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Review on Sony BDP S360 1080P Blu Ray Player by Ryan Gilliam

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Great basic Blu-ray player

There are many new Blu-ray players with advanced features like network video streaming. But I already have an Xbox360 connected to my home theater and a couple of PCs that can handle all my video streaming needs. All I really needed was a Blu-Ray player that would do a great job playing Blu-Ray discs and my old DVDs. Thanks to the new players, the price has really come down, so I grabbed it. I had a small error connecting. My HDTV is an old Sony 34 inch CRT that supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i but not 1080p. I connected the Blu-ray player to the Onkyo receiver with an HDMI cable, which then establishes the connection to the television. When I told the BDP-S360 to use the HDMI connection, all I got was a black screen. I ended up having to use the composite video cables that came with the player to get the picture and then tell the player to use the 720p output. After that everything worked fine. So something in the handshake between TV, receiver and player thought 1080p was supported, but after switching to 720p it was fine. Disc load times are good, taking about as long as it takes to load my Xbox360 or turn on my 400 disc DVD changer, so I didn't really notice them. The picture is AWESOME even at just 720p, showing details I hadn't noticed before. and really improves the picture. An example is the movie Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (yes, most of my insights are for children). Fairy dust effects on DVD have much more "glow". for them it's single sparks on the Blu-Ray that don't cover the background that much. The improvement in detail is really impressive. Updating the firmware was pretty trivial. On the Xbox360 and Wii I already connected the ethernet to the entertainment center along with the hub so I just plugged in another cable and it just downloaded and updated. So far, I am very satisfied. If you really need video streaming you might need to look elsewhere or if you need a Wi-Fi connection but since I don't need it, it was the perfect solution at a very good price. On the Xbox360 and Wii I already connected the ethernet to the entertainment center along with the hub so I just plugged in another cable and it just downloaded and updated. So far, I am very satisfied. If you really need video streaming you may need to look elsewhere or if you need Wi-Fi connectivity but as I don't need it this was the perfect solution at a very good price. On the Xbox360 and Wii I already connected the ethernet to the entertainment center along with the hub so I just plugged in another cable and it just downloaded and updated. So far, I am very satisfied. If you really need video streaming,

Pros
  • Great for a small home
Cons
  • Questionable purchase for the elderly