my experience thus far for the 580:
I had the 570, but it did not stream netflix at all, zero. So I sent it back. So far I have only used three main features on this thing, which are: streaming netflix, blu ray, and dvd up scaling.
1. Blu Ray: they look great, or about as good as the 570. The start up times seem to be exceptionally long, but I don't really have anything to compare it to except my old dvd player. Compared to that it takes FOREVER to load, and if you have a disc in the machine it also makes the menus much much laggier. Why does it have to read stuff off of the disc if I only want to stream video? no idea. Please note, that I did turn off the fast start feature. I read somewhere that all this does is keep the player on all the time, and I decided that this was a bad thing for several reasons.
2. Steaming netflix: well light years ahead of the 570, because it actually works. The 570 would not stream at all. However, I get constant drop outs. I would not mind at all if the player spent some time buffering, but quite frequently (1-3 times per show) the player will drop the signal. The problem with this is that rather than starting where you left off, you have to begin at the beginning again, which is kind of a pain. I would prefer if it just started again where you left off. Verdict for Netflix: if this is an important feature, you may want to look elsewhere.
3. upscaling dvds: this looks much much better than the 570. The 570 looked so horrible with dvd's that I just watched them on my old crt in my gym instead of on the blu ray player. So this is a big plus for me since I have a fairly good sized collection of dvd's.
Other notes: I really like the menu layout compared to other players that I have seen at friends houses. For example, the netflix titles in your que are arranged in a grid, rather than a straight line. This matters, since between my wife, son, and myself, we have anywhere from 30 to 100 titles on the que at any given time. Players I have seen like the LG or Panasonic have the menu in a straight line, so you have to scroll through a great deal of titles to get to the one you want most of the time. However, this player is VERY laggy in the menus. Also, there are problems sometimes, like when you go to shut off the player it says 'see you' and blinks this message for as long as five minutes. It won't shut down? is it updating firmware? I am afraid to shut it off by unplugging it, but sometimes the player just freezes up and needs a power cycle. One more thing, a nice feature they added is that it tells you how many bars of reception you are getting, AND how many mps you are getting for streaming video. This basic feature, which should be standard, makes diagnosing network problems easier. I really like this addition over the 570.
Verdict: I see this player as having potential, but as of now it is in a BETA stage. It is not ready for the home market, it still has too many bugs. When did the trend found in video games of not releasing working products find its way into consumer electronics? I miss the good old days of the 90's and 2000's when I could just go to the store, buy something, plug it in and it worked. Cheap model, expensive model, whatever, they all just worked. Anyway, I would suggest to anyone that they wait to get this player. Perhaps in a year or so after they get some updates, it could be the best mid range blu ray player on the market. Not so right now.
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