Review on Sony BDP S570 Blu Ray Player Model by Matthew Mrspeach

I don't really know what a fair star rating for this should be. Should I be basing it on the difficulties I had downloading the firmware, or just the overall performance once everything is set up and installed? My rating depends on how the player behaves after installation, but I can't give it five stars. . The comments below focus on network issues and the customer support I've received. BUT SEE UPDATE 3 below (December 23, 2010). PROBLEM: Other reviewers have mentioned network issues and I should add that in my experience Sony has an issue. , at least in the ability to perform firmware updates over the Internet. It just doesn't work for me. He either failed at the 4/9 level or at the 5/9 level - repeatedly. That means it was about halfway through before it crashed, so it looks like I have a working internet connection. My router is quite common, the D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Gigabit Wireless Router, and hasn't given me any problems with any other device, wired or wireless. I am using a wired connection for this player, NOT wireless. Most of the other reviews that mention network issues say the issue is WiFi related, but I think it's more fundamental. SONY HAS A PROBLEM HERE! SONY PHONE SUPPORT: The support agent didn't seem to understand the above and insisted on walking me through a diagnostics path to verify that I had an internet connection (IP address, etc.). He finally gave up on me and said the problem was either with my router or with my ISP and he couldn't help me. He didn't tell me that the firmware could be updated from the hard drive until I asked about alternative update methods. Even then he offered to send me a CD (waiting two weeks) without telling me that the firmware could be downloaded from Sony's website and burned onto a CD for installation. MY INTERACTION WITH SONY PHONE SUPPORT WAS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME! SOLUTION: I downloaded the firmware from the Sony website, burned it to a CD and installed it from there. It went well. Please note that there was a small complication as my original firmware was so old that it did not support updating to the latest version. The modernization had to be carried out in two stages. It's pretty well explained on Sony's website and worked out just fine. I noticed that the second update (to the latest firmware) was advertised as "Improves connectivity to the router". So maybe my NEXT firmware update will work over the internet. Now that I have the latest firmware, I can't verify that. When I finally get the disc from Sony I'm wondering if it will have BOTH firmware versions I need or just the latest one. I wouldn't bet on that for anything! UPDATE 1: Sony gets bonus points for sending an update quickly - three days, loses them and more for not sending both required updates! UPDATE 2: A new firmware level has become available but the online update still failed. However, the process went further. Step 7 of 9 failed instead of step 5. Update from CD worked. UPDATE 3: Another firmware version has just become available. The online update worked fine, so I'm guessing the previous update solved the issue that was blocking this in the earlier firmware. Or maybe something happens intermittently and I'm lucky. However, some things improved, as mentioned above, the update initially failed with several retries, and this last update worked the first time. MORE ABOUT SONY TELEPHONE SUPPORT: The support agent should have known (or acknowledged) that there was a known issue. with connectivity and that Sony offers a solution. He should have suggested an update on the disk and mentioned the download option shortly after we started talking about it. While this doesn't ultimately fix the problem, further debugging is pointless until this fix is applied. OK, speak! TIP 1: Remember, if you have a similar problem, proceed with a disk-based update immediately. . It's very easy to do. If you don't want to burn a CD, see the support websites for information on ordering discs from SONY. TIP 2. The firmware comes from the website as a ZIP file. Do not burn these on CD, but unpack and burn the resulting individual files. This is NOT explained in Sony's instructions - or maybe I missed it. TIP 3: The support page asks you to select an operating system before downloading, but the whole process has nothing to do with the operating system you use to download. If the instructions were to hold your hand in booting and burning a CD, there might be some operating system differences to be aware of, but they aren't. Basically they say "download" and "burn" with no details - not even telling you to unzip the file. TIP 4: This tip has nothing to do with the above. The manual lists the codes that can be entered into the remote to control different brands of TVs (p.36) but I could NOT find any instructions on how to enter the codes. Well I get it. The first thing I tried worked! What you need to do is PRESS AND HOLD the TV's power button (smaller green button) and enter the two-digit code while holding the button. It worked on my Panasonic TV.