Post your thoughts, especially for dvd upconversion. I want a BD Live standalone unit and it's likely between the Sony 550 and the Panasonic 55. I love my Panny 30, but the dvd upconversion is only so-so. C-net had good things to say about the upconversion of the 55. Hopefully Panny has made some changes.

I shall. I never use any of my BD players for upconversion other than the PS3 which is the only playback unit in my bedroom system, but I will take a look at the 550's upconversion. My main DVDplayer was and still is the Denon 2910, which IMO did better work with DVD's than my Panny BD10, Samsung BDP1000 and PS3.

Amazon has the Samsung BD-P1500 for $221.92 with a free Ultimate Matrix blu-ray set. Through October 18.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...F8&m=&v=glance

Shows up as 209 for me! Ugh, so tempting.

Yes but:

It's dead. Now it ships from Electronics Expo so you don't get the free Matrix. The deal apparently only works if you buy the player directly from Amazon and they must have sold out. Plus you are charged shipping.

I hesitated and lost. Oh well, I really didn't need it. But maybe it will come back if Amazon restocks in time.

It's back! Now "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." Price is about $7.00 more than yesterday but still a great deal. This time I just bought it right away. Who know how long it'll last?

How this was missed I have no idea..

But there are some major rumors going around the Apple will be sticking Blu-ray drives in their new Macbooks come tomorrow. Unknown was models/versions but its very, very strong.

Oh, and I spotted the Olivia BD player at Target yesterday for $299.

Profile 1.1. Model BD-110. Only TrueHD internal decoding from what I could see.

I hate to keep asking questions, but I haven't really done that much with researching audio codecs and how receivers work (knowing I wouldn't be upgrading my receiver for a while). I've read that the Samsung 1500 doesn't decode past 2 channels. Is that just in reference for analog? If I hook it up with the optical input my digital receiver should be able to decode the 5.1 or is that receiver specific? I purchased the receiver about 6 years ago. I just want to make really sure before I make any purchasing decisions. Thanks.

Also, this is a little off topic, but related. My receiver only has 2 optical inputs and one coax. Currently I have my HD receiver and HD DVD player hooked up through the two opticals and my computer hooked to the coax. When I add a Blu-Ray player to it, do I have any options? Could I switch one of my other components to coax and run those through my RCA selector somehow? I have a component selector that I'm running everything through (though I think I only have 3 inputs on it, now that I think about it, since the 4th is just composite). I did have another component selector elsewhere, so I guess I can just run my HD DVD player and Blu-Ray player through one, then the output to the 2nd selector which will then add my HD receiver and computer into the mix. That may sound complicated, but will this work? And is there a way to get a coax digital connection into the mix as well?

$199.96 Sony BDP-S300 w/Free Discovery Channel Blu-Ray

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Circuit City has the Sony BDP-S300 for $199.96 with free shipping.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sony-...oductDetail.do

Sony has a mail in coupon for a Discovery Channel Blu-Ray (Sunrise & Fearless) for purchase of Sony Blu-Ray players (BDP-S300 included).

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...52921644588396

Coupon: http://www.sonystyle.com/wcsstore/So...-in_coupon.pdf

Terms & Conditions:
Receive one Sony® Presents Discovery Channel ™ on Blu-ray Disc™ exclusive Blu-ray Disc by mail following purchase of a BDP-S300, BDP-S301, BDP-S350, BDP-S500, BDP-S2000ES or BDP-BX1 model Sony Blu-ray Disc Player. Offer valid on purchase of eligible product from October 5, 2008, through October 18, 2008. For Disc delivery, please allow 8-10 weeks following receipt of properly completed submission. Complete mail-in submission must be postmarked no later than November 17, 2008. Online pre-qualification submissions must be completed and supporting documentation must be postmarked no later than November 17, 2008. Serial number, copy of dated purchase receipt, and copy of eligible product UPC code are required. Mail submission to provided address. Limit one Disc per household, except where prohibited by law. Limited to end users only (not for resale on online auctions or otherwise). No delivery to PO Boxes. Offer is not transferable. Sony reserves the right to request additional information to validate a claim, making it subject to U.S. postal regulations. Offer void where prohibited, taxed or restricted by law. Sony is not responsible for claims lost, damaged or delayed in transit. Submitted materials become Sony property. Products for which premium is claimed may not be returned (limited warranty claims excluded). Sony reserves the right to substitute a premium of greater or equal value or a cash equivalent of $24.95 in fulfillment of this offer. Offer valid only in the United States, excluding territories. In the event of a dispute, Sony must be contacted by February 15, 2009. Offer not valid on refurbished, open-box, returned products or demonstration products

I would stay away from the BDP-s300 at all costs. You shouldn't be paying a penny over a hundred bucks for a profile 1.0 player.

It looks like it's only a sampler disc anyhow. I already bought the S350, so I'll probably send in for my free copy only because I doubt there will be any other rebates/promotions that I'll be eligible for.

I have the s300 and was majorly disappointed when I learned it was a 1.0 player. I didn't do my research when I bought it. I figured SONY would be the best. I kept wondering why my receiver would read DDigitalplus, DolbytruHD, etc with my HDDVD player but only read DDigital or DTS with the SONY. Then I researched and realized it doesn't decode past DD or DTS. POS.

If you're using optical/coaxial for your audio connections you will always get 5.1 audio (if it's on the source disc) through Dolby Digital or DTS core (assuming your receiver does DTS, which is most likely if it's just six years old). Those should still sound better than the DVD counterpart as they're probbaly encoded with higher bandwidth. You just won't be able to use the lossless tracks like Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD or PCM5.1.

Not sure what connections your component selector has, so I can't help too much on that one. Does your receiver happen to 5.1 channel analog inputs?

I thought one of the newer firmware updates made this player decode TrueHD audio. The loading times have improved tremendously since this one was first released. I think for $200 or less, it's a decent unit.

Your receiver should only show TrueHD if the player is bitstreaming the audio. Otherwise, it should show LPCM.

I have the Pelican System Selector (or at least the equivalent. I know one of them is, since I bought it at Circuit City, but I think one of them is the GameStop repack). Here's what it looks like on the backside:



It has 3 component input selections. Those selections have 6 RCA jacks (3 component video, 1 composite video, 2 audio). There is a 4th selection in the front that is only composite. I'm not sure why that image shows two lefts and two rights (maybe to split to receiver and TV?). I'm not sure if mine is the same way or not since I don't use the audio in the selector. As for my receiver, it has 2 optical and 1 coax. It also looks like it has 5.1 analog inputs (I've never used them), but I don't have any components that have that option, and the Samsung I'm looking at doesn't, either.

Edit: If my memory serves me well (I'm not at home, right now), I believe my receiver has a center, sub, and 2 surround inputs. I never noticed those before the other day, so I wasn't sure if those were what were meant by 5.1 analog or not. Since that's only 3, do the other two channels come from the normal left right? Either way, like I said, I don't have any components with that option, anyway, so the point is moot. But thanks for the help. If anything I'll see if I can chain the two selectors to use my component connections (that's all my TV has, other than VGA which I never got to work before) and if I have to I'll order an optical audio hub (I didn't know they existed until after I made my previous post). I just didn't know if I could somehow use one of the RCA jacks on the component selector as a selector for the digital coax since I've heard you can use normal RCA cables with a chance of loss. I didn't know if it would work, and if it did, how much loss I would need to worry about since it's just a selector and not a long cable run.

OK, thanks for the pic. I see what you're thinking of doing with the coax now, but I'm not sure if it will work or not, as I don't know if the coaxial signal can run through a regular non-digital RCA jack like one of the red/white ones. Maybe someone else can chime in on that.

As far as the analog 5.1 jacks go, it sounds like your receiver does have it, though it would definitely need a Front L/R in as well and usually all six jacks are grouped together. If so, using those would solve your shortage of digital connections and also allow you to get the lossless tracks with a properly equipped BD player (analog outs and built-in decoders). But as you said, that doesn't help you if your looking to get in on that smoking Sammy BD1500 & Matrix deal, as it doesn't have the analogs.

http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/a...sv.CM_SCID.TSV

Sounds like a decent deal.

Gizmodo is reporting that the Samsung BD-P1500 will be available for $149.99 on Black Friday.

http://gizmodo.com/5062492/dealzmodo...n-black-friday

I'm assuming thats the first generation model...I'd avoid that one personally. Its Profile 1.0, very slow and has problems with some discs not playing. You are way better off getting that Samsung 1500 + Matrix and saving $50. At this point, like Tony pointed out, there is no reason anyonme should be paying a penny over $100 for a Profile 1.0 player. 1./2.0 players can be had for as low as $180 now with discounts/coupons.

Got my Sony S550 from sonystyle yesterday and I have to say I am very impressed with it, especially considering the price now and what we had to pay a couple of years ago. Shipped the next day with standard Fedex and received in 4 days. My initial thoughts from playing with it last night below.

• Build quality is excellent. Half the depth of my Panny BD10 and Sammy BDP1000, but weighs almost as much with a solid, not tinny cabinet. Front face is tinged slightly blue, but disguises very nicely with my other black components. Fan is silent.
  
• Network connectivity and BD Live via Ethernet worked immediately with my DHCP and required no setup. You can have it automatically check for firmware updates if desired and can totally disable internet if you're paranoid.
  
• BD PQ is excellent, definitely on par or slightly better than my previous main Panny, which I loved. Quite a few picture tweaking options available, but I always leave those off. S550>BD10>PS3>BDP1000
  
• BD AQ also excellent. A lot of people are wondering if it does do internal DTS-MA decoding, and I would say it does, but I can't be definitive since my Denon 4806 only does LPCM5.1 and not 7.1 through HDMI. I certainly got the 5.1 channel indicators on the AVR with the Rambo (2008) disc and heard it. Setting the HDMI audio setting to DIRECT showed the DTS-MA 3/4.1 on the player, while setting it to MIX only outputs 3/2.1. I guess I could've tried the analog outs as both the player and my receiver had 7.1 jacks, but I didn't have the cables for it.
  
• someone asked about DVD upconversion, and it did a very good job. I'd say it looked almost as good as my Denon 2910 and a little better than the PS3. 2910>S550>PS3>>BD10
  
• Player menu system is great, as it emulates the PS3's. On screen info is like the PS3 as well with the progress bar, bitrate meter, audio, subtitle info, etc.
  
• You can completely turn off all the front panel lights and indicators, a big plus for me. None of my other players could do that and it was annoying.
  
• Comes with a weird little Sony 1GB USB memory stick for BD Live stuff. You can use your own sticks as well, but unless you use an extension cable, the body has to be really thin and not much fatter than the USB plug itself as the jack is recessed into a hole almost an inch into the player for some reason, maybe to keep them from accidently being snapped off?
  
• Startup speed is light years ahead of my two first gen players and on top of that there is a Quickstart option available that dramatically cuts down the time even more at the expense of power consumption and possible fan usage. I won't use it as I think it's fast enough now not to be bothersome. Some timings with a stopwatch and the appearance of the FBI screen.
  
  21 seconds from power off for tray to open from open/close button with no Quickstart
  6 seconds from power off for tray to open from open/close button with Quickstart
  21 seconds for disc (War, Inc. (no java)) to play from tray close
  26 seconds with Quickstart to resume from previously stopped movie (War, Inc. (no java)) playback from powered off.
  
• Java loading: again light years ahead of the gen 1 players, but this is where the PS3 kicks it's ass. I'd say the PS3 is almost twice as fast at the java initial load, but at least we're out of the realm of annoying. Also there is still a little hesitation at the BD Live menu navigation and heavy java menus like the shrinking Rambo 2008 popup one. There is about a two second delay before popup menu appears on the S550, while the PS3 was instantaneous. The BD10 had about almost a 5 second delay. Given the PS3 has a Cell processor in it, I'll give the 550 a free pass.
  
• As I have read, there is no frame advance anymore, if Sony did have that feature before. Not a deal-killer for me, but it would have been nice to have. They do have time jump buttons where you can hop back forth in 10 second increments for each press that works pretty well, as well as a scene search system where you can move the slider on the bottom of the screen to navigate anywhere in the movie.
  
• The player will resume non-java discs from the menu as well as power-off.
  
• Remote control is nice with blue backlighting for the main functions. Seperate subtitles/audio/angle buttons which stupefyingly my Panny didn't have. Not much of an issue for me in the future as I'll be using a universal, but I found the HOME button on the remote may take a little getting use to since if you hit it by accident (it's at the bottom surrounding the directional pad) you leave the movie and go back the the PS3-like main menu, which can be annoying with non-resuming java discs that start over.

Overall, I'm very happy with this and I have now have no qualms about passing over the Panny 55, which I was also heavily considering. The Sony ended up getting the edge since the user interface is much more poliched, you (still) couldn't turn off the display on the Panny and I was still a little bummed that they never fixed the LFE bug on the BD10.

If anyone has any questions I'll be happy to try and help.

Thanks for the report! I've been eyeballing the 550, and your review is pushing me closer.

Have you tried any DVD-R/DVD+R (single or dual layer)?

I own this profile 1 Sharp and I highly recommend to stay away from it at that price. It is one of the slowest players I have ever used, freezes up completely on random BD discs. You have to unplug and plug it back in to get the disc tray to open. It also has major problems with recent Fox BD discs and is very, very slow with any Java discs.

I use it mostly for DVDs in the bedroom because it actually does very well with those.

I'll try it when I get home.

I'm curious as to whether the Sony BDP-S550 (or any Blu-Ray player) would provide a picture quality noticeably better than my HD-A1 using component connections (my RPTV has no hdmi.) I consider the HD-A1 to be reasonable for displaying sd content, but I also understand that component can only go so far and at least I can use hdmi for audio. I'm leaning towards purchasing the 550 so any thoughts are welcome.

I suppose this will all be moot once I replace my rptv sometime next year.