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

Every Sony DVD player I have ever owned has stopped working as soon as the 1 year warranty is up. I thought I would take a chance and buy a Blu-Ray. I just spent the last hour on the phone with customer support and all said and done they want $112 to ship it to Texas and fix it. I can get a new one for about that and it won't be a Sony.

I've had this Blu-Ray player for 18 months now and I've had no problems viewing the latest Blu-Ray titles. You just need to update the firmware every so often. I've only done it 2X in 18 months. You download the firmware from [...] burn it to a CD pop in in and wait 10 minutes, wallah now compatible with newer Blu Rays. I've found the process to be simple. I just watched Wolverine a couple of days ago. Yes, the loading times are agonizingly slow (hence the three stars), but once old nelly boots up the picture and sound quality are fantastic. There are much better players on the market now, but this "oldie" is still trudging along. I'd recommend it to those with a limited budget, since you can pick up a used or refurbished one for under $[...]. Once you watch a Blu-Ray disk on your HD TV you will never want to go back to standard definition DVDs.

I have had it with this machine. It has always been ridiculously slow to load and if you get the least impatient, it will lock up on you. So I have disciplined myself to go slow and wait for each action to completion. I have had the machine for just barely over a year and tonight it just starts displaying a green screen and shutting itself down. Once it shuts down, it is frozen. I called technical support and they told me I had to leave it powered down for 10 minutes to reset itself. That worked but it didn't play for even 5 minutes when it did it again. I then contacted online support and they at least explained how to reset the player manually. With the power on you hold down the stop button and hit the power button. It works, but then a couple of minutes later, it shuts itself down again. Tech support generously offered to give me the name of a repair service in my area, but everyone knows that electronic equipment costs more to repair than to replace.

I am not buying another Sony machine, nor am I buying Blu-Ray. I don't see enough benefit in the picture to justify the aggravation

I purchased this unit refurbished (90 day warranty) from Sony about a year ago for a little used home theatre in a summer home. The unit worked well initially with great picture and sound. It does take a long time to boot. About a month ago, the unit displayed a "no disc" error message on the front whenever any disc was inserted. All the troubleshooting tricks (disc cleaning, rebooting, etc.) failed to help. I couldn't upgrade the firmware because the burned disc also would not be accepted. Since it was out of warranty, Sony would not exchange or repair unless I payed the $149 standard (for any problem)repair fee. I'm disappointed but not bitter. Do a quick google search for BDP-S300 "no disc" error to see that this apparently is not a rare occurance. Anyway, I got an excuse to upgrade to a Samsung player that allows for streaming movies from Netflix!

After doing some extensive research, it seems that this model suffers from some inherently fatal flaws. Google the BDP S300 and you'll find literally THOUSANDS of complaints about the same problem. It is prone to lockups, skipping, and the dreaded "NO DISC" error that seems all too common.

Of course, Sony blames it on the discs, but in truth, the problem seems to lie in hard drive crashes that occur in as little as two months after purchase. Sony also tells you to make sure you have the latest firmware update (the latest is v4.90), but they know that once you get the "NO DISC" error regardless of the type of disc, it's too late...the software won't read the update disc either.

This is such a widespread problem, and Sony is well aware, but once your warranty expires, you're on your own.

The BDP S300 is nothing more than an expensive doorstop. Better to research and buy another brand that is up to date and much more reliable.