batmanlegends's Full Review: Sony BDP-S300 Blu-Ray Player
Early pricing on this model was $400 and sadly, not worth even with the new lower prices.
The early models of the Blu Ray players are slow. And, I do mean slow.
The issue with early Blu Ray players makes it a wonder the format beat out HD. The Sony 300 is much slower than the Toshiba Hi Def model.
Another feature that is missing with the Blu Ray is the still expensive HDMI cable that comes with the Toshiba Hi Def players. Correction, came with the Toshiba Hi Def Players.
This Sony came with the 1.0 Hi Def standards, which demonstrates the ironic victory over Hi Def, which came loaded with features out the gate.
Being a Blu Ray, it will give a great picture. But, without the 2.0 standards, this is ultimately just a glorified DVD player; but, with super slow load times.
A nice feature of just about any hi-def player is that it upconverts most standard DVDs to near hi def quality; which brings us to the major issue with the Blu Ray format. Until the studios make it worth while, there's almost no reason to buy Blu Ray DVDs.
How will the studios respond? Sadly, I suspect they will find a way to disallow upconversion, as opposed to giving real reasons to drop $25 to 35 on a Blu Ray disc. With 50 GBs of storage, we should be getting tons of extra special features; but, so far, we are not. We're getting the same as a 2 DVD special edition. Even the collector editions on Blu ray are not giving us the extras we should be receiving.
If the studios decide to start giving us the features, expect to see Blu Ray ake off. If and when this happens, you'll want a good Blu Ray player that has some speed, has 2.0 standards, including Picture in picture, and most importantly, an ethernet port for fast firmware upgrades. Or, even better, wireless internet capabilities.
Unfortunately, the 300 and even the 301 models just don't provide the power, speed, or features that the price would seem to dictate.
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