Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony BDPS350 Blu-ray Disc Player 1080p Full HD

I was going to purchase a PS3 but after reading reviews about this player and already owning a games console, I decided to purchase this player. Firstly the delivery from Amazon was fantastic, but was a little upset to find no Batman or Casino Royal in box as stated. This was resolved with a quick phone call to Amazon.

Now onto the Blu-Ray player, it's fantastic I would recommend this player to anyone who was looking into Blu-Ray. I made the Player multi-region for DVD's in about 10 Minutes using a simple hack found on the net using an All4one remote. Unfortunately this hack only works for DVD's but that's fine for me as I had loads of Region 1 DVD's that I still wanted to play. The Picture and sound quality is fantastic with no sign of video juddering like I have seen on other players. 5/5

This entry-level player provides great picture and sound. I have just two gripes (hence why I'm not giving it the full five stars). Updating the firmware is a pain when your router is located on the other side of the house. There is no wireless connectivity (unlike Sony's PS3) and a network cable is necessary. Despite having component inputs on my desktop (which is near my router) I've been unable to get it to display a picture so I can monitor the menu when updating.

Also, the 'resume play' function has not worked on any Blu-ray disc I've tried. A single press of the 'stop' button should enable the player to remember where you were to continue an interrupted viewing. Not so in my experience, I'm afraid: a full reload is required every time.

However, these quibbles should not detract from the player's merits. It really is a first-class machine. A couple of tips: for full 1080p DVD upscaling to work, you must select the appropriate menu option as it's set on 'auto' by default and will play DVDs at 480p unless changed. Finally, no HDMI cable in the box, which I think is usual anyway for this type of product.

Firstly may I congratulate Amazon on a fast delivery and unbeatable price.

I don't normally write reviews but thought in this case would make an exception. After being a loser in the HD DVD market (bought an hd drive to go with my X Box 360) I took a lot of time looking into the blu ray market. Thanks in part to the reviews left on this site I settled for the Sony BD 350.
Although the other reviews describe the player overall I was mainly interested in one thing, picture quality. When I loaded my first blu ray film, which was fast enough a load time for me, I was literally blown away by the jaw dropping picture quality, and this is from someone who already has hd dvd and Sky hd. These must output in a lower format and although my Samsung tv isn't 1080p and only HD ready it still output at 1080i which is a fantastic improvement. I can not see any reason to buy a higher spec model at a dearer price if like me you mainly want a sharper more colourful picture, also you will not find anywhere cheaper than Amazon even by bidding on Ebay.
Incidentally the player is slimline (goes well underneath my Sky hd box), is as quiet as a mouse, and the remote is user friendly. So look no furthar and buy one of these now at Amazon.
If you don't want to go out and buy a load of blu ray films then try Lovefilm.com. They have a large selection of blu ray films to rent, with monthly package deals to suit all and no contract, also if you enter promotional code RAFELF96 you can have 30 days free instead of the standard 14. Enjoy

As this is the first Bluray player I have owned, I cannot make a comparison to say how much better it is than the next brand but I've had this for about 3 months now and I remain very satisfied with the purchase.

SETUP
Setup is very simple and done in a matter of minutes. Its important to correctly select the output definition to make the most of this player, but everything in this initial setup menu can be revisited through the intuitive menu system. There are further options in the menu to tinker with the sound output and also some options to remedy sound sync issues. The unit itself seems very sturdy, and the fan is very quiet, certainly not a point of contention as others sometimes state. You can only really hear it when everything else is off and its seems to work well as the player doesn't really get at all hot as a result of it. I have it connected to a 40W5500 Bravia and HTFS1 home cinema speakers connected in series using the single HDMI out socket on the player. To see the full range of connections and menu options, the manuals for this player are available online.

BLURAY PLAYBACK
The Bluray image seems as perfectly pristine as the Bluray source disc is, so putting in a new high end movie like Iron man looks excellent. While another such as Journey to the centre of the earth was not all that amazing to behold. I have never noticed any slow down or jerkiness in the image and have seen no blocky pixilation occurring.

I actually bought this unit alone but then quickly decided to return it to get the combined home cinema htfs1 unit bundled with this player. Bluray discs in general were too quiet for the tv or multimedia speakers to cope with and definitely needed a sound boost from a dedicated system. Standard DVDs were generally louder than the Blurays and so not much of a problem, but the sort of speakers that flat screens have nowadays definitely warrants investing in some sort of home cinema speaker system to make the most out of the crisp sound output from this player.

STANDARD DVD UPSCALED PLAYBACK
I have so far used this player most for standard definition DVD up-scaling which I have found to be excellent, I have been watching a lot of old DVDs again just to see how good they look. The opening space sequences of Revenge of the Sith look fantastic and the colours look startlingly good and completely smooth so no banding regions of black areas for example, which sometimes tends to happen while watching lower quality standard definition Freeview.

The whole extended Lord of the rings DVD looked incredibly detailed, the facial textures were convincingly displayed on my high definition Bravia and the colours were extremely vibrant, particularly during the final scenes at Mordor, this colour representation was something I just never appreciated in previous viewings in standard definition. From a certain distance, say 3 - 5 metres, it is difficult to tell if you really are watching a Bluray source or up-scaled DVD, although the exact statistic there really can vary depending on how good the Bluray transfer is relative to the DVD transfer.

FURTHER COMMENTS:
The issues with this system are incredibly minor, I have found that on the dual layer standard DVDs the pause during layer transition is slightly longer than an older Sony DVD player I have, but still nothing to worry about.

Also while many complain about the load speed, you would have to be a pretty impatient person to be angered by it, just takes a bit of time to boot up. I guess it is a bit strange though that even standard DVDs take a bit more time to load up compared to older models.

As a bonus, as well as Region 2, my player seems to be handling Region 1 DVDs out of the box though as these are Warner DVDs I'm not sure if they've just not used any region locks which is allowing them to playback unrestricted, hopefully someone can comment if the regional ability of this player is specific to the DVD distributor?

CONCLUSIONS
An excellent all rounder in an affordable machine bringing High definition to the masses. The image is excellent on standard DVDs as well as Blurays and the sound is also excellent but you will only be able to take advantage of this with a dedicated home cinema setup. Hardly any problems are inherent in this player and its sturdy build quality seems like it will last me a very long time.

I"d like to start by saying AMAZON is the best online shopping experience for me by far,FAST delivery,and a very GOOD customer service,as for the sony blu-ray player,one word, BRILLIANT,BD discs are very very sharp and the audio is wide open,but the thing that surprised me the most was the upscaling of standard DVDs,again simply BRILLIANT for price,WELL DONE SONY!!