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137 of 140 people found the following review helpful.
Fantastic device, but 1st-production articles may prove frustrating to some...
By Cary L. Brown
I received my player a short time ago, and so far I'm very pleased with the device. Setup wasn't totally painless, however.I currently own four optical-disk-playing devices (not counting computer drives). I have a five-disk Sony DVD carousel, a Samsung BD player(with wireless but with minimal features, mainly Pandora, Netflix, Blockbuster, and some news headlines), a slightly older Sony BD player(BDP-570) which has, up until now, been the main unit in my entertainment center, and now this.I'm reasonably pleased that the user interface is essentially unaltered from my earlier Sony BD device. The interface is still very easy to use, and very intuitive. It DOES, however, have the annoyance of lacking some configurability (I'd sure like to be able to remove the "Michael Jackson channel" from my list of video channels, for example, as I'll never... EVER... watch that.)It does have a few new features accessed from that media-resources screen... the Opera web browser, a pretty decent Skype client, and a few other items. But if you've owned a Sony BD device before, the UI will be totally familiar to you, as will most of the main configuration options.The remote control is also very similar to the older Sony remote, except that some of the special functions are now in a secondary, concentric ring around the nav-select pad... which is actually a BAD thing as far as I'm concerned, as I have found myself frequently accidentally hitting the outside ring when I'm trying to hit the inside ring, or vice-versa. Fortunately for me, I seldom use the provided remote, instead using my Logitech Harmony programmable remote... so this is not really an issue. But if you plan to use this remote as your primary control, I suspect you'll experience the same thing from time to time. Sony could have done better in this regard.Picture quality is gorgeous, of course, as played on my 240hz Samsung 3D LEDTV. I wasn't sure that there would be any visible difference, but the image quality is notable improved, especially on upscaled DVD images. It seems that the two fast processor cores in the machine are getting a pretty robust workout... they're not being wasted! 3D is impressive, too... though I suspect this is more related to the TV than the player. (Samsung's 3D TVs are the best on the market IMHO, right now, though Sony's BD players are the best, I think!) That said, the machine never so much as "hesitates a frame" in even the most action-packed 3D scenes... which is something you'll occasionally note on lower-end 3D units, as the data streaming through them can briefly get backed up in fast, moving scenes, being rendered twice-over for each frame (once per eye, in other words).I do not have access to a 4K display, so I have no idea if that's good or not. I suspect that 4K will tax the resources of this machine... then again, so few people have 4K displays right now, it's not worth quibbling about.Now... if you buy one of the first units (ie, the current batch, I think!), you'll likely have a few issues when you first obtain it. The machine is designed to be network-connected, and wants to be connected. But, at least in my case, and in the case of many others, the network functionality seems somewhat hobbled under the "release firmware." You need to update the machine's firmware... after which, my machine has worked perfectly. But the device, by default, will try to "web update" itself anytime connected. Which means that you need to manually update the device, using either downloaded media (from the vendor's website), media obtained from the vendor (for a fee), or at the very least, a hard-wired network connection, in order to do your first update.Prior to the first update, I had significant difficulties maintaining a connection... which could lead to an improper update, and a "bricked" device. Lots of other folks had the same problem. Post-update, my device works perfectly. Also pre-update, I couldn't manually enter my wireless networking info (the UI was there, but it didn't allow me to finish my setup). Post-update, that's no longer an issue.The receiver in this device isn't tremendously powerful, and a better antenna/receiver set would be a major boon. It's basically on-par with devices built into laptops and so forth, and (post-update) works about the same as any of those. But it would be well-served by having some improved reception, since it's going to be tasked with streaming a lot of data. The reception is better than you'll get with a Roku or the like, but not as good as it ought to be for the price, and if you're not near your router, you may have some connectivity issues from time to time. It does seem to be on-par with my prior Sony device, or the built-in wireless in any of my TVs.That's about all I can say about it right now. It's a terrific device, plays back flawlessly for any media I have access to, and just generally is the best device of its type out there right now, as far as I'm concerned. Just be careful about updating the device when you first receive it. I recommend downloading the update files and installing them without the network at all (see Sony's support site). After doing this, my network has worked flawlessly so far, and the device is separated from my router by a floor and four walls, and about fifty feet... and we have power lines nearby.I'm very satisfied with the device so far. If that ever changes, I'll be sure to update this review, though.*************Edit: Well, I've had this for a while now and have fully put it through its paces. There's one thing I thought I ought to mention.This has the best DLNA interface I've yet to see on a consumer device. It's easy to use, functions well... but there's a problem. It only recognizes a tiny subset of my media, including very, very few of my video files... very few. And while it will recognize any MP3 file, most of my media is in WMA format, which the player won't recognize, either. So, the DLNA functionality is pretty hobbled, as far as I'm concerned. I'd love to hear the experiences of others in this regard.No support for windows media audio and video? No support for MKV containers? These are things that really should be present in ANY contemporary media-streaming solution. Hopefully Sony can implement something (it's not a hardware issue so it MUST be a legal-rights issue!) to manage file types better in the future.Right now, the only device I have which can make full use of my media server, with the exception of actual PCs, is my little Archos portable media player. I sure wish my Sony BD player had support for as many file times as my Archos does...*************Another edit:I've now had two more firmware updates since posting the above. And yesterday, I decided to play around with the network DLNA mode again. I don't know which firmware fixed this, but as of yesterday, I can now play WMA audio files with no problems.I still can't see any of my WMV, DIVX, MOV, or other video files. The only things I CAN see, really, are the transport stream files taken directly from DVD rips, and I only have a handful of those, created off of disks I own, so that I could put those files onto my portable player (Archos 5IT, 500GB).So... it does seem that Sony is "fixing" the DLNA issues, but a step at a time. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of my stuff... video files, etc... someday soon.
70 of 75 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent Picture-Sound, but flakey firmware performance
By Scott Kessler
Ok. I rated this item 3 stars which is comprised of 5 stars for picture/audio performance (and other things, more in a bit) but 1 star for extremely flakey and down-right dangerous firmware (more on that in a bit).For for what gets 5 or 4-5 star ratings: The 'good'The image and picture quality of this Sony is the best to-date and rivals the best of blu-ray players at nearly any price. The available adjustments make for great enhancements and tweaks for any kind of display (plasma, lcd, led, projector (dlp or lcd or ...). The streaming options are fantastic with Amazon Video, Netflix, YouTube, and a host of other streaming services (including music/radio streaming services). The Sony Entertainment Network is also available and that adds a host of additional options for viewing/listening (however, I'm not a fan so I've not explored it too much). Netflix on this unit (at least after performing latest firmware upgrade ... more on that in the 'ugly' section of this review) give you truer HD performance with 1080p streaming and DD+ 5.1 surround capabilities. Watching Killer Elite on video was actually fantastic.For what gets a 1 or 2 star rating: The 'bad'I've updated to the latest firmware and when I put in a disc and then turn on my whole entertainment setup, the blu-ray players either turns off (which is ok) or worse freezes at the menu for some reason. When it appears to not freeze and simply hit play to start the blu-ray disc, the machine freezes and will not shut off and the soft-buttons keep flashing ... I have to unplug it to reset the unit. I may have a bad unit and I will probably replace it, but this should never happen. I've had so many dvd and blu-ray players and this is the worst behaving one I've ever had. I've had the unit less than 24 hours and had to unplug it 3 times .... ouch. As bad as this is, the worst is yet to come.The 'ugly'When attempting to setup the networking setting out of the box ... the unit would not connect when everthing else in my house was connecting fine. The wired connection would not work. So I tried wireless ... this is where the extreme ugly comes in to play. I used the automatic WPS networking setting where you go and push a button on your router and it auto-negotiates with the device and setup the blu-ray player's network settings. Well, instead of setting the player, the player when working with my router UNBELIEVABLY changed my routers SSID to gibberish and also change my passphrase to gibberish ... and then nothing in my house, including the Sony blu-ray player would connect to my home network ... UGGH.... so not being a techno-phobe noobie, I logged into my router withl admin rights and changed my SSID and settings back, but my router decided that I could not apparently just change it all back and all would be good ... Nooo ... I had to re-choose and rekey in the passphrase on every wireless device in our house .... which we have a ton, a few in nearly every room .... arghhh.... way to go Sony. Not only is this bad, it is ugly and down right dangerours ....Now I decided with such craziness going on that I had to update the firmware and perhaps that would take care of the wireless issue ... but because I could not get it to connect to my network nor trusted the darn thing to not screw up my network, I downloaded the firmware (396 or something...) and burned the files to CDR and then updated the players, which went ok. However, the player after ejecting the disc and my turning it back on, it strangely rebooted itself at least 20 times which made me think that I had a complete lemon on my hands. Eventually it stopped after about 15 minutes and now work fine except for the behavior in the 'bad' part of this review.I'd say to wait and see if Sony works out the firmware issues or quality issues or whatever the issue is with this player. I'm going to see about replacing the player as it is flakey. However, the audio/video and streaming options are outstanding.
65 of 71 people found the following review helpful.
Firmware update fixed everything.
By W. ingle
I'm on my second one now. The first one arrived with the bd-rom drive broken. Before I discovered it, I worked on the wireless side of the player and successfully registered with Vudu, Hulu+, Amazon, Netflix. I sent the player back for exchange. The new one arrived and I must say, the picture quality playing blu ray discs is outstanding, better than my previous 2d player. However, I cannot register this machine with Netflix. The screen goes black and the machine locks up when I access Netflix. Called Netflix first: must be your player. Called Sony and was escalated to level 3 after numerous resettings and testings. Final result: your isp is too slow to access Netflix. This in spite of the fact that the previous 790 had no problems with Netflix. I am also streaming movies just fine on my laptop from Netflix. Today, my isp was running at 3mbps, so I tried again: locked up. No problems registering Vudu, Hulu+, Amazon. Another example of finger pointing. They make a fine art of blaming every piece of equipment you have except theirs. I'll keep the player, because it's otherwise ok, and I can stream Netflix on my laptop, but I'm not happy with Sony's tech support (and they are aware of it.)Update 3/1/13. I've had the player about 8 months now. Shortly after I wrote the above review, the player notified me of a firmware update, downloaded it and installed it. Everything has worked perfectly since then. The player is doing an outstanding job and I am completely happy with it. Therefore, I'm changing my rating to 5 stars.
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