Review on 📀 Sleek Sony BDP-S480 Blu-ray Disc Player: Immersive Digital Entertainment (2011 Model, Black) by Jay Huang

I bought this player almost entirely to get Hulu. My TV isn't exactly videophile quality, so I can't comment on that aspect. This is a disc player and it plays discs fairly adequately for the person looking for a cheap player. I have a Boxee but Hulu blocks Boxee due to some sneaky shenanigans. TVs, game consoles, disc players - all these devices now have roughly the same area of application, with the same features and disadvantages. For example, the YouTube app on the S480 and Boxee presents things side-by-side in a format that looks nice but leaves very little room for a title. So if you're looking for multi-part stuff like "My really awesome video you want to watch, Part 01" - the end of the title is just cut off. But anyone who's been using YouTube for 5 minutes will quickly know where the important information about the Title is Because if you want to watch a 5 part video and your search returns 5 videos, all with the title "My really cool video you want" - you have no idea which is the first one , when the first part is done, you don't know which part is the second one. Most likely this is not Sony's fault (I assume they didn't create the app) but if you buy one of these for the first time and "App! Apps! Apps!" All over the box, all over the product image at Best Buy, and all over the Revain product page, you might not realize that they've spent a lot more time promoting it than actually using the software and having an enjoyable experience to offer. All the apps did these weird features, no matter what device and manufacturer you choose. The real difference is the remote control. It might not be obvious at first, but if you're using Hulu or YouTube, you'll end up wanting to search , which means you're typing. If you're using a Sony remote, you have to type it in using the phone keypad-style number keys, like typing "buckaroo banzai in the 8th dimension" and then realizing you made a typo - or you're trying to find the right part of your video, but you have to. It's a lot of trial and error because the headlines cut off - and you picked the wrong part - and now you have to retype everything *every time*. The ghost of Steve Jobs could very well come back and kill the engineers who designed this in their sleep. And that brings us to the heart of the problem. Device manufacturers quickly realized that typing words with a traditional remote control simply wasn't possible if you wanted to interact with these "apps". Many of them create their own remote control apps for phones and tablets that give you another way to control your device. Sony calls it "Media Remote" - if you have a smartphone or tablet, you can install this app and then use the touchscreen to navigate and, if necessary, enter text using the device's virtual keyboard. It changes the experience from incredibly boring and frustrating to something almost doable. As a general rule, I wouldn't even consider buying such a minimal device for apps unless it supports using a smartphone or tablet as a remote control. I've heard that the LG remote doesn't support text input - it's like an ironic eye-plug - addressing all these issues and then leaving the main pain untreated is incredible. To use the Sony "Media Remote" app, you need a UPnP-enabled wireless network. They don't deal with it openly. Maybe because almost every modern router supports it. Those that don't are usually ISP-supplied routers, such as B. the AT&T 2Wire Gateway router used with U-verse. If you're stuck with one of these, you'll need to buy another router and switch your network to it in order to use the Media Remote. If you plan to use apps, plan out everything you need to get Media Remote up and running. It's entirely possible that by first setting up searches on your computer and adding items to your queue, you can start using Netflix with a single click. But sooner or later you're going to want to search, and without the Media Remote, entering text is a real hassle. A major downside is the 'browser' app - don't think this box will replace Boxee, Roku or Google TV. The browser works fine but there is no concept of a cursor. You have to use the arrow keys to navigate through the side objects to find something to choose from, and the first video I tried to play blocked the entire box badly. I had to turn it off for a few minutes to restore it. It's amazing that you can get so much out of such a cheap device, but some parts just aren't ready to use. The Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube apps worked fine for me. Trouble with the browser though. So if you're looking for a disc player that also supports all the popular app-controlled services AND you have a smartphone or tablet and a UPnP-enabled wireless network, then you've come to the right place. for great experiences with S480. That's a metric ton penny value. **UPDATE** Having used this box for about 4 months I have to amend this review to say it crashes frequently. By "fault" I mean it gets into a state where it doesn't respond at all to the remote or front panel buttons. In this case, you should unplug it for a good 30 minutes and then plug it back in. It must have some sort of internal system to hold memory during brief power outages as you can't just unplug and plug it back in. in. 5 or 10 minutes is not enough. This can be very annoying - let's say you invited people to watch a movie, but while you weren't watching the box broke and wouldn't turn on. Sorry guys, it takes us 30 minutes to restart the player. It has a hard reset, holding the power button for 10 seconds usually has no effect. A bug put it in a strange state that blocked my entire LAN. All in all a lot of features for a low price but a very snazzy little box.** UPDATE 05/21/12 **New software update from Sony but it still does the same thing. The LAN blocking behavior appears to be the same as a power failure with a drive inside. I have a Netgear 8 port gigabit switch that handles most of my LAN traffic including the player. When the LAN is off I see a lot of traffic from the powered off BluRay player to the switch and the traffic doesn't go anywhere. When I unplug the BluRay player, everything goes back to normal.** UPDATE 01/14/13 **After the player was connected to the filtered UPS power, it only goes out every two weeks instead of every few days. But after several firmware updates it still shows crashing behavior that crashes my entire LAN. Last night, after one of his spaz attacks, I had to shut down and reboot everything to get my network up and running again. I'd be curious to know what's on the net that could kill it that thoroughly, but not enough to put a network analyzer on it to find out. All in all, given the wasted time, I have to say it's not worth it. It's a great little player until it blocks your entire network and wastes an hour of your time. After repeated episodes like this, I'll lower the rating to 2 stars and throw this thing in the trash.