Official Sony BDP-S590 and BDP-390 Thread - Page 9

I have been considering, Sony bluray players for a while now. Primarily for the SACD support. They seem to be the only ones offering it.

I zeroed down on the 480, but waited for the new models. I am in India. So all streaming video features are useless for me.

I do care about dlna. If it is good, then I can skip buying the ATV3, on which I intend to run xbmc.

I plan to connect the player with ethernet, so wifi is not really important. Would be useful for iPhone remote app.

Given this situation should I chose 590 over 480/580, given a $50/30 difference.

Only advantage 390 will have over 480 is wifi?

480 is 3D. Though I don't have 3d projector. I will prefer it, so that can upgrade when I want.

Well, for the BDP-S580, that's exactly what it does - it down-samples to the core dts track when converting to LPCM. That was explained to me by Sony technical support (higher level tech) who understood exactly what I was asking.

For Dolby TrueHD, this is not the case. The Sony BD players will decode to LPCM using the lossless codec (one of the advantages of Dolby TrueHD over dts-MA).

FWIW, I've also spoken with technical support persons at: Yamaha, Denon and Oppo to determine which players do/do not handle this correctly. I didn't even bother with the Sammy or Panny players on this issue.

The Sony tech was adamant: NONE of Sony's players will fully decode dts-MA (or HR) to LPCM - they will ALL use the core, lossy dts track.

Now, the real question is: does the 590 continue this behavior or does it now decode the lossless version to LPCM?

So I picked up a 390 to replace my fat PS3 that won't load BD disks anymore and I'm not entirely happy with the change.

The 390's UI is majorly lacking in responsiveness and fluidity. That's not that big of a deal as I can still find what I want to find but it is certainly a major step back from the PS3. I expected some lack of fancy transitions, but not the lag I get when navigating. Button presses are fast, rendering on the screen is pretty slow.

But, the major thing setting me back is the Netlfix movie loading times. The PS3 would start extremely quickly and lock onto a fast stream right away. The 390 takes 10 times longer to start a show, and lags for a few seconds once the show starts. It does grab the X-High stream though.

On the plus side, the bootup times are fast, the Streaming picture quality is excellent, and the Netflix DD+ streams are passed intact to my receiver. If it wasn't for my broken disk drive on my PS3, I would be pretty disappointed in the change since it would be a big step back, but overall it's acceptable for just $130 and does have the big 3 streaming services in their MAX quality.

Ah, i noticed that I didn't mention I was referring to Netflix so I updated my post above.

Also, I am using a wired gigabit network. In fact, the same exact cable the PS3 used before I took it out of the cabinet.

Starting a show on the 390 takes about 5-10 seconds on Netflix, while the PS3 would start in about a second. I got used to that speed and 10 seconds seems like eternity now. It certainly seems like the player isn't doing the same stream switching that the PS3 did. The PS3 would start on a SD stream and ramp up to X-high seamlessly. It feels to me like the 390 picks a stream and stays on it which means that the 1080p streams are taking up to 10 seconds to start. I thought we were past that now. My Roku Classic locks onto a stream and doesn't let go unless your bandwidth drops, but I thought we were past that now with the new players switching between streams seamlessly.

Of the 7 or 8 Netflix playing devices that I've owned, the PS3 is the fastest starting (I thought that it had stopped starting fast but I find that it now takes a few extra seconds to start the first stream I try to play after running it and that subsequent streams during that session start within a few seconds). The PS3 has far more computing power and memory than any of the others, except for the Xbox 360. My 60GB launch model draws literally about 100 times as much power as a Roku 2 and probably 20 times as much as one of these BD players and gets a bit noisy when its fan cuts in after about 15 minutes. It also cannot bitstream Netflix's DD+ 5.1 sound to my AVR and its conversion of it to basic DD 5.1 is thin and weak by comparison.

You'll find that most Netflix players are a lot slower than the PS3 (even the Xbox, which doesn't have the excuse that these little STB embedded systems do). Playing around with them now I see that the S390 is the slowest of the 6 Netflix players that I currently have (PS3, Xbox, Roku 2 XS, TiVo Series 3, BDP-S390 and this PC), requiring a minimum of 15 seconds to start a stream and sometimes more than 20. (At around 12-13 seconds average, the TiVo is 2nd slowest, the Xbox takes about 8-10 seconds, the Roku starts in about 6 seconds and the PC is about as fast as the PS3. The Roku got significantly faster with its recent firmware update).

I love that the S390 has the PS3's Netflix info overlay display (toggled with the DISPLAY button) which lets you see exactly what you're getting right now. But the slow start up speed is definitely a mark against it.

APW2607-

Where did you see the $99 price on the 590? I have a SONY card as well, but I see the $149 price.

Well, I have decided not to go with a blu-ray player for my sunroom. Instead I ordered a WD TV Live Streaming Media Player (Newegg had it for $80 the other day). It has all the apps I was looking for and hopefully can stream my tons of DVD ISO's wirelessly (built-in wireless). So I am going disc free in this room. Hope I don't regret it later.

Whoever told you NONE of the Sony's player will fully decode dts-MA to LCPM is not well informed. I have a S770 and S780 and both decode DTS-MA to LCPM just fine. I can clearly see the "LCPM" on my receiver's display while playing a disc with a DTS-Master track.

Yes, you are correct that the player will *decode* dts-MA to LPCM - but it will do it using the 'core' lossy dts track (i.e. the 1.5Mbps version, not the higher bit-rate lossless version).

And, yes, and in this case, LPCM will still show up on your receiver's display.

That's correct. The problem is with the AVR's lack of ability (in all low-end and most mid-range products) to both decode and apply digital signal processing to the high resolution DTS codecs. Your low-end BD player of choice should only need to properly read and output the bitstream version of the audio tracks on the disc.

I was simply replying to michaeltscott's posting on the topic. Whether it sounds better or is something you want to have is a question of personal preference.

For me the answer is 'yes': I want to take advantage of virtual surround modes, like Yamaha's Silent Cinema w/ headphones, and enjoy the full resolution audio on the Blu-ray.

anyone on the fence for a 590, amazon has them for 134.99 (sold by amazon)

Ok, so I am starting to think there is something wrong with my particular player. I've tried a few more Netflix streams and got some strange behavior. Maybe someone else can confirm for me if this is normal. When I start a Netflix stream, the buffering bar starts loading. It loads to about 1/3 of the way then stops. There is a pause of about 5 seconds and then either the audio starts playing, or the video starts playing with the other (video or audio respectively) starts playing after about 3 seconds. The stream will play fine for a few seconds, then the buffer starts again where it left off. Then the stream starts playing and sometimes plays the rest of the program. But, on several occasions it would shortly stop playing and give me an error that it is having trouble playing the stream. Two streams it failed on are the Mid-East Top Gear special and some Discovery Alaska survivor show I can't remember the exact name for.

I'm getting over it starting streaming slowly because the advantages of a cheap, silent, and low power box are pretty high, but if it fails on half the programs I try to watch, then it's pretty worthless to me.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I've seen some similar behavior, including it refusing to play a stream (Blackhawk Down, I think), but I've seen that happen with other players (the Panasonic BDT110 for sure). I played a bit of the same stream on another player and then the S390 would play it without a problem.

This player is new to Sony with this model (as is a player with the same UI to the 2012 Panasonics) so there are doubtless a few bugs to be worked out. But even Roku, the original embedded Netflix player, has a few bugs.

Forgot the number but a firmware update is also available for the 390. As reported by APW2607 you can not use any on-line service unless you update the firmware.

Figured it out. Opps. I had not given the 390 permission to see the files from my computer.

Can anyone tell me if the s390 has an optical port on it. I have the JVC ThBa1 soundbar and would like to use a fiber optic cable for connection.

Thanks for any info.

Wow - Sony is being as nasty to their standalone blu-ray player customers as they were to their PS3 customers over cinavia. I'm thankful I haven't any use or need or capability for Sony on-line services via my Sony blu-ray players . .