Official Sony BDP-S480 Owner's Thread. All questions and comments go here

Right - so I'm trying to decide whether to buy an S370 or wait for the S380, and I've been all over the web scratching my head trying to figure out the difference. I think the ONLY visible upgrade that you get from the S380/480/580/780 is integration with their wireless HD audio system.

Can anyone comfirm/deny?
/j

(Moderator - maybe re-title this thread Sony BDP-Sx70 vs BDP-Sx80?)

I'm wondering about the Web Browser. From their site...

Web Browser
Download : Yes
Flash : Yes
Java : Yes
Search : Yes
Security Filter : Yes
Streaming : Yes (Update)

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...specifications

Looks like the answer is- buy the S370 or s470 vs 380, 480. You'll get a BETTER deal and virtually the same features!

I don't see anything in the 480 specs that says it can play SACDs.

Consider the S-270 $94 at Walmart and if you don't need SACDs, it probably has everything you need.

Wow! this player has been available at Sony Style stores and website for about a week and 1/2 now and we haven't gotten a report yet? C'mon people, we want to know how the new Sony players performs!

Right, I'm particularly interested to see if there has been any improvements or more features added to the Netflix UI.

Guys -the way Sony has things set up, EVERY player model has the SAME access to their Bravia internet service. a mod to the service is accessible to -all- players.

I just came back from Best Buy and I saw a stack of the new S380 and S580. Was really surprised to see the S580 since it is not even listed in the Sony Style web site and it scheduled to be release in March. I was very tempted to pick it up, but I'm going to wait for the S780 which has the super bit mapping.

Does anyone know what these Sx80s have over the Sx70s? The only thing I could find is integration with their wireless music system...

It's possible they have faster media processors, or more flash to allow more feature upgrades, but that's just a guess that could well be wrong.

still no data on then new units?

SACD support was mentioned in the CES press release by sony....

http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_ro...ase/58844.html

I bought the S580 at Best Buy, had it for 1 day and returned it. The player is very similar in looks and perfoemance to the old model, S570 but there were two things I didn't like so I returned it. 1) I don't know how,but Sony managed to produced a player that it is slower to boot up than last year's models. It took about 30 seconds just to boot up without quick start enabled. I don't use that feature, however, the S570 I had, only took about 22 seconds to boot up. 2) PQ. I currently have the S770 and regardless what many people have said, I still think the PQ and AQ on the S770 is superior to the S570. The new S580, to me eyes, has the same PQ as the S570 and I tought it looked a little soft when compared to the S770. I still think the S580 have nice PQ, just not as good as the S770. But that's just my opinion.

Hope this help.

this may be why the bootup is slower...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post20016416

No offense, but I'm a little confused. All the Blu-Ray player does is take numerical data off the disk, run an algorithm on it, and put out numerical data onto HDMI. Unless you're looking at component/composite outputs, there should be no difference in PQ from player to player (unless you're suggesting that the digital decoding chip is making errors, or the firmware is varying from model-to-model?)

or am I missing something?
/j

If you are referring to the S770, yes, to me eyes there's a difference in PQ. If you go to the S770 owners thread, you'll find out that I'm not alone here. It doesn't matter if all Sony players share the same firmware, what matters is what's inside. Do a search online for Sony's BDP-S1700ES. You will see that player( which was never released to the public) is the same exact player as the S770. I think Sony just removed the "ES" brand from that player and released it as the S770 hence, the player having better PQ and AQ. Of course, this is just speculation on my part. But the players are identical though....

Re: AQ - if you let your receiver do the decoding, then I believe the player is just taking the data off the disc and passing it through to the HDMI?

I didn't say you were alone, I'm just trying to understand how the player can impact a digital signal

Internal processing such as contrast levels, sharpness, etc are often tweaked to their liking. Such as the old Sony BDP-1000ES had various settings and the defaults are based on whatever they wish... not necessarily the most accurate.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/insider-dis...ml#post1069174

that post says "So, the differences in players is in the post-processing of the video, such as scaling, deinterlacing, edge enhancement, noise reduction, color correction, etc. This is where the "art" comes in".

I agree, but I believe this processing is applied only for final output picture (component, composite, etc). I don't believe it would be applied to the HDMI output. The post-processing would happen in the monitor...

Such can be/has to be done for HDMI (digital) as well. I tend to notice different intra-scene contrast levels between players.

At 1080p speeds, I doubt much additional processing (except for simple offsets, etc) could be done without a frame buffer, which may not be in the budget for the lower end players. I agree that higher-end (maybe S770 and up) players may have this processing, but I wonder if it's in the lower end models (like S270). The absence could be considered a feature depending on your point of view 8-}

Could someone please tell me if the 480 is plagued by the same high-pitch whirl when playing certain blu-ray discs (it only whines during blu-rays, and not CDs or 480i DVDs) that the the x70 series is? Many of us had this problem. I had to return my 570 because the high pitch was just too much to handle during quite movies. I'm hoping the x80 series may have used a new drive that is quieter.

Thanks much.

How is the netflix interface? Can you search titles?

My concern is the picture drop outs that people have been experiencing with the S570. I had the S770 for about 1 month and returned it for a full refund due to the fact it was experiencing picture drop outs as well. If you guys see the Official S570 thread, you will see a few people having these issues. These issues seem to only affect those of us that have the S570 hooked up to an av receiver. People, including me, have suggested that the last 2 firmware upgrades ruined the player, causing an incompatability problem with certain receivers.

And how long did the S580 take to boot-up with quick start enabled? Isn't quick start one of the key upgrades Sony has made in their 2011 models?

I don't like using quick start mode as it consume more power and I suspect many people don't use it. The player normal start up is fairly quick, about 22 seconds on the S570 and S770. So I don't think it's worth it. The new players startup is about 30 seconds in normal start up, which is actually slower then the old models. That's was my comparison.

i wonder if the slower startup is because it automatically checks the BD-LIVE connection (see the discussion in the 370/470 thread)

Huh? Your response makes no sense at all for a couple basic reasons.

First, how would you even know how much "more power" the quick start mode potentially uses? And even if quick start does use "more power", that additional power usage would be so minimal and only last for the time it took to load the disc - probably around 20 seconds at the most. Quick start must disable itself once the disc has finished loading - it's not as if it's still running once the disc is playing.

Second, why would you "suspect many people don't use" the quick start mode? If anything, I'd think most people would use this feature since it's a new feauture in 2011 models which is suppose to make disc loading faster. Every consumer wants faster loading, so why in the world would a buyer not use that most attractive feature that they just paid for?

Finally, hardly anyone even owns these new x80 models yet, so to say that you "suspect most people don't use" the quick start mode is totally ridiculous.

quick start uses more power during the time that the player is apparently off