yourself a Coke... because the disc tray doesn't open for an agonizingly slow 45 seconds after you push that eject button! The Panasonic boots up and opens in less than half the time: just 20 seconds.
OK... so now you've got the disc tray open. Stick in the disc and push the play button. Now wait for anything to show up on
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Garbage. The worse electronic product I have ever owned in my entire life. Expect to wait a minute or so after powering up the unit to insert a disc. Expect to wait another 2-3 minutes after that to actually get to the menu to start the disc. During this process keys will not be available, you have no indication of what is happening on the unit, and the remote control seems to be totally out of sync with the unit - making the entire thing very sluggish. Mine failed to work after 5 months of ownership. I had it replaced under warranty with a refurbished one and that one does not work either. HORRIBLE - DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT. If you think you can deal with the slowness and possible quality control issues, once it actually starts playing the Bluray disc the picture is good and sound is great. I used this with a Pioneer Pro-110FD 50" plasma and the Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH receiver. If you want alternatives, look at either the Sony PS or one of the Panasonic units which get good reviews
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I have been waiting for a while to jump into the HD Blu Ray market. Now that HD is gone I thought I should finally get one for my movie room. I am projecting the images with and epson 1080p projector onto a 106" screen.
yes this thing is slow, slow, slow and frustrating to update. So not worth it. I have a philips 1080p upconverting DVD player and that image is almost comparable - only cost $60. This Blu-Ray is so not worth it. Wait till they have improved it. For over $300 you would expect so much more. I have always tried to stay away from sony products and now I remember why. I am returning it and may consider a PS3 even though I do not play video games, or just be content with the philips 1080p upconverting until the technology improves. Competition is a good thing
yes this thing is slow, slow, slow and frustrating to update. So not worth it. I have a philips 1080p upconverting DVD player and that image is almost comparable - only cost $60. This Blu-Ray is so not worth it. Wait till they have improved it. For over $300 you would expect so much more. I have always tried to stay away from sony products and now I remember why. I am returning it and may consider a PS3 even though I do not play video games, or just be content with the philips 1080p upconverting until the technology improves. Competition is a good thing
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This is my second Blu-ray player. After the installing the current 3.8 firmware update, this Sony BDP-S300 is on par with my Panasonic BD30K. From power-up to the copyright warning is 60 seconds. Not bad. People that complain about long load times don't understand the nature of HD players. They are computers. They take time to start. The picture quality is fantastic. The player feels like a quality unit too. Kinda heavy for the times. For the money it's hard to beat. So what if it doesn't have the extra features the newer more expensive players do. I can have two of these for the price of one newer advanced unit.
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well I went for it and bluray is everything that is advertised and commented about. Let me say that I read all the reviews,good and bad so I was not confident in bluray.I have a Toshiba HD player,with the resent news that its over for HD I had to make my move.Picture is outstanding,slightly better then HD.Audio is hands down the best feature,its what 5.1 home theater is made for,incredible sound you want proof? popin "Apocalypto". Firmware its not such a huge hassle just call a sony rep I received by in three days,this solves the slow load issues.I know there are many HD owners on the fence,take the plunge!you will not be disapointed.
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I was disappointed by this player. Unlike previous Sony disk players I've owned, this model does not remember where you stop a movie. Previous players would remember up to six disks, after powering off, even if removed from the machine. I also own a 1080i TV so the increased resolution was not as spectacular as I had hoped. I will stick with my upconverting Sony (that remembers disks) until I have to replace my TV with a 1080p.
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Please, please, please, don't waste your time or money. Unless you have time and money to burn, this is a very frustrating machine. Be very cautious before purchasing this dvd player. There is a blatant scandal going on with the blu-ray player. We recently updated our home theater system with a new Samsung flat screen TV, surround sound, and DVD player. We had the entire system professionally installed. We spent a lot of money and wanted to purchase the best technology available at this time. Since we have the blu-ray player, we purchased a contract with Netflix so we can get blu-ray movies. We received our first move, The Departed. The movie doesn't work in our blu-ray player. After speaking with two representatives and a manager, the situation is still not rectified. We tried to download the update for our 2 month old blu-ray player from the Sony website, but were unable to "burn" the necessary software. I shouldn't have to be a computer genius to get this software, nor should
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Bought this, and as everyone says, it's frustratingly slow. So, back it went. Got the Sony Playstation 3 instead (which is also a blu ray player) and i can't believe sony would bother making anything else. Startup and loading are so much faster, the picture is actually better (although i wasn't disappointed in the BDP's picture) and of course then you have the PS3 and web browsing to boot! Problem solved plus bonuses - i highly recommend the PS3 as your bluray player!!
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Bought this yesterday, along with four BluRay movies. Thought it'd be a simple plug-in and run it ordeal, but that wasn't to be. This product took more to get it working right (reminded me of dealing with Windows drivers, updates, and so on, after buying a new Windows-based computer--I have a Mac, more on this below). It seems that the new generation of movie-at-home entertainment requires more hands-on technical maintenance. >>>This is important for everyone to know, not underestimate, and factor in as part of the 'experience'.
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We have owned an s301, which is technically identical to the s300, for about a month and have been very pleased with the video performance. Audio is great with PCM lossless (but read further for the problem with audio).
Like most HD players, it is slower than the cheapest DVD player, but that is okay, we have come to expect it and that no longer bothers us.
The problem with this player is that it does not output Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA in any way, shape or form. The closest it comes is transcoding the audio to plain old Dolby Digital or a somewhat better DTS. Wow, classic DVD audio performance at a Blu-ray price. The real problem comes from some studios moving away from PCM lossless audio to TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. These include Sony Pictures whose latest release announcements have TrueHD only and FOX who is releasing only in DTS-HD MA, which very few players can play properly at all.
If you care anything about audio, I cannot recommend this player. If you don't have the whole home
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Although I like the better quality picture - this is seriously one of the slowest machines that I own. You can press the disc EJECT button, then go to the basement, start a load of laundry, do some dishes, return some books to the library, then go back upstairs and the machine may just then be preparing to open the disk drive. I'm serious! Every function takes forever - it's so frustrating! Besides this, it also takes forever to load certain movies in BluRay format - and even then, not all movies can be played on it. I regret buying this model - Sony usually is a favored product line, but they dropped the ball on this one!
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While I've only had my player for a short time, I've been playing discs (blu-ray and standard) on it and I've noticed a few things. The picture is good on blu-ray discs, but doesn't blow me away like I thought it would. In all honesty, some of the pictures with 1080i cable look better than the blu-ray discs. Maybe it's my tv (Sharp Aquos 46") or the discs themselves....maybe my expectations are too high. Yes, I have it hooked up with HDMI. Here's the really disturbing thing though.....standard dvd's do NOT look good at all. This is how I know this....I have an RCA DVD recorder/upconverter and it blows the blu-ray player out of the water! I did a comparison this morning because I thought the picture on the blu-ray was poor. The RCA upconverter looks nearly as good as a blu-ray disc. I'm not kidding! And it is only 1080i! Either RCA makes an exceptional machine or the Sony's upconverter is junk. As for slow loading times, I just updated the firmware to 3.7 and the loading is very quick now,
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I picked up a Sony BDP-S300 around Thanksgiving, and I think it's exactly what's advertised, a solid but entry-level Blu-Ray disk player. You should believe everything you read in all the other customer reviews...you just need to decide what's important to you.
This is one of the least expensive Blu-ray players on the market. Still, it has played every movie we put in it perfectly. The picture upgrade over non-HD DVD's is simply spectacular. If you've not seen a Blu-ray disk before, you're in for a treat. Some people report that some movies have image glitches in them, but I've seen none, from either Blu-Ray or regular DVD's. And because this player will "upconvert" your old DVD's, they look noticeably better than they will have looked on an older, "regular," player.
There are some limitations with this entry-level model. As others have noted, it's really slow to load a Blu-Ray disc, and the menus can be a bit sluggish. The wait time is irritating, and the first time I started a movie,
This is one of the least expensive Blu-ray players on the market. Still, it has played every movie we put in it perfectly. The picture upgrade over non-HD DVD's is simply spectacular. If you've not seen a Blu-ray disk before, you're in for a treat. Some people report that some movies have image glitches in them, but I've seen none, from either Blu-Ray or regular DVD's. And because this player will "upconvert" your old DVD's, they look noticeably better than they will have looked on an older, "regular," player.
There are some limitations with this entry-level model. As others have noted, it's really slow to load a Blu-Ray disc, and the menus can be a bit sluggish. The wait time is irritating, and the first time I started a movie,
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The good: Picture quality is amazing, and careful shopping can get you this gen-u-wine Sony Blu-Ray Disk (BD) player for under $300. The bad: disks are a little slow to load, and the first thing anybody who buys one needs to do is upgrade the firmware (current version is 3.30, my player came with 2.60). Upgrading firmware is a pain in the patootie BUT consider the upside - firmware that can be updated by users means a lot of flexibility. In fact, the ability to upgrade the Java-based firmware is one of the ways in which Blu-Ray trumps HD. Once you've watched a movie like "Night at the Museum" in high-def, you won't want to go back to NTSC. BTW, even though this machine is relatively affordable, it's a full 1080p player. Even if you don't need 1080p today - even if you can't tell the difference between 1080p and 1080i (or 720p) - this machine provides growth potential at a reasonable cost.
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I guess a lot of people had problems with long disc load times. Things have been much improved thru a steady stream of firmware updates by sony. Best price to performance ratio, compared to other players right now, in my opinion.
Unless, if you own a PS3, which can't be beat as a blu-ray player !!
Unless, if you own a PS3, which can't be beat as a blu-ray player !!
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I have nothing good to say about this Blu Ray player. In my opinion, Sony's products are usually excellent but this is an exception.
I have gone through 2 of these players in the past month. Both had similar problems, the first unit locked up solid while playing DVD's (several different factory pressed DVD's with no defects). When I say locked up, I mean the player was totally unresponsive and had to be unplugged in order to gain control again. After returning the first player as defective, I got a second Sony unit. The second player had similar problems but also it locked up solid while playing Blu Ray discs as well. I checked to make sure the firmware was the latest on both players and it was.
The lock ups are not the only issue that I had with these players. They are very slow to start up and slow to load Blu Ray discs. Compared to the player that I bought to replace the Sony, the Sony's are extremely slow to respond to commands (fast forward, reverse, chapter skip, etc...) and slow
I have gone through 2 of these players in the past month. Both had similar problems, the first unit locked up solid while playing DVD's (several different factory pressed DVD's with no defects). When I say locked up, I mean the player was totally unresponsive and had to be unplugged in order to gain control again. After returning the first player as defective, I got a second Sony unit. The second player had similar problems but also it locked up solid while playing Blu Ray discs as well. I checked to make sure the firmware was the latest on both players and it was.
The lock ups are not the only issue that I had with these players. They are very slow to start up and slow to load Blu Ray discs. Compared to the player that I bought to replace the Sony, the Sony's are extremely slow to respond to commands (fast forward, reverse, chapter skip, etc...) and slow
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Our AV department bought a BDP-300 so we could release our HD video content on Blu-ray. We bought the expensive Blu-ray burner for the computer, we bought the expensive authoring software, we bought a bunch of expensive BD-R and BD-RW recordable disks and we bought the expensive Sony BDP-300 player, with an eye toward buying a bunch more for our conference rooms if the system worked. It didn't.
We found that the BDP-300 will not play back BD-R or BD-RW discs. Though it might have been possible to be upgraded via a firmware update (like its REALLY expensive big brother can be firmware upgraded) it most likely never will. Thanks a lot, Sony. Way to make an integrated system. No wonder Blu-ray has been so slow to catch on. Thus we as a very large company cannot commit to Blu-ray because we can't play the recorded Blu-ray disks back on even a $400 player. Sigh.
Secondly, if you connect to a digital display that only has DVI-in via an HDMI/DVI adapter or an HDMI/DVI cable adapter, the player
We found that the BDP-300 will not play back BD-R or BD-RW discs. Though it might have been possible to be upgraded via a firmware update (like its REALLY expensive big brother can be firmware upgraded) it most likely never will. Thanks a lot, Sony. Way to make an integrated system. No wonder Blu-ray has been so slow to catch on. Thus we as a very large company cannot commit to Blu-ray because we can't play the recorded Blu-ray disks back on even a $400 player. Sigh.
Secondly, if you connect to a digital display that only has DVI-in via an HDMI/DVI adapter or an HDMI/DVI cable adapter, the player
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