Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony BDP-S300 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

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!

This player is really slow. The manual warns you that it will be slow the first time you turn it on. It would be nice if they warned you that it would remain slow. It takes two to three minutes before the player is finished load.

I'm also having problems with it not recognizing T2: Judgement Day. I get a region error, even though both are made for the US market.

I'm not sure if I'm going to return it for a refund or an exchange. I'm probably going to exchange as I already own four BD discs.

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 doesn't work. I suspect the problem is connected to copy protection schemes built into the multiple HDMI standards.

So, if you have an older HD display that only has DVI-in, forget this "reasonably priced" Blu-ray player. You'll most likely need to use the analog YRB (component) outputs, which is an inferior signal to the digital HDMI output. I did a component/HDMI comparison for my wife and she definitely picked the HDMI as the superior output picture.

There is a workaround that allows the HDMI/DVI to work, but it's a pain: First, connect both the HDMI and component cables to their respective inputs on the display. Now, before powering the player on, manually disconnect the HDMI cable from the back of the player while leaving the component cables connected to the display. Then power up the player and switch the display to the analog "component" input. You can now see the menus and the Blu-ray disk will be able to be played. After you get the movie running, manually plug the HDMI/DVI cable into the back of the player and switch the display to the digital DVI input. The Blu-ray disk now works and allows the menus and other overlaid controls to function normally. As different HDMI copy protection schemes get adopted this trick might fail.

If you have HDMI-in on your display, the player might work, but no guarantees. Bear in mind that the HDMI standard is constantly changing. I think they're up to at least HDMI 1.3 so far, and counting. And a totally new plug protocol is on its way for computer monitors, too, called DisplayPort, which might make it to TV sets, but who knows?

After this little problem was overcome, I finally got to see the picture. It was very nice, especially after I got to see it via my HDMI-DVI workaround. Definitely better than the analog component feed.

The overlaid menus allow you to access the menu anytime, without leaving the movie. Pretty cool. The menus are also more animated and better integrated.

Audio quality is fabulous. Both Dolby and DTS sound great because with all the storage capacity on the disk, the signals don't have to be compressed as much as they are for a standard DVD.

If you want the very, very best audio, though, you can select "uncompressed" and route the RCA audio outputs directly into your amp's dedicated preamp inputs. This takes the Dolby and DTS compression systems out of the picture altogether. So you are hearing multiple uncompressed audio tracks sent directly to your amp.

The worst part of the Blu-ray player is the time it takes to "boot" up. It's really a dedicated computer running an operating system. Java, at least, and maybe more. Thus it takes a full two minutes to fire up. You press the power button and nothing happens. After about ten seconds, you get a display that says "power on." After about 90 seconds, the machine is finally ready to play your disk. Give it a lot of time to fire up, especially the very first time you plug it in. After the initial plug-in/power-on sequence, the manual says it will be subsequently faster. But not by much. And the system can "crash," requiring you to turn it off and reboot. It happened several times to me as I moved too quickly between menu selections.

Overall, this player can put out a great picture, eventually, and after learning a bunch of quirks. I don't think it's ready for prime time, though. For the price it should be much better: faster boot up and with the ability to play back recorded Blu-ray disks.

Buy the BDP-300 knowing you will be replacing it for some reason in a year or two.

UPDATE:

I rented Universal's Hellboy II on Blu-ray tonight.

It crashed the player. Think "Blue Screen of Death" but without the blue screen and a longer boot sequence. I repeated the process six times.

I was about to flame this inop player when here on Amazon it was suggested to update to Firmware 4.20.

I went to Sony's site and found even newer 4.30 firmware. You download the exe and click on it to uncompress it. This creates an ISO disk image. You burn this to a new CD as an image (very important--an IMAGE, not a data disk.) Turn on the player and stick the CD in. It took 13 minutes for the update to install. When it's done it says "DL OK" on the player.

Player works like it's supposed to. It will play BD-R, too. In fact, it can even play a weird hybrid I can make with Sony Vegas editing software where I can burn a Blu-ray disk image to a standard DVD and play it as a
Blu-ray.

Close call: I was about to give up on Blu-ray.

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, even for the Pirates movies. Sony's basic player may be cheap for a reason....it might be an inferior machine. Time will tell, but at this point I would say this is an average player.

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, I thought it was broken. Once you get used to it, you don't notice it as much. And, while I have not upgraded the firmware, others have suggested that a firmware upgrade (which is free) will help the speed quite a bit.

I have an older HD TV with no HDMI connector. I researched extensively before I bought this unit and discovered some relevant facts. If you need to push 1080p resolution you need an HDMI cable. You can push 1080i resolution with component cables, and 720p. The menu setup gives you all the available options, but you'll need to configure that resolution manually (the start-up menu guides you through it the first time you start the player). The Blu-Ray disc specification has a switch in it that allows the publisher of a disc to prohibit the highest content levels from being transmitted out a component cable, but no studios are currently using that switch, so all DVD's published so far can be played on component cables. There are S-Video and RCA outputs, but if you have to use them there's probably no point in buying a Blu-Ray player.

This is a simple, solid, player. It's the low-priced entry in its space, and delivers features consistent with that positioning. Its performance is adequate, and it's a decent buy for the money. I'd recommend it to someone trying to get into a Blu-Ray player for the least amount of money. If money's not an object, there are certainly better choices out there.