Sony BDP N460 Blu Ray Player Review
November 17, 2009
Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand were conspicuously absent on the Sony Blu ray players. The BDP-S360 and BDP-S560 both lacked any type of streaming services for some reason. Even Sony’s PS3 lacked the streaming services until Sony recently added the Netflix support via firmware update. This was odd omission since Sony’s rivals all included comprehensive streaming services on all of their Blu ray player models. There was some speculation about Sony adding these streaming services via firmware update on their current Blu ray players. However, Sony decided to launch entirely new model with included streaming services. Instead of including few major streaming services, Sony has gone all out and included over 25 streaming content providers. With the release of BDP-N460, Sony finally catches up with LG, Samsung, and Panasonic in terms of streaming services.
Features
Perhaps Sony felt the majority of the home theater buyers didn’t need or want streaming services on their Blu ray players. While there are segment that do not care for streaming contents, I would have to think that majority of the consumers would still want some type of streaming option on their Blu ray players. The BDP-N460 fills that segment nicely. The overall feature is comparable to the BDP-S360 model with added streaming services. The BDP-N460 is Profile 2.0 player with full support for BD-LIVE content. The BDP-N460 features full audio decoding options. It can decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio as well as Dolby Digital and DTS audio. A drawback on audio side is the analog output of 7.1 channel audio. You will need a receiver if you want 5.1 or 7.1 channel analog output. For storage, you will need a USB storage unit. Also, BDP-N460 lacks WiFi found on the BDP-S560 model. As with other Blu ray players from Sony, BDP-N460 comes with BRAVIA Sync technology. This basically eliminates you from having to use multiple remote controls on Sony products. If you don’t own a nice programmable remote control, this should be a nice feature.
Design
The BDP-N460 retains the flip down tray design like the BDP-S360 model. The tray is located in the middle of the player beneath the tray. The see through LCD screen is located on the right side along with play and stop buttons. Unlike the BDP-S360, the USB port is located outside of the flip down tray on the BDP-N460. This is much better design compared to BDP-S360 model. The back of the player houses the HDMI, Component video, composite video, and Ethernet port. Also, there is optical and coaxial digital audio port as well as analog audio output port.
The Remote
The included remote is the one provided on the BDP-S560 model. The included remote control is similar to the older player’s layout. It is more compact and streamlined than the previous offerings. The numeric pad is located at the top of the remote followed by the function buttons in four different colors. The menu and directional buttons are located in the middle with playback function buttons at the bottom. However, the remote does not contain the channel buttons whereas the older version did have them at the bottom. Nevertheless, it is very functional and easy to use remote control. The lack of channel button might not be a deal breaker if you already own a quality universal remote control.
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Performance, Video, Audio
The Blu ray playback and the DVD upscaling are very good on the BDP-N460 model. The quality is carried over from the BDP-S360 and BDP-S560 model. For the DVD upscaling, the BDP-N460 uses the same Precision Cinema HD Upscale circuitry found on the other models. While not as good as the Oppo upconversion, it does fairly good job of upconverting DVD movies. As for the Blu ray playback, it is in line with the playback quality from other Sony Blu ray players. The playback itself is very good without any discernable defects. The playback of two movies, The Dark Knight and Marley and Me, showed no problems. The action sequences in The Dark Knight had no glaring or noticeable defects. The first generation players showed some jaggies and moiré but the current generation models including BDP-N460 showed none of the jaggies or moiré. Pausing during the movie also produced no defects. Overall, the video processing quality is comparable to BDP-S360 and BDP-S560 model. On the other hand, the loading time and overall processing time is not on the par with other manufacturers. It is very similar to BDP-S360 and BDP-S560. While not horrendously slow, it is still slower than other players in its class.
As with video quality, the audio processing quality is on par with other Sony Blu ray players. There are very limited differences between Blu ray players when it comes to audio processing quality. Most consumers will not notice any difference even when you step up to the high end models offered by premium audio and video manufacturers like Pioneer or Marantz. The real difference comes from the audio decoding options. The BDP-N460 will handle all of the audio decoding needs including the high definition audio formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. The only drawback of BDP-N460 is the lack of analog 7.1 channel audio output. Otherwise, the player handles all the audio decoding functions perfectly.
Overall
Sony BDP-N460 comes little late to the streaming service market. LG, Samsung, and Panasonic all launched their latest Blu ray players with streaming services like Netflix and Youtube. While little late to the market, the BDP-N460 boasts the most comprehensive streaming service on Blu ray player. Some of the streaming services include Netflix, YouTube, Blip.tv, Crackle, slacker, Wired, and Fear.net. If you are in market for a Blu ray player with great streaming service contents, clearly the BDP-N460 is the best choice. There is one caveat to the Netflix streaming. If you purchased it thinking Netflix was ready to go out of the box, you would have been disappointed. Sony just added the Netflix streaming via firmware updates. So, update your firmware as soon as you unbox the Blu ray player.
Pictures
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Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) List Price: Sale Price: $140.41 You save: $109.58 (44%)  Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Average Rating:   |
Description
Experience Blu-ray Disc movies in Full HD 1080p quality with stunning HD sound that supports enhanced audio formats including Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio. You can also play and upscale your DVDs to near high definition...
Features
- Plays Blu-ray Disc movies in Full HD 1080p
- Instantly streams online entertainment from leading providers
- Upscales DVDs to near high definition
- BD-Live ready
- Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio decoding
Video
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Nice reviews. I’m gonna buy this today.
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I just purchsed this unit and very impressed with the netflix on line streaming,wow is all i can say… very good,but very disapointed in this so called upconverting .cause it does not do that at all,in fact i just put a 2003 movie in and it looked horrible besides the movie being lousy LOL.but not impressed with the upconverting,have not played a blu-ray movie yet…
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Overall impressed with picture quality and ease of use. Not hooked up for streaming yet but have plans. Purchased as a package with a 52″ V series Bravia. Great for movies. Also have a Sony sound bar connected. All I need now is a universal remote!
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I hooked up my N460 last night in my basement TV temporarily to check out its performance and function needless to say this is an impressive unit and glad that I chosed this over the LG or Samsung.
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Nice player, cheap remote
The player is fine, with no “cons” yet except the remote….
I’ve owned three BD players, one HD to date, and this has by far the worst remote I’ve seen. I’ve seen better remotes on $39 DVD players with no name. No eject button either? Sony, I know you could do better. This one will never see the light of day again, its in the draw for you til I get the streaming Oppo!
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Easy WiFi Set-up does NOT mean WiFi is built in
My fault. I had spent a considerable amount of time reviewing Blu-ray units. It seems the Samsung models (reportedly) had their networking issues. Then I finally decided on a Sony Bravia LCD TV, so it seemed logical to narrow in on the Sony Blu-ray units (one less remote to fumble with). After considering the BDP-S560 for a while, the N460 showed up as an option. I liked that is had the streaming from Netflix, etc. It was also listed as “Easy WiFi Setup”. I ordered it. I didn’t read all of the fine print – WiFi required a linksys WET-610 – thats another $100. Not even the Sony web site makes that clear when you do a comparison among the models.
I already have a Roku box for Netflix (Which has been a GREAT investment, something I highly recommend) so the Netflix access in the Blu-ray unit was trying to think ahead as more services become available.
While I can’t assess the quality of the unit, I did put a rating that reflects my disappointment. I am returning the unit as it arrived this afternoon. I will likely go with the Sony BDP-S560. If you don’t need WiFi, the unit may be just fine.
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Another Sony winner
This Blu ray player streams netflix and amazon on demand very well I rented two movies in HD on amazon so far with no problems and it played well and the netflix was just activated on 11/11/2009 and they also stream in HD my blu ray movies looks great on this unit I recently watch Heat and the picture was great the sound is even better from my previous BDP-S300 sony model and all movies load fast.
All in all this is a good Blu player my only complaint is that I think wi-fi should have been built in the unit but I did not have a problem making that extra purchase for the wireless bridge thats required to use for video streaming.
Great Video product otherwise….
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Yes Finally!!! It works as advertised.- Its worth it.
Bought this player last week along with an Sony Bravia Sony BRAVIA V-Series KDL-46V5100 46-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV, Black LCD HDTV. I have the home theater setup using an Onkyo TX-SR605 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black) AV receiver. Although the receiver is 2 yrs old. I was fortunate to choose that model as it had HDMI inputts (just 2 for that time). I have assigned the two HDMI inputs to this blue ray player BDP_N460 and the HD sat receiver. It would have been a great player if they had an integrated WIFI . Guess Sony has their price point all worked out.
Nevertheless the user manual says it strongly recommends Linksys Linksys by Cisco WET610N Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge with Dual-Band Wi-Fi bridge. I have this unit configured to work with less expensive TRENDnet Wireless N Gaming Adapter-Black (TEW-647GA) (V1.0R). All I had to do was to manually configure TRENDnet Wireless N Gaming Adapter-Black (TEW-647GA) (V1.0R) using my laptop initially (due to my secure wireless network configuraion).
Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) was able to connect to the network and with in minutes
Please ensure you go through a system update after your unit is able to connect to the network. Since this was my initial setup. It updated my firmware to the most current version (ver. 120 as of this writing).
Netflix Works!! – Sony has fixed a lot of issues previous reviewers experienced. such as lack of Netflix connectivity etc. Plus they have added a few more online portals you can connect to for video downloads than printed in their user manual. I was pleasantly surprised.
To get Netflix to work, you will have to register your player at internet.sony.tv/netflix (which is a sony style website). When you do this, they give you another code to register wih on [...] telling them you would like to stream movies to your Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) player.
Assuming you have an account with netflix, you would be able to do the above step.
At this point, i was able to watch Netflix movies from my instant queue. The movies i chose were fairly new and hence i was able to get HD versions of the same streaming in. I was amazed at the quality of the feed and the speed.
However, I do have to mention that I did use a 8GB USB drive in the EXT slot at the back of the unit.
Although the user manual recommends 1GB or higher. The bigger memory offer better buffering capacity I think. Since price of USB drives are more affordable/GB. It would be advisable to get 2GB+.
Surfing other portals was not that complicated such as You tube. Although beware that not all vidoes on you tube offer HD content. Some of they are plain pathetic, although they look great on you PC monitor, it is a whole another playing field watching it on your HD tv. it would also be nice if sony interface let you search video based on a search engine instead of their listed portals (perhaps in the future….Hope sony hears us out).
I have not figured this one yet. I wish BDP_N460 would let you surf and choose other video media (such as .wvmv/ .rm files on an external Hard Drive) on a connected devise through front side USB port. It would be nice if sony would come up with this feature using a firmware update in future.
The only downside or negative I can think of is to get it working as advertised, You need to spend additional $60 + to get the Wireless Bridge and a USB drive.
On the positives Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) is a top notch DVD player, i loved the fact the regular DVD’s were upconverted to near HD (it may be my receiver doing it, i cant say for sure).
Blue Ray – play back was mind blowing.
Bottom line is that you get quality video/audio on your TV from this player.
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Great BD Player
I would highly recommend this BD player.
The Netflix firmware was released yesterday, so all features work as advertised.
The online content is great, the load time is quick, and the picture quality is wonderful.
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Great Player
I finally bit the bullet and went blu with this player, my first blu experience. It was extremely easy to set-up out of the box (reminder that you’ll need to purchase an HDMI cable separately) and integrate into my system — and there was no problem networking via a network cable and router into my existing ISP (you’ll also need to purchase a network cable separately if you need one). I haven’t yet gone wireless so cannot comment on those capabilities. The system upgrade process via the network connection was also easy to set-up and activate. I found the operating manual to be particularly lucid — rare with most electronics. Immediately downloadable were Youtube content and dozens of other internet channels. It is true that Netflix is tantalizingly “Coming Fall 09″ — but there are hundreds and hundreds of movies already available via download from Amazon, including a huge assortment of HD titles. The overall picture quality has been superb from bluray discs — and the upconverting on regular DVDs seems significantly better than my existing upconverting DVD player. Loading time is very, very quick — there have been no stalls or quirks in audio or visuals in loading any of the dozen or so discs that I currently own. As a first time blu ray user, this player has performed flawlessly thus far and it seems to deliver exactly what it promises!
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Love it
I wanted a Blu-ray player for two main reasons, 1) to watch Netflix on my TV, and 2) to watch Star Trek: The Original Series (Enhanced) on Blu-ray. I returned an LG BD 390 because a stupid icon kept popping up every time an “alternate angle”/enhanced scene appeared during an episode. This was many times during each episode. It’s only on the screen for a few seconds, but you can’t turn it off. Contacted LG and they said you can’t turn it off and they weren’t planning a firmware update to fix it – unacceptable. So now I have the Sony and I am thrilled. No more icon, and I like the option of turning off other icons like “play” and “pause”. I think the load time is fine – fast enough for me. I’m anxious to get the Netflix firmware update to try that out. I don’t need a wireless Blu-ray as I have wired my basement to get more reliable video streaming. I am very satisfied with this player.
Update as of 11/11/09 – Netflix enabled! Works beautifully so far. Watched a bit of “The Office”. Video quality very good. My TV says it was 1080p – cool. I’m guessing that most of the Netflix content will be standard def., though. I watched a few minutes of Enemy Mine and the quality was OK – about like Netflix is on my computer. I’m getting pretty spoiled by hi-def. video after watching Blu-ray movies. Anyway, Netflix is easy to do. Just add movies to your Watch Instantly queue (on your PC), and they’re there on TV. Brilliant.
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Sony BDP-N460: The PS3 Replacement
This player is everything the PS3 should be, just without the games. The PS3 was a constant annoyance with the Bluetooth remote, poor game choice, and the lack of any service such as Netflix (the PS Network seemed to have a rather limited selection)… So I decided to liquidate the system and get back in the blu-ray player market.
When this unit loads up, you might think that it is a PS3–the menu is almost exactly the same. The relevant difference is the video options. This is where that laundry list of online video service providers is found. What a list! If all this player could do was play Netflix, it might not be such a compelling player–but it does a lot more than that. What convinced me to buy this unit was it’s ability to play Amazon On Demand. It seemed ironic to me that this was not originally an advertised feature on Amazon’s website. I had to do some research to verify this capability. In fact, it was a deal-maker for me.
If the PS3 did everything this player does, then I would say to pay a little more and enjoy the near-zero load times and wireless–but it doesn’t. Not even close. The PS3 is currently locked into Sony’s limited first-party services. This player hopefully signals the future for players, by adding every provider available.
Pros:
- Bravia sync (if you have a compatible Sony television)
- TONS of providers
- Load times are nominal
- Firmware updates were quick out of the box
- Excellent up-conversion of DVD titles
- Lights on player are not at all distracting (and can be adjusted)
Cons:
- Even though I am 1080p resolution, the xcross (system) menu looks low-res.
- Netflix is “coming fall 2009″, so there will be a wait on that for now
So far this player highly recommended!
UPDATE: As of 11/11/2009, Netflix is now available. Works flawlessly!
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They always say it is Netflix compatible, but not yet
Bought it to use with Netflix. EVERYWHERE it seems to say that it is compatible. You do not find out that it is feature that is coming in the future until you hook it up and try it.
Sending it back tomorrow.
Love the comments from the other people that says it is everywhere. Have ANY of you even seen the box? No where to be found on it.
and here is the MAIN part about the player from amazon. Other places on the page it says it is coming (like in fine print under a picture and such), but far down the page but in 5 other places it says that it plays netflix, youtube, … NO DISCLAIMER.
(October 13, 2009)
In addition to playing Blu-ray Discs and DVDs, the Sony BDP-N460 streams one of the largest collections of premium and free on-demand entertainment from the BRAVIA Internet Video platform, including thousands of movies, TV programs, and music from from over 25 leading content providers–including YouTube, Slacker, and Netflix. Simply connect the BDP-N460 to your existing Internet connection
DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU EXPECT NETFLIX ANY TIME SOON. If it were anywhere close to being available, they would have a date. They lauch a product in Fall of 2009 and they are adding a new feature Fall of 2009 but can say exactly when?
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