Sony BDP-S580 Blu-ray Disc Player
April 8, 2011 by NewGadget - Filed under Disc Player
Sony BDP-S580 Blu-ray Disc Player
Product Description
Enjoy Full HD1080p Blu-ray Disc movies plus connect to the internet and stream a wide variety of online entertainment including movies, TV episodes, videos, music, and live sports from Netflix , YouTube , HuluPlus , Pandora , and more with the Sony BDP-S580 Blu-ray Disc Player. You can also turn your iPhone , iPad or compatible Android phone into a versatile remote control with search functionality when you download the free “Media remote”app.
Features
- Enjoy 3D Blu-ray Disc movies in Full HD 1080p–also supports standard Blu-ray Disc movies in HD and upscales DVDs to near HD quality
- Instantly stream a wide variety of movies, TV shows, live sports, videos, and music from Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, Hulu Plus and many more
- Free, downloadable “Media Remote” app for your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone turns it into a versatile remote
- Connect your digital camera, USB-enabled MP3 player, or USB storage device to enjoy videos, photos, and music on the big screen
- Built-in Wi-Fi for an easy connection to your wireless broadband network; media streaming from DLNA Certified devices
>> Click here for more detail and price
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Customer Reviews
Many nice features, but takes careful setup to get results, March 31, 2011 – By Taz “dougo”
I bought this unit specifically for watching streaming movies and TV through Netflix and Hulu, and sometimes music through Pandora. My first disappointment occurred almost immediately when it wouldn’t play Netflix at all. It wouldn’t even let me sign in to my Netflix account. It kept saying I needed a firmware upgrade to use Netflix. So I tried to use the built-in firmware upgrade feature to do that, but guess what, that didn’t work either, even after I had gotten the wired networking working. Some networking features worked, but not all, and not Netflix nor firmware upgrades. I finally figured out I needed to go to the Sony website and download the firmware upgrade files from there. Fortunately, their website clearly explained the manual firmware upgrade process. I was finally able to upgrade the firmware and get Netflix working. That was when I discovered that the streaming downloads take forever to start downloading (well actually about 1-2 minutes). Once the streaming movie gets started, it works okay from there, on my 30 Mbps cable Internet connection.
Next I tried Hulu. That was much worse. Because Hulu requires that you watch a commercial every 6 minutes, now the 1-2 minute network wait occurs EVERY 6 MINUTES instead of just at the start like with Netflix. These are the same shows that play instantly on my computer using the same wired ethernet connection. So every 6 minutes, I wait while this player makes the connection to the new source and waits 1-2 minutes unit the stream gets going. Hulu also has more menu layers to get through to select your show, so even selecting a show takes up to 5 minutes with this player. On the good side, the buffering feature works very well so if you want to see a scene over again, rewinding is fast and simple and doesn’t require re-buffering the stream from the Internet. That is the only thing that works better than my old LG player.
Another problem I discovered is that EVERY TIME I turn the player on I have to re-setup the network connections… even for a wired connection. It keeps forgetting what the network setup is supposed to be even though I save the settings every time.
Summary:
If you’re looking for a streaming player and don’t NEED Hulu, I would look elsewhere as lots of faster players will do Netflix just fine. If you need Netflix and Hulu and Pandora and Slacker and others, then these Sony players may be your only choice for now, but I would wait because there are likely to be better units coming out before long. Even though I like all of the above-mentioned services, I may return this player as my patience wears thinner.
I haven’t trying playing a blu-ray disc yet, but others have commented that that works well, so I will take their word for it.
UPDATE 2011-04-04: After a few days of this player not working well, I called Sony tech support and they had me change the primary DNS setting (in Internet Setup) to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS server), and that fixed nearly everything. The long delays in streaming content are now completely gone. Sometimes I still have to remind the player to use wired connection on powerup, but once I do that it works quite well. Based on this performance I changed my initial 3 stars to 5 stars because this player has more streaming Internet features and content than most other players.
Good, almost great player, March 24, 2011 – By Kerry Derouen II
I have primarily used this DVD player to stream netflix and it has worked well. I did occasionally have network connection issues which were solved by pressing the OK button once or twice. My N band wireless router is about 30 feet away through two walls in another room. The number of apps availible on this player is by far the most availible. Those who are giving this player 1 star based on the fact that you cant do 1080 through the Component outputs is preposterous. If you read online, this is the case on all players made in the year 2011.(Or at least it is illegal for the manufacturers to do otherwise.)
Here are the few quirks that I have with this player: (CONS)
Occasional network connectivity issues(I have NOT attempted to play with network settings). I am using the Linksys E3000 router with Cable internet. My streaming bandwidth peaks at almost 15 Mbps and was able to monitor my bandwidth from the player. I wateched the two seasons of Spartacus that are currently availible and they were great!
It is rather difficult to enter in letters for doing searches and things of that sort. You must hit the selection button 4 times on the remote to get to some of the letters. I wonder if i can use my wireless keyboard and mouse for this player.
You can only remove items from your netflix lists and may not search/add new movies to your queue.
PROS
Tons of APPS
Sony bravia interface
Fast loading Times
Great picture quality
I bought first one at best buy for $200 a week or two before it was availible on amazon. I may go ahead and purchases another one since amazon has it for about $160.
Excellent player, March 21, 2011 – By B. Hall
My wife and I were looking for a second Blu-ray player in addition to our PS3, but one of the main requirements was a thin player. This is because the space we needed to put it in was too narrow to fit any of the other Blu-ray players we had looked at. I was happy to find this Sony player that not only fits perfectly, but also has great picture and sound.
The PS3 is still considered by many to be THE reference player for judging image quality of other Blu-ray players. I can say that after using this player on the same TV with the same settings as the PS3 for comparison, the picture quality is just as good, and looks just astounding. The audio is also superb.
As far as the interface goes, the menu system is taken directly from the PS3′s XMB interface, although on the Blu-ray player, XMB navigation is noticeably sluggish compared to using the XMB on the PS3, but this is not surprising considering the rest of the hardware. It works fine though, so I have no complaints about it.
Also, I had no problems getting Netflix to work at all, and movies play back very smoothly. The only drawback is that this player only does stereo audio from Netflix, unlike the 5.1 audio that the PS3 does.
The one other thing I’ll mention is that the wireless signal strength meter shows that the player is only getting about 33% signal strength. This is odd because when I place it right next to the PS3, the PS3 shows 100% signal strength in the same location when this player is showing 33%. It doesn’t appear to be an issue, however, as the Blu-ray player still streams everything smoothly.
All in all, this is a great player and I have no regrets after buying it.