Sony BDP-S360 and BDP-S560 Blu-ray players (and BDP-BX2) - Page 16

Your message holds the answer to your question. Obviously, the film is full theatrical widescreen aspect: 2.35:1 to be precise. HDTVs are, as you pointed out, are 16:9, or 1.78:1. The difference between theatrical widescreen and television widescreen accounts for the black bars. There is no way to get rid of the black bars without either losing a portion of the video or distorting it. With the black bars is how it is supposed to appear.

16:9 is 1.78:1. A 2.4:1 film is too wide to fill a 16:9 space.


Zooming, which crops the left and right sides, is the only way to make a wide screen image fit in a 16:9 space without distorting it.

ahhh...thanks guys. thought 16:9 is the same as 2.4:1......

need my cup of coffee.

Does the BPX2 do DTS MA? I just returned the Panasonic 60 for interlacing issues on DVDs. I really hope this player handles DTS MA...

It's weird...been nearly 3 weeks since the BDP-S560 came out and there hasn't been a single review on the internet...

Is this player not as popular or did it just completely slip under the radar? I've had it since release, and so far I really, really like it. However, it's my first BD player, so I won't be chiming in with my opinions since I really have no reference.

Awesome player have had it for two weeks works flawlessly. Have a good day

Started one here , it was originally a new thread, then the admin move it into this thread. No one seemed interested so i did not continue.

Maybe it's about time we had an official 560 owners thread!

I'd like to pick up the 560, but I'm wondering if it will output 5.1 audio via Optical? My receiver isnt HDMI capable and I spent way too much $$ to replace it after only 3 years (I dont remember the model, but it is/was one of the top Yamaha's at the time RX-xxxx or something like that - I'm at work and dont have it in front of me). I only have a 5.1 setup anyway so I'm not looking for more than that right now.



I cannot tell for sure via the tech specs on Sony's site.

Can anyone verify for me please?

With any DTS track it should be able to get the DTS core 5.1 out the optical. If the movie has Dolby Digtial 5.1 lossy track is fine just like DVD, but that is not a requirement audio on BD.

if a movie only has Dolby TrueHD I am not sure.. maybe someone can chime in..

There's a companion DD 5.1 track in the TrueHD package that gets played over an S/PDIF connection. It's there for backwards compatibility to older processors.

So I should be ok then?

If I remember correctly, I think my Yamaha has the Multi Channel inputs, so I could go out the analog 7.1 (but in a 5.1 config) on the Sony BD to the MC input on the Yamaha? Would that be a better way to get the 5.1 signal from the BD?

Thanks for the input so far - very much appreciated. I've lurked here for 3 years gathering what little knowledge I have - I know this is a good group here so thanks.

I have my 560 connected with both the HDMI and optical cables. The HDMI cable plugs in to an HDMI 8 port switch and the optical cable plugs into my old Sony DA777ES receiver. Configuration works great.

And that actually sounds like the way I'm going to end up doing it as well: HDMI to the V10 and then output audio through the receiver with the optical.

Thanks all for answering my q's.

If your receiver was the top of the line Yamaha it should have this, and the 560 will be the model you need since it has analog preouts... that would be the way to go and forget about the optical cable. And, it's not just 5.1 sound, it's lossless audio which will sound much better than the DVD sound you are used to.

Unfortunately, the S560 only has stereo analog outputs, not multichannel. The S550 has full analog outs, not the S560.

So, optical is the best you can get. And, it's very good, often as good as lossless, because the legacy codecs on BD are encoded at the maximum bitrates.

The S360 is just as bad for DVDs as the S350 I purchased (and returned) last year. With both of these players, DVDs look softer and murkier on my 768p LCD than they do using my old Sony P/S player, and this is noticeable at all video settings (480i/p, 720p, 1080i), and through HDMI or component. The best image I was able to get was through component at 480p, but it still looked worse than the output of my old DVD player. Not surprisingly, as the resolution setting is increased, the image gets softer and softer, with 1080i looking the worst. Even though I recalibrated the monitor for each resolution and for each cable type, I was never able to attain the image quality that I get through my 5 year old P/S player. The only conclusion I can draw is that the NEC chip used in the BDP-S350/360/550/360 is simply inferior to the Mediatek chip used in older Sony players. I would therefore not recommend a BDP-Sxxx to anyone looking to have their Blu-Ray player double as their primary DVD player.

Ahh. Thanks, that clears that up. I guess I'll stick with the HDMI just for video and Optical for audio (for now). I'll be upgrading the Yamaha in another year - but at just 3 years old I cant justify buying another one at this point.

Especially when I just purchased a Panny 50v10 and about to pickup the s560(since I prefer the wireless over hardwire only, 550).

Thanks again.

I've had two Blu-Ray players so far, the BDP-S300 and the BDP-S350. The 300 was a true dog but the 350 has been much better. The blu-ray picture quality is great on my Pioneer TV and the upscaling of standard DVDs is very good too. But what I often miss is having slow motion and the ability to freeze the image and then advance one frame at a time. Is this common to all BluRay players or is it just missing in the entry level players I have used so far? Does the 360 offer better transport controls than the 350?

You can do frame-by-frame, but the over-all control is clunky and awful. No slow motion, no 2x speed with sound, slow response times, and a low FPS when fast-forwarding. Probably like 2 frames per second. Makes it tough to find a certain shot, or a certain action, etc.

I recently brought a 560 from amazon. After a day of use, when I would put a blu ray movie in. It would say on my TV that "no signal" or the picture and sound would cut in and out. The player and the TV are connected via HDMI.

Has any one experienced any kind of problems like this?

Is there's a way you can program the S360 remote to control the volume on a Sony sound bar? I know you can program other TV brands but how about receivers/amplifiers? Is it possible?

My 360 sometimes loses video. I believe the HDMI 'handshake' gets lost, but thus far it hasn't happened during as movie. Only when I try to go to a system menu, and sometimes a menu on the BD. Power cycling has always fixed it.

Does anybody know if the sluggish and choppy search functions could be fixed with a firmware update? I mean is such a thing possible, or does the player not have the guts to do something smoother like the PS3 does.

Yeah, I had a similar issue with my 560. After some fiddling, it turns out that the "Bravia Sync" feature of the 560 was interfering with my Samsung LCD tv (which also had its own similar feature called AnyNet+). Simply turning OFF Bravia Sync solved the issue for me.

My BDP-360 has developed a viberation in playback and was wondering if anybody run across this yet.

Just got my s560 and it is a great BD player. Wireless is great and setup was a breeze. I wanted direct audio out that my PS3 could not provide so my Onkyo could do the master DTS encoding and I must say the sound is so much livelier and cleaner. The picture quality is fantastic just like the PS3. Highly recommend the player.

Always something else around the corner:

Sony BDP-N460 with Video Streaming

Even though I have the BDP-S360, I might get the N460.

My S360 has been performing flawlessly
I set mine to bit stream (DIRECT)
however when I want to watch the U-control or PIP stuff, I still get the movie audio. The solution is to quit the movie and set it "MIX".. I don't know if there is any way to set this on the fly without quitting and reloading the disc?


However I was also wondering if I connect the Analog RCA cable from the player to my receiver would that always play the secondary audio as well, that way I just set my receiver input to analog for that source and be able to hear the secondary right away.

Problem playing Blu-ray disk on my BDP-560:

I had a problem playing Crank 2 on my BDP-560. After the javascript loaded it left the small graphic in the center of the screen a continued to display the movie in the center of the screen and cut off the rest of the image.

The problem did not go away until I added 4gigs of memory to the rear USB port and rebooted the player. It then download something and took a long time to finish what ever it was doing, BUT the movie played OK.

quick question on the 560.

could a firmware update allow it to stream or is it a hardware issue? i thought about waiting until the 460 but i dont like that it doesnt have wi-fi