I hooked up the new BD-P2550 we received for Christmas yesterday. I was a little worried at first because there was a white envelope taped to the "outside" of the box that contained the NFL blu-ray disc and a firmware update disc. It initially looked like the box may have been opened previously but it was not. I inspected the build date and found it to be 2008.07 which I thought to seem old given a December purchase. This poor thing was the last box a week ago at my Best Buy and it appears nobody else wanted it.
I removed the Oppo 970 from my setup and replaced it with the 2550. I used the same connections. HDMI, toslink, and added the ethernet cable from a router in the next room. I also installed a short USB extension cable for easy access to use USB if necessary.
Once powered up, I went into Setup and discovered my firmware was old - 080704.01 (No Netflix or Pandora icons) . I started the update process via the ethernet connection. It took about 25 minutes to download the new file (while I reviewed the user guide). Once downloaded it went into update mode and that took about 7-8 minutes until completion and power down. Powered back up and I was at 081126.31 . I purposely avoided burning the firmware update on CD or a usb device based upon some reports here of problems. It was slower to update via the direct connection but gave me time to get aquainted with the manual.
Activating Netflix and Pandora via the player and web was simple. I already had a Pandora account and my content was there as expected. The audio is only 2ch as I understand it but it sounds fine. I'm now in the process of adding to my instant queue on Netflix and I've started watching the first episode of 30 Rock. I'm pretty pleased with the quality. My internet connection is Verizon DSL and I get a mere 3.0 if I'm lucky but I was able to get 8 of 10 bars and HD content. FiOS will be here within a couple months so I'll have to deal with some speed issues until then for sure.
Onto blu-ray. The system is my first HD setup and about 4 years old. Display is a 34" Tosh 34HFX84 CRT and my avr is an Onkyo 520 htib. Speakers are 6.1 Athena based with the C1 and B2's up front. I'm hoping to add an HDMI avr in the next six months. If I were to get one today it would be the Pio 1018. For now I cannot experience any of the HD codecs but I'll live with 5.1 DD and DTS.
I don't own any blu-ray discs but was able to change over Netflix and get some here for Christmas. Kung Fu Panda, Little Man, & The Last Samurai. (Not quite sure how Little Man got in there?) We watched KFP last night and I could immediately see the difference in quality over my Oppo 970HD. We also watched Little Man. While better than DVD certainly not anything near reference. It was good for a few laughs. Tonight we will watch Last Samarai. I'd have to say that the discs we watched have no real BD Live content to speak of. I'll need to find a list of titles some where that offer the best BD Live content. Any pointers?
Overall I'm very pleased. No issues with player skips or hiccups. I'm getting used to the remote and functionality. My one mini rant is setting up the 2550 with my Harmony 880. I would have thought by now the 2550 would be in Harmony's database but there was no match. I even tried adding it as a 1500/2500, and using bd-p and bdp- (they even give this example) and there was no direct match. I finally got it set up manually but it needs more work. I'll check the Logitech forum as that appears the only avenue. No phone support after 6 months! Only email and the support forum. What a joke! Enough of that rant.
I removed the Oppo 970 from my setup and replaced it with the 2550. I used the same connections. HDMI, toslink, and added the ethernet cable from a router in the next room. I also installed a short USB extension cable for easy access to use USB if necessary.
Once powered up, I went into Setup and discovered my firmware was old - 080704.01 (No Netflix or Pandora icons) . I started the update process via the ethernet connection. It took about 25 minutes to download the new file (while I reviewed the user guide). Once downloaded it went into update mode and that took about 7-8 minutes until completion and power down. Powered back up and I was at 081126.31 . I purposely avoided burning the firmware update on CD or a usb device based upon some reports here of problems. It was slower to update via the direct connection but gave me time to get aquainted with the manual.
Activating Netflix and Pandora via the player and web was simple. I already had a Pandora account and my content was there as expected. The audio is only 2ch as I understand it but it sounds fine. I'm now in the process of adding to my instant queue on Netflix and I've started watching the first episode of 30 Rock. I'm pretty pleased with the quality. My internet connection is Verizon DSL and I get a mere 3.0 if I'm lucky but I was able to get 8 of 10 bars and HD content. FiOS will be here within a couple months so I'll have to deal with some speed issues until then for sure.
Onto blu-ray. The system is my first HD setup and about 4 years old. Display is a 34" Tosh 34HFX84 CRT and my avr is an Onkyo 520 htib. Speakers are 6.1 Athena based with the C1 and B2's up front. I'm hoping to add an HDMI avr in the next six months. If I were to get one today it would be the Pio 1018. For now I cannot experience any of the HD codecs but I'll live with 5.1 DD and DTS.
I don't own any blu-ray discs but was able to change over Netflix and get some here for Christmas. Kung Fu Panda, Little Man, & The Last Samurai. (Not quite sure how Little Man got in there?) We watched KFP last night and I could immediately see the difference in quality over my Oppo 970HD. We also watched Little Man. While better than DVD certainly not anything near reference. It was good for a few laughs. Tonight we will watch Last Samarai. I'd have to say that the discs we watched have no real BD Live content to speak of. I'll need to find a list of titles some where that offer the best BD Live content. Any pointers?
Overall I'm very pleased. No issues with player skips or hiccups. I'm getting used to the remote and functionality. My one mini rant is setting up the 2550 with my Harmony 880. I would have thought by now the 2550 would be in Harmony's database but there was no match. I even tried adding it as a 1500/2500, and using bd-p and bdp- (they even give this example) and there was no direct match. I finally got it set up manually but it needs more work. I'll check the Logitech forum as that appears the only avenue. No phone support after 6 months! Only email and the support forum. What a joke! Enough of that rant.
That makes sense. Much appreciated.
