Official Sony BDP-S590 and BDP-390 Thread - Page 10

thanks for the help. I read through the topic, but got conflicting info from best buy. They have it listed as having an optical digital audio out.

Does anyone know if the 2012 sony players do vudu 3d.

The same policy is true of the PS3 and Xbox. If any application or game that you want to run has an update, you have to accept the update or run the old version offline. If it's an online-only app, like Netflix or VUDU, it won't run it if you decline the update. If it's a system update it will ask you to accept it at startup and if you don't it won't log you into PSN or XBL (I think that if you decline and try to log in afterward it will ask you to accept the system update again and refuse the log in if you decline again).

I'd tend to disagree--neither the Roku Channel Store or Panasonic Viera Connect Store on their BD players is slow. (It takes a few seconds for the Roku Channel Store to start up but once you're in it it's pretty snappy).

This does seem more or less useless at this point, particularly given the amount of time it takes to get it running.

I saw the amazon sale price of 134.99 and I finally decided to place an order. I'm crossing my fingers that I'm going to like this player a lot better than the Panny 210 I had returned recently.

One more thing I forget to ask about, have you guys had good wireless streaming with the S590, like comparable to the Panasonic players? I'm mostly going to be streaming alot via wifi with an occasional bluray once in awhile.

Thanks for the info. Keep in mind, however, that forcing cinavia into a standalone players firmware has nothing to do with an app - or streaming - it's just Sony's way of holding their customers hostage in order to force the cinavia infection into their player.
I remain glad I do not participate in any of this and still have some semblance of personal control over my purchased blu-ray player . . :-)

In the case of these 2012 players I suspect that they were in violation of AACS licensing to ship them without Cinavia given that they went on sale after 2/12.

A lot of the PS3 and Xbox updates, particularly the system ones, have to do with plugging security holes, something that's not particularly useful to the user (well some of them might prevent exploits in online games).

I had another Netflix playback problem this evening, watching the first episode of The Walking Dead. It stopped and displayed the rebuffering screen for a few seconds i; it did this four or five times and I gave up. I switched over to my Roku 2 XS and watched the rest of the episode without incident.

I'm beginning to seriously consider returning it.

Well, you should head on over to Target. I picked my S590 up last night - off the shelf - for $119.00. It was stacked on the shelf with a collection of the older model (BDP-S580) which was also priced at 119.00; I couldn't believe that price, so I grabbed one and headed for the checkout. And, it rang up at $119.00 so I took it home.

I am loving this player at that price...

My daughter and I watched a couple of Star Trek episodes last night on Netflix with our new S590 - the new remastered HD versions. Stunning picture, really. I am used to using my Apple TV for Netflix and I was impressed with the PQ from the new S590. No buffering problems for me, but my wireless access point is about 3 feet from the player and I have a 25Mbps connection to the Intertubes.

I agree completely. If the SEN was an XMB 'editor', it would be way more useful.

And, if the search function went across Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Music/Video Unlimited, et al., Sony would have the best streamer on the market today. The way Sony implemented the search function is very well done, but being limited to, well, Unlimited makes it relatively useless. I signed up for the trial, and will give it a chance, but I have so much content available on Netflix and Amazon Prime that I tend to look there first, before wanting to pay for something elsewhere (like Unlimited or iTunes).

Thanks. Heading over to my Target. Can use one for my bedroom.

All of my equipment is wired to the router--I only use wireless for my mobile phone and tablet. My cable modem service is nominally 25 Mbps and I seemed to be getting solid connections to Netflix. I don't believe that this behavior had anything to do with the buffer level. It never switched to a lower bit rate, lower PQ encoding, the rebuffering screen only appeared for a few seconds and the picture returned at the highest PQ (though the overlay said "Low/SD" ). This was clearly an error condition.

I'd hoped to dump my Roku 2 and make this my streaming box since it does everything I want (1080p/bitstreamed DD+ VUDU, 1080p/bitstreamed DD+/CC Netflix, 5.1 sound in Amazon). I watch Netflix far more than either of the other services and since I very rarely watch discs (maybe 4 or 5 times a year), Netflix is my principle use for it.

It is very much a YMMV thing. Not only I did not find any S590 in the Target near me, even the lone S580 left is still priced at $199!

Thanks - just came back from Target with the 590 at $119. Exact same setup you mentioned - two 580's in front, then three 590's behind 'em. Was prepared to leave it there if it rang up differently at check-out - thanks again for the heads-up.

Oh great, I had just placed an order for this player last night, I was hoping that it was mostly a winner, now I'm worried about doing another return because of streaming problems. Why is it so hard for a manufacturer to just made a solid streaming bluray player? Is it too much to ask for? I might still be able to cancel my order....Has anyone else tried wifi to see how well it can stream that way?

The 590 isn't even on Targets website! And I'm afraid that we live in an out lying area and I don't think our local store would have one. But I will look just in case. BB has them in stock but for the full retail price, but they will price match on a case by case basis. Amazon has it for $139. $10. less than BB in store. Wish I could have found it on the Target website though.

Jeff

So, you probably know this, but go here:

https://account.netflix.com/VideoQuality

and make sure you have selected the 'Best Quality' option on your Netflix account preferences. A recent change I noticed with Netflix: they are not buffering very far ahead, compared to what I've seen in the past. So, any net slow downs are a bigger issue.

Another possibility is your Internet provider. I have Comcast Business Class, and am supposed to get elevated QoS; but, being in an apartment complex, I notice when things get busy (i.e. when all of my neighbors are using the net and stuff slow down for all of us).

What you need to try is accessing content early in the morning, when business and consumer Internet use is lower. See if anything changes on your end.

Well, I would keep your order in play. The issues that michaeltscott is having may / may not have anything to do with the player. FWIW, I've been streaming reliably from Netflix and Amazon, almost non-stop, since I purchased the player. I am sick of listening to Sgt. Frog , but my daughter is happy and the player is working like a charm.

And, I continue to be impressed with the PQ, compared to my Apple TV. Sony really has a winner with this box - if only they can improve the SEN portal...

This is quite definitely a bug in the software. I have five other Netflix players and none of them has ever shown this behavior. And the behavior is bizarre--if it were having trouble keeping up with the bandwidth requirements of the currently selected encoding it should step down into lower bit rate encodings, so seamlessly that it would look like the focus of a lens softening. It's not doing that at all; it's just stopping at max quality, showing the little buffering display for about 3 seconds and then starting the video again at maximum quality. If it were having trouble keeping the buffer full it would seamless step down into progressively lower bit rate, lower PQ encodings--the lowest is 235 Kbps and network conditions should never get bad enough to have to switch to that much less bad enough that it can't keep up with that and has to pause to rebuffer.

Again, every time something like this has happened I've just switched to the Roku 2 and it's played it to the end at 1080p without problem.

(I've actually always left that quality setting blank, so I don't limit myself to the 5.2 Mbps that the "Best Quality", should they introduce an "Even Better Quality" level . I've been playing Netflix streams since 5 May 2007, a month or two after the service started when there were only a few hundred titles and you could only play them on PCs).

My nine year-old even commented on how the user interface was nicer than the Apple TV version - easier to see which episodes of Sgt Frog are yet to be enjoyed. She could care less about PQ or SQ.

Well, that's not encouraging to hear. Of course, I am assuming that you've updated to the last F/W.

You should try disconnecting the Ether-hose and use Wi-Fi to the player. The player may have a different algorithm for handling network slowdowns, based on the interface in use. I've seen this behavior from Apple TV in the past (for real) and you may see a change in behavior on the Sony player, as well, when Netflix data transmission rates drop off.

As has been stated you don't have a choice, once new firmware is available. I played around with that yesterday and can confirm that none of the online services will start before applying an available new upgrade.

Having to use wireless is equally unacceptable. I don't have an N router and don't really want to abandon my venerable old Linksys WRT54G, on which I run some open source firmware (Tomato) that I really like.

I'm still debating sending the 390 back. On the positive side, I love the PS3-esque Netflix info overlay that I can get from the Sony, its Netflix player's browser UI is substantially more responsive than the Panasonic BD player and its Amazon player has 5.1 sound. Though I've never loved the XMB I find it to be a lot more convenient than the Panasonic's UI. On the negative side I've had these problems with the Netflix player and the Amazon player is probably the worst that I've used, the slowest (I just measured 38 seconds to start a stream, versus 8 seconds on the Roku) and least convenient. Lacking a queue, one of any Amazon player's most important functions for me is Search and on the Sony you have to enter text into it using a numeric keypad and i9 and it's not even an incremental search--it's an inexcusably poor design. (As a software engineer designs like this feel like the people who create it are giving me the finger--totally disrespectful to the user). I think that I may be better off just keeping the BDT220 and hoping that the upcoming Amazon update will add 5.1 sound (the Roku's recent Amazon player update is really beautiful--I hope that they're doing something similar).

What I really wish would happen is for Roku to add a VUDU player, but there's got to be something unknown standing in the way of that.

Sounds like you are stuck, which is a shame because your network issues aside, it seems to be a nice player.

FWIW, I believe there is a new version of Tomato that supports the newer generation of Linksys/Cisco consumer routers - I work with a guy that is really into this and I've seen a demo of Tomato running on a new Cisco consumer router (can't recall the model) and they are so cheap now that it's hard not to upgrade. And there is also DDW-RT, which is what we run our office network with.

I hear you on the Amazon search stuff, but I do all of that on my iPad, frankly. It's just faster to get around with and to read reviews, et al. I search for what I want to see on that device, then switch to the Media Remote app to type it all in and run it on the streamer. I do this with Apple TV and the Blu-ray player, since none of them have a federate search function that will cross all of the streaming services.

I hope you can find a way to make the player work for you...