Customer Reviews
You will be disappointed after 1 month 
2008-05-09
This player worked fine for the first eight or so movies, but soon after, the video started freezing up until, finally, the "CANNOT PLAY THIS DISC" message appears. After checking the Sony website I requested a firmware update disc from Sony and installed the update. However, that did not fix the problem. The player tends to run very hot, so don't store in a compartment with other A/V equipment such as a wall unit or cabinet with a stereo. Also, be sure to set the "video format" on the remote to 1080i, or you will not be watching anything in HD. The default, believe it or not, is standard 480p. You will have to get used to how slow Bluray players operate. It is really a disappointment after spending so much money for a product that is inferior to cheap $49 dvd players.
My advice is to wait until the bluray player technology improves.
Just Dive in!!! 
2008-03-18
I got mine refurbished for $250 and got an amazing buy, well considering it is $399 everywhere else. For the price it was well worth it. I considered waiting for one of the new lines of Blu-ray in the up and coming months but I was impatient. I wanted to dive into what I have been seeing displayed at Sears, Best Buy etc. so I got a refurbished Sony 40XBR4 and one of these. The television made the most difference. I received it first and had my DVD player hooked to it... WOW! That 120Hz makes all of the difference. Then of course the Blu-ray came in and I had even more fun. I really don't see a HUGE difference between the DVD and Blu-ray quality wise, but if you have to have one NOW, don't pay more than $300ish for one of these. I have had no problems playing any movies so far and the only really slow to load movie had been the first POTC.
Complete Junk 2008-01-24
Purchased this product several weeks ago. I've had nothing but problems. My copy of Pirates of the Caribbean would not play back correctly (fresh out of the shrinkwrap mind you, not a speck of dust or scratch, a completely virgin disc). The player woud freeze up at random during playback. I found out later it would freeze up and become unresponsive to remote input or front panel controls after being on for more than a few hours. Definately has heat issues. Cannot get anywhere with Sony's support department. I'm dumping my meager Blu-Ray collection on eBay and going with a more robust high-def format.
Awesome with other HD components 
2008-01-22
I have had this now for about 3 weeks and my first movie was Ghost Rider....simply AWESOME. I read a lot of reviews about the Sony BDP-S300 and there seemed to be a lot of issues with it, especially the load times. Well, I am not sure if this is the 'fix' to the 300, but the 301 has been GREAT! Ghost Rider rocks and I just got '300' to view.
I will admit, I won't buy any movie for Bluray, only super action films, but if you use the same, high-quality HD components, the audio and video are unmatched. I have an Onkyo reciever and a LG LCD tv. I use the HDMI set up for video and a fiber optic cable for audio from the bluray to the receiver as it acts as a thru-put for the TV. With my Polk speakers, you just can't beat it....no slow load times. Just might take about 20 seconds to power on, but I am used to boot times with computers. The operation is whisper quiet and it basically runs cool...no overheating.
GO SONY!
Great Video, Crippled Audio 
2008-01-15
We have owned this product for about a month and have been very pleased with the video performance. Audio is great with PCM lossless (but read further for the problem with audio).
Like most HD players, it is slower than the cheapest DVD player, but that is okay, we have come to expect it and that no longer bothers us.
The problem with this player is that it does not output Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA in any way, shape or form. The closest it comes is transcoding the audio to plain old Dolby Digital or a somewhat better DTS. Wow, classic DVD audio performance at a Blu-ray price. The real problem comes from some studios moving away from PCM lossless audio to TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. These include Sony Pictures whose latest release announcements have TrueHD only and FOX who is releasing only in DTS-HD MA, which very few players can play properly at all.
If you care anything about audio, I cannot recommend this player. If you don't have the whole home theater setup, but a nice TV, I guess you can get it if the price is cheap enough.
Baloney 2008-07-22
I'll have to say that I've seldom read such a load of baloney as is present in the "J. Preston" rambling, paranoid conspiracy theory review.
My comment is not about this player specifically, but blu-ray players are a significant upgrade to the viewing and listening experience, not a conspiracy by Sony to control your life. ROFL
There was once such a plan, the infamouse DIVX concocted by an LA law firm in combination with Circuit City and a couple of hardware producers, and it fell entirely flat on its face.
The only disadvantage to Blu-ray is that it is still in the early adopter pricing levels, both for players and content. Now that the tug of war with HD-DVD is over, it will be the dominant viewing platform before very long at all .... and you won't have to worry about Sony controlling your life, brain washing you, demanding your first born child, or kidnapping you for secret medical experiments.
If it's not Scottish, it's crap! 2008-06-24
Possibly the crappiest Sony product I've ever owned! The picture quality is indeed amazing, but the drawbacks to this first generation BD player is that it sucks. I remember purchasing a cheap Akai DVD player in 1999 and thinking "Damn, the latency from pressing the button to actually having something happen on the player is terrible!" I can say the same for this second-rate product with a first-class name. Every now and then the player will freeze. I've watched a great deal of BDs on here, courtesy of Netflix. It worked fine for awhile, but then for some reason the BD movies started freezing and I thought it was the discs. Turns out it was the player. Long story short: It's not worth the money yet. Wait to get it second hand if you really need a BD player, or wait until better, newer players come out!
Sony BDP-S300 2008-06-16
I have been a dedicated Sony customer, purchasing Sony products for most of my AV requirements. As a rule Sony products are very good performers for the price paid.
I recently purchased the Sony BDP-S300 Blu-Ray player, along with a Toshiba HD-DVD player (HD-A30).
When the Sony works, it's night and day between Blu-Ray and watching DVD's on our old DVD player. We have a very respectable sound system which pushes the audio through the full compliment of all the Klipsch Synergy III, -3 series speakers. It would be nice if we could hear the true audio that is encoded on the Blu-Ray. Strange that Sony has the concept but makes players that don't support it.
And to make matters worse, this 4 month old player began to sporadically freeze up after watching about 1 hour of select, various movies. As of this time, I'm unaware how to unfreeze it other than to turn the player off, then back on, then find where we left off, and hope it begins to play without additional issues. That timespan is usually around 7-10 minuutes, waiting for shutdown, power up, loading the DVD and finding where we were. By then, one has almost lost interest in watching the movie altogether.
In researching the web, many have the same issue, no one has the solution other that what we are already doing.
But this problem isn't unique to just the Sony Blu-Ray. Our Toshiba HD-DVD player does the same thing, fixed by the same process.
Some DVD's play all the way through, most don't. We have returned and replaced a number of HD-DVD's only to get replacements that reproduce the same problem.
I'm almost thinking that the commercial Blu-Ray and HD DVD's are dual layer, as both units freeze (when they freeze) at about the 1 hour timeframe. It almost appears than when they try to begin reading the second layer, they lock up making that transition. When you stop, reboot and reload, you usually go past the layer shift, thus playing the second layer all the way through, along with missing segments of the movie.
I have contacted both manufacturers concerning this, neither have responded.
I never had much experience with Toshiba products, and based on the lack of their customer support (even though it's a discontinued product, it should still be supported under their warranty), it is doubtful that I will ever look to them for consideration of purchasing any of their other products. As far as Sony is concerned, I am genuinely surprised at their lack of support to a problem which is obviously becoming more and more prevalent on a product line that is becoming more and more popular.
SONY (baloney) - Great definition! Poor design and operability - buy an upscaling player instead 2008-05-17
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what agenda SONY and DISNEY have in mind with their proprietary Blu-Ray technology.
After purchasing this player, I learned that there is NO hardware control over the oeprations of this player (or any of the SONY Blu-Ray players).
Every button on it is COMPLETELY controlled by the operating system. There are some buttons to imitate DVD players, however, they are soft wired to the operating system. You must wait for the operating system to boot up before you have any control over the unit. Any control that you might ultimately have is completely dependent on SONY's firmware and software updates for the unit.
SONY, therefore, has complete control over what you watch on this player, how you watch it, and, ultimately, how much you pay for what you want to watch.
Sony's intentions with this "Blu-Ray" technology is clear to me. Blu-Ray technology is designed to accomplish two things, and, only two things;
First, Blu-Ray technology is designed to give SONY (and DISNEY (Sony's principal trading partner in Blu-Ray) (together they control over 80% of the world's film copyrights)) absolute software control over anything and everything you view on Blu-Ray discs, how you view them, and, how much you pay for what you view.
Second, with absolute software control over the discs you watch on Blu-Ray devices, in Blu-Ray format, and SONY's tremendous market share of film copyrights, SONY can ultimately control all of your disc entertainment in your home, and, increase its charges for viewing discs - at will. They simply do this by requiring you to update the firmware for the OS in the unit whenever they please, and, place the new limitations on your viewing "privileges" in the updated firmware.
On the required updates, they can change all of the viewing privileges for your discs WHENEVER THEY WANT, AS MUCH AS THEY WANT, UNDER WHATEVER CONDITIONS and PRICING THEY WANT.
I invite you to think about this for a minute. That means that SONY can program into their software and firmware an expiration date on the playability of your Blu-Ray discs (and anything else in Blu-Ray format).
Although they are not doing it now, history shows that there is nothing to stop them from allowing discs you purchase to only play on their Blu-Ray devices for a limited period of time (from one showing to any number of showings). "History repeats itself . . . That's one of the things wrong with history." - Clarence Darrow
Abosolute power corrupts absolutely. One would have to be very naive to think that SONY and DISNEY aren't going to use this technology to maximize their profits at the expense of consumers. With this player and Blu-Ray technology, you no longer have any "Rights" when you buy a disc, you have only "privileges" which are limited at Sony's whim.
I have had this player for several months. Last night I had to use a stone chisel and a machine hammer to get a NETFLIX Blu-Ray disc out of it. $400 down the drain. I plan to sue Sony in small claims court for false advertising. This isn't a DVD player, it is a proprietary SONY controlled device for viewing THEIR proprietary discs under their variable terms.
They changed their Blu-Ray format so that any Blu-Ray disc manufactured after about April of 2008 ("Patton" for instance) will not play on this player without THEIR modifications to the unit's software and firmware. I don't want to have to spend my valuable time updating a machine I purchased. I didn't realize what was going on until last night. Last night, because I didn't update the firmware, the unit "ate" the Blu-Ray DVD of "Patton" that I had acquired from Netflix.
It attempted to load it, but, after several hours of "loading" appearing on my high resolution screen (in spectacular 1080i) I had to give up. I tried re-booting 7 or 8 times. The new (non-conforming disc) just sent the OS into an infinite "loading" loop. Without hardware to override the defective OS, the machine became absolutely useless.
Without any hardware control to override the OS in cases of mistake, something as simple as wanting to terminate the loading process and retrieve the disc from the tray is impossible. To be able to send the disc back to NETFLIX I had to use tools to get the tray open to remove the DVD (ultimately destroying the unit).
There is no question that the upscaling to 1080i is worth the time, effort and money.
The increased definition (whether from Blu-Ray discs or upscalilng old DVDs) provides at least double the resolution of old players. It is like watching your DVDs all over again for the first time. So much more of the background details in the film appear at these high resolutions it is much more enjoyable.
This machine was not designed with the consumer in mind. It was designed to accomodate a cheap operating system with little responsiveness to the user. It is also designed to give SONY a dominant share in high resolution DVDs. SONY will dominate with absolute control (through copyrights and licensing agreements) ANYTHING that uses Blu-Ray format.
I regret spending the money on this machine. I should have just bought a Sony upscaling DVD player (about $80.00) and blown off the Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray doesn't offer a lot more than simple upscaling in the way of features and definition.
A sony upscaling DVD player is manufactured with hard-wired eject and play buttons, has a simple remote operation schemata, offers superior picture and sound (via HDMI) (cable included) and you are purchasing your expected DVD "rights" instead of Sony and Disney's DVD Blu-Ray "privileges."
Sony DVP-NS601HP 1080p Upscaling DVD Player with Bonus HDMI Cable, Black
The down side of having to purchase SONY's "privileges" instead of "rights" when shelling out $30+ for a Blu-Ray removes Blu-Ray from all of my entertainment. I instructed NETFLIX not to ship me anything more in Blu-Ray format and will NEVER purchase anything involving Blu-Ray again.
SLOW ON THE UPTAKE 2008-05-11
This player has great technical performance however ,for me, it processes and downloads blue ray discs too slowly.It's a good adjunct to the Sony Bravia t.v.it's just that i'm impatiant.My fault,not thr players!
