But I can not understand the MOST annoying behavior. When I go to the menu, everything is bright and clear. After about 6 or 7 seconds, the menu begins to slowly dim. I can still use it, but it goes to about 60% brightness. I can’t hardly see it. If I press RETURN on the remote, it brightens up again. I start going through the menu and again, it darkens.

What’s up with that?? I want the Sony to be compatible with my TV. I like everything about it. But I can’t see the damn menu!!! Except for that, it would receive five stars. But I have a vision problem and don’t need a dimming menu!

Any suggestions?

The good: we were all impressed with the quality of the picture when up-scaling DVDs. The picture was very good with few artifacts. Also, the Netflix was picture quality was very good, as compared to my Dad’s Roku, but I’m not sure if it was the unit or the fact that my cable modem is faster than his DSL modem. I attribute a lot to the connection speed.

The bad: Some DVDs didn’t play properly (e.g., Star Trek IV and Star Wars Episode I). Mostly thing were fine; however, about 80% of the time, the audio would disappear on the menu screen, and when going to a scene, the 5-10 seconds of the movie (audio & video) were dropped.

My one son and I are rather picky about things being right, so I returned the unit after talking to Sony. (They offered no useful solution.) I decided to try the BDP-S370 (same features, but no 3D), and it had the exact same problem. I believe there is a firmware issue in the new series of Sony Blu-ray players.

Sony Repair found nothing wrong with my unit, so they shipped it back to me… without the original box (just wrapped in bubble wrap). I plugged it in, and tried to stream a movie (that I had just watched on my XBox two days earlier), and it froze after downloading about a minute’s worth. And even that first minute looked choppy. Great.

There’s also a new scratch on the front plate that wasn’t there before. Thanks Sony…

I saw on another A/V forum that people were complaining about this same issue with their S370s. Buyer beware!

** ORIGINAL REVIEW **

I was looking forward to getting this player so I could download Netflix movies on it. As soon as I plugged it in, it was unable to download a firmware update (it would start to download the update, but then freeze and just sit there, til eventually a message came up on my TV, indicating a download problem and to try again). I tried several times and it never worked. Sometimes I’d get 1/9 of the download, sometimes almost 2/9 of it, but never more than that.

I was eventually able to download the update to a CD-R, and install it that way.

After installing the update, I tried to download a Netflix movie. Same issue. About 30-45 seconds would download, then no more.

I’ve sent the player back to Sony Repair in Laredo TX, and today the tech called me to ask for more information. I hope they just send me a new one that works.

I’ll update my review when I get my replacement in.

The picture quality is ridiculous. This player really cranks through some heavy scenes. I have a 1080i and a 1080P TV in my home and it looks damn near perfect on the 1080i and better than real life on the 1080P.

The Dobly/dts audio tracks are earth shattering. I have yet to upgrade to a True HD compatible receiver but it handles the lossy 5.1 tracks beautifully.

The streaming capabilities all look and sound great (wired directly too the ethernet port). I noticed none of the Netflix streaming issues I have heard about on past Sony BDPs (HD streaming Netflix looks as good if not better than most upscaled DVDs on this system, and that is not a crack on upscaled DVDs). I really hope that we get Pandora soon on the Sony players.

“BD Remote” for iPhone works flawlessly (so far) and is a great secondary remote for when Im too lazy to reach for the remote on the coffee table.

You will need a USB flash drive if you want to access any BD Live content (no onboard memory). I have yet to dl any BD Live stuff but speaking of USB drives, streaming music/videos off of them looks/sounds great. Note about USB drives, dont buy a “U3″ enabled flash drive. I had no idea what the hell U3 was and didnt even know I purchased such an option until the player refused to recognize it. After much frustration and good ol’ “google research” I figured out my mistake.

This player is also 3D ready, which seems silly and all but its nice to feel like I have a little bit of security if I happen to find it in the budget to upgrade any time soon.

Overall this player packs a ton of features for the price tag. If you’re debating the PS3 purchase but aren’t huge on the gaming then save your money and get this player. When all is said and done with the PS3 (Remote + extra controller + 2 yr warranty) you will end up spending well over $400. I got this player (with a 4 year warranty) for $220. Worth every penny.

The good:

This is a very nice machine. It oozes high-tech. It is small and lightweight and no bigger than the slim Sony upconverting DVD player it had replaced. They could have used the exact same case for it.

Load times are excellent. There is a setting that can have it load even faster if you don’t mind keeping it powered in standby mode.

The Sony Xross menu system makes sense and is easy to navigate. The menu is in 1080p, so it looks smooth and not cheap like other older players have done.

Setup was a breeze. Plug in your connections and power it on. You’re ready to go. You just have to register the device with Sony and Netflix and Amazon if you use those services. Simple and quick. Sony already had a software update for the player, so I had it do the update and it was done after a few minutes.

There are a number of on-line sites you can visit for music, music videos, a handful of movies and other misc. on-line video content. Assuming that the original on-line content is in good quality, the video picture quality is very nice.

You can use your DVDs to play your own content. You aren’t restricted to using the USB connection. If you have a supported video or audio format stored on a disc, you can play it on this player. Really awesome.

I look forward to the DLNA support coming later. I’ll be able to connect to my PC where I have my own video and photos stored there.

Standard DVD playback is excellent. This is not just upconverted playback. It also puts it in 24p and it also appears to have cleaned up the DVD picture quality, so it’s seriously close to Blu-ray quality. For your regular movie you’ll start to ask yourself if you really need those Blu-ray discs after all.

Blu-ray disc playback is, of course, excellent. If you haven’t had one before, you’ll see colors and depth that you’ve not seen before on a TV screen. Details are sharp and it’s performed without the slightest hesitation in this area.

3D support is coming later for this player. I probably won’t use this, but it’s good to know that it’s going to be there if I do decide to go that route.

Overall, this is something that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and I expect I’ll be using for years to come. Some of the issues can be overlooked and some can be fixed with software updates if Sony decides to do so. A universal remote is in my near future. I’m very happy with this purchase.

Update: April 12, 2010

Sony has sent out a firmware update for this player. It mainly gives you some enhancements to Gracenote and for the photo slideshow feature. Still no DLNA.

I have a SanDisk Cruzer 8GB USB device where I have some video. I tried using this in the front USB input in order to play my video. However I got a message that the USB device is not compatible. Apparently you can’t use just any USB storage with this player. The manual says nothing about limitations in this area. My old 2GB drive works fine.