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Sony BDP-S500 Blu-ray player reviewed by Lisa Lautenberg

June 30, 2008



Design:

Like most set-top boxes these days this player manages to look high tech without looking tacky.  The center of the unit features both the Blu-ray and the HD DVD logo. This player also features the same illuminated touch-sensitive buttons.  Ee have no complaints with this player's menu--its high-definition menus are among the nicer ones we've seen.

Remote Control:

The included clicker is fairly standard. There's a centrally located directional pad with playback controls located nearby. Our biggest complaint concerns the lack of button differentiation--especially with the playback controls--which makes it a bit hard to use by feel.  Better universal remote is recommended.

Features:

This player can play standard- definition DVDs and CDs as well as Blu-ray. This player was released before the deadline and it only conforms to the older Profile 1.0. This player won't be able to play some picture-in-picture commentary tracks on newer discs. This won't be a deal breaker for everyone since many people barely have enough time to watch a full movie. It has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus. It lacks bit-stream audio support for high resolution formats which means you can't send encoded Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks to new receivers with decoding capabilities. This player's connectivity package is solid. The main connection is the HDMI output which is capable of outputting 1080p video at 24 frames per second. High-definition video can also be output over the component video outputs (limited to 1080i).

Performance:

We put this player up against several other players we had on hand. We spent several hours watching footage on these players and the verdict was clear: all the players we looked at offered extremely similar image quality. Despite there being tons of very detailed scenes we found the players to be nearly equally sharp. Every time we thought we noticed a difference we'd watch it on the other player and noticed that it was there too. We decided to move on to the Mission: Impossible III disc and found more of the same. This player and indeed none of the Blu-ray players we've tested so far cannot output 1080p at 24 frames per second (1080p/24).

 

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Rating:

5 Blu-ray rating

 

Review sent in by Lisa Lautenberg.  Thanks!  Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

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Eve Robles from San Francisco has sent in review of Daewoo DBP-2000 Blu-ray player

June 30, 2008



I bought this player with the1.9 firmware and it was great. Yes, it did take a very long time to load Pirates of the Carribean  - almost 3 full minutes. That is due to the disc predominantly using Java (BD-J) for interactivity. Few days ago I flash updated the firmware to 2.60 in about 18 minutes. See manufacturer's web site for the firmware and carefully follow the instructions. They will even provide you with the disc.
I purchased a 46" HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A20 1080p HD DVD Player player along with this Blu-ray Disc Player. I wanted to see the results of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD before investing in more expensive units. I've not had many complaints of load times. The average is about 30 seconds for most films. I have had a few that take several minutes but I don't sweat it much. It just gives some extra time to get something to drink and run to the bathroom before starting!  There needs to be a ethernet port or some other way to access updates online direct to this player, a wireless method possibly? My Toshiba HD DVD player has the CAT-5 ethernet port and it makes updating (not exactly simple) more flexible.  Manufacture's website offers the image (ISO) burn to DVDR method for updating, but this seems unpolished at best. One other thing I immediately noticed is how whisper quiet this player is. There is no noticeable fan noise whatsoever. Compare this to the Toshiba HD-XA2 fan, which has a sound resembling the whine of a tiny fighter jet.

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.  I have a 60inch 1080p Sony tv and a decent 5.1 home theater-in-a-box sound system.After doing research I bought a (too expensive) "high-speed" monster HDMI cable rated to handle 1080p audio/video.  There is high fan noise during dvd playback, which was only noticeable with the tv turned off. While the movie is playing, I couldn't hear the fan at all. The display on the front is a gray-blue. There are 4 brightness settings (High-Med-Low-Off), which can be accessed with one button on the top top of the remote. Very nice. With the display turned off, this is a very nice viewing experience. There is also an additional display button on the remote, which tells you the TRT of the disc, which chapter you are watching, time remaining in the chapter, and bit rate.

 

Rating:

4 Blu-ray rating

 

 

Review sent in by Eve Robles. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

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New Blu-ray player Philips BDP9000 reviewed by Pete Consel.

June 30, 2008



I bought a Philips BDP7100, Sony BDP-S1E, and PS3. In the 1 week that I've had this player, it's done a great job on video and audio quality. I'm watching it on a 46" Hitachi connected through HDMI. I've never had any of the stutters or other audio/video glitches that others have mentioned.  This player started having hardware/software problems.  It would simply quit playing during the middle of the movie The BR players are all updatable so it's possible to play the latest movies. However, this player has a VERY unintuitive failure mode and upgrade procedure. But once you get that 1080p flat screen there's just no other way to watch video. Even with the problem it is worth getting this player for 1080p picures.

I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY DISC PLAY OR CONNECTION ISSUES AS HAVE BEEN REPORTED BY OTHER USERS. MY ONLY ADVICE ON THIS IS TO KEEP THE FIRMWARE UPDATED EITHER BY LAN OR BY CALLING SAMSUNG AND REQUESTING A FIRMWARE DISC.  For those who wonder if it will play homemade Blu-Ray DVDs I can report that I have sucessfully created a Blu-Ray DVD with menus on a 25G Single Layer BD-RE (Rewritable) disk using the LG GGW-H20L burner.  Other firmware updatres are available but I haven't needed them yet.  This player is good as far as disks that work on it but it does not support 48kHz/24-bit HD true sound that other blu-ray disks come with.  The sound will pop out of sync with the visual. Before you buy call the manufacturer and ask if they have solved this problem by issuing a firmware (disk to put in the machine to update the harddrive) or not.

Upconversion on this player is pretty good, which is very important if you have big library of DVDs.  I figured instead of spending $100 or so on upconvert DVD player to work with my new TV, I decided to go directly to Blu-Ray, since the Blu-Ray is now standard of HD DVDs. This player is by far the best picture quality on DVD upconversions thanks to the HQV chip that player uses. The audio and video quality is also great for blu-rays.  Overall, I found this player to be competent Blu-ray player and a great upconverting DVD player.

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Rating:

5 Blu-ray rating

 

 

Review sent in by Pete Consel. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

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Denon DVD-3800BD Blu-ray player reviewed by Pete Consel

June 29, 2008



Design:

Like most set-top boxes these days this player manages to look high tech without looking tacky.  The center of the unit features both the Blu-ray and the HD DVD logo. This player also features the same illuminated touch-sensitive buttons.  Ee have no complaints with this player's menu--its high-definition menus are among the nicer ones we've seen.

Remote Control:

Included remote control has a decent button layout.  The remote has a centrally located directional pad surrounded by useful buttons such as Back and Pop-up Menu.  We liked the separate rocker buttons for volume and channel control--for those who want to control their TV with this remote--but the placement of the playback controls is subpar.  The back side of the remote is covered with a glossy finish attracting finger prints.

Features:

This player is one of the first player to be Blu-ray profile 1.1 compliant. This means it meets several hardware requirements including 64kb of onboard persistent memory 256MB of local storage and both secondary audio and video decoders.This should allow the player to play picture-in-picture commentary and perhaps take advantage of other interactive features available on Blu-ray Profile 1.1 discs--none of which are on the market yet. This player is one of the first Blu-ray players that can output both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks in bitstream format. The connectivity package on the player is very good. The main video output is naturally HDMI which is capable of outputting both 1080p video signals as well as HD audio.

Performance:

This player evinced middling performance. It didn't pass the Film Resolution Loss Test. as the edges of one of the boxes exhibited strobe-like behavior--we've seen other players perform worse. We could see some minor moire in the grandstands of Raymond James Stadium but otherwise it did an acceptable job. It had no problem passing the Video Resolution Loss Test demonstrating its competence on video-based material. On M:I:III it did well by showing no moire on the stairs at the beginning of Chapter 8. We also looked at some movies in 24 frames per second output. The output at 24 frames was not as flawless as it should have been. We saw quite a few instances of stuttering that wasn't present when we had set at standard 1080p/60 mode.

 

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Rating:

3 blu-ray rating

 

Review sent in by Pete Consel.  Thanks!  Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

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Bill Bundt from Paris has sent in review of Pioneer BDP-LX70A Blu-ray player

June 29, 2008



I bought this player with the1.2 firmware and it was great. Yes, it did take a very long time to load Independence Day  - almost 3 full minutes. That is due to the disc mostly using Java (BD-J) for interactivity. Few days ago I flash updated the firmware to 2.60 in about 16 minutes. See manufacturer's web site for the firmware and carefully follow the instructions. They will even provide you with the disc.
I purchased a 46" HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A20 1080p HD DVD Player player along with this Blu-ray Disc Player. I wanted to see the results of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD before investing in more expensive units. I must say that the image and sound quality of the Blu-Ray player is quite impressive  There needs to be a ethernet port or some other way to access updates online direct to this player, a wireless method possibly? My Toshiba HD DVD player has the CAT-5 ethernet port and it makes updating (not exactly simple) more flexible.  Manufacture's website offers the image (ISO) burn to DVDR method for updating, but this seems unpolished at best. One other thing I immediately noticed is how whisper quiet this player is. There is no noticeable fan noise whatsoever. Compare this to the Toshiba HD-XA2 fan, which has a sound resembling the whine of a tiny fighter jet.

The remote is as usual with other electronic devices.  It is extremely clutered.  Many movies have tons of extra content not found on regular dvd's. Watching at 1080p is fantastic and any movie lover will be more than happy with this player.  There is small fan noise during dvd playback, which was only detectable with the tv turned off. While the movie is playing, I couldn't hear the fan at all. The display on the front is a gray-blue. There are 4 brightness settings (High-Med-Low-Off), which can be accessed with one button on the top bottom of the remote. Very nice. With the display turned off, this is a very nice viewing experience. There is also an additional display button on the remote, which tells you the TRT of the disc, which chapter you are watching, time remaining in the chapter, and bit rate.

 


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Rating:

3 blu-ray rating

 

 

Review sent in by Bill Bundt. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

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