Since my husband got his TV Ears he is able to enjoy television again. This has opened up all kinds of new adventures for him, so, I decided to purchase his favorite movie, Bullitt starring Steve McQueen on Blu-ray disc for Christmas. Of course, that also meant that I would need to purchase a Blu-ray player as well. After reading a few reviews of Blu-ray players I bought the Sony Blu-ray Disc/DVD Player BDP-S360 model, mainly since we have had great experiences with Sony products in the past. A great, inexpensive Blu-ray player that delivers Sony standards of excellence. Performance The results are amazing! The player will connect to my computer through an ethernet cable for firmware upgrades or to play a movie through it. Playback Quality The Blu-ray player has a full HD 1080p output for Blu-ray discs and will upgrade standard DVDs to 1080p. It has a 24p True Cinema capability and comes with Dolby True HD and DTS-HD. Ease of Use The player was easy to set up with our Sony KDL-40V3000 LCD Flat Panel HDTV. The Sony products sync with each other and all I had to do was connect a HMDI cable to both the player and television, choose a few options and we were ready to pop popcorn and watch the movie.

Meri

Northern, FL

We purchased this Sony BDP-S301(Sam's Club version of the BDP-S300, only difference being the S301 included an HDMI cable) Blu-Ray player fairly early on along with a 40" Sony flat panel HDTV, so as a result, while it has been a very reliable and solid piece of equipment, it does take about a minute to power on and load Blu-ray discs. I think this has improved somewhat with firmware upgrades. It's very easy to use and has a plethora of output options for both Video and audio. Picture quality is excellent on both Blu-ray and DVD discs. It does a very decent job of upconverting DVD to the high definition TV. The remote works well and is very straight forward. It also can control the 40" Sony flat panel TV we have. The old Sony Trinitron TVs were always of the best quality, and these Sony product are no exception. We have owned this Blu-ray player for about 4 years, and I have no doubt it will give us many more years of use!

fam4him

Waterloo, IA

Sony has really hit the mark with the Blu ray concept. Expect to be using this format long after the Toshiba HDDVD is  just a pricey doorstop. Great picture, and Blu was smart enough to formalize double layer before launch. Poor HDDVDs aer worthless when their DL format comes out.

shadesofgrey2x

Hollywood, FL

My sister purchase a home theather system recently this blue-ray player being one items. let me start by saying its pricie but i have never ever in my entire life seen such a crystal clear picture where the colors are vivid they make you drop your jaw.

bluchameleon

Chesapeake, VA

I received my **Sony BDP-S560 Blu-Ray Player** as a gift from a friend who had heard that I'd been avoiding Blu-ray. I never thought I would want to jump onto the "craze". However, now it's hard to look at DVD the same ever again, literally and metaphorically. The video quality, for both Blu-ray and DVD discs, is great. I tested it out with Celine Dion's Las Vegas Concert on Blu-ray and Inception on Blu-ray, playing them on an LG 32LD350 32 inch LCD TV. All I could think was, "Wow!" The images on each were incredibly detailed. The vivid colors and smooth frame-rate of the Celine Dion concert was especially impressive. The only real complaint I have is that the menus took a little getting used to, and the load time was a little slow. But from what I understand, the load-time is relatively fast when compared to other similar players.

challengingcase

Inverness, FL

I bought the Sony BDP S-360 for around a hundred bucks in the middle of 2010. I was enticed by the device becuase of the low price... seemed like at that time it was on its way out as a tangible model. My interest was based on a desire to have a stand alone blu-ray device for a high definition television in one of our bedrooms. The BDP S-360 is an excellent bluray player and also does a very good job in up-converting standard DVDs. The latter is importand since most of us still have relatively large collections of DVDs and and are only recently investigating blurays. Please note that there are later models now that have more functionality... especially the capability of streaming. Web based content is becoming more prevelant with Netflix, amazon, hulu, etc. so if one is in the market for a bluray player, it might be wise to go after a later Sony model that has streaming capabilities, especially ones with Wifi capabilities.

dogmatix

State College, PA

The sony bdp s300 dvd blu ray player is a 1080p with dvd upscalling via hdmi. I still have an extensive dvd collection that I use my old dvds for but of course have been switching over to blu ray :).  Its pretty easy to use I use the remote , which by the way I wish was backlit but its not too big a deal,  seamlessly with the functions. Picture and sound quality are great. They have played every disc I put in them. Load times of the discs are relatively good don't really an issue from what I can tell. Just make sure you update your firmware if you haven't done it and some disc doesn't work or play. Set up was pretty easy. Hooked it up to and HDMI cable. Note that its not recommended to get the cable at your local electronics store imo , don't really need monster or rocketfish , when you can get it at a considerable discount online for a few bucks with great a/v results. Warranty is 1 year parts and labor but haven't had the need to use that, solid unit recommended.

parker1000

Fullerton, CA

First off, we are early adopters which means that we bought a Blu Ray player very early on.  There was still a battle among the HD players and Blu Ray players and we took a risk.  Thankfully, Blu Ray won and we were happy. On the plus side, this is a Sony product which to me automatically means quality.  Generally, it is pretty great. The picture is crisp and clear.  It plays most movies and up-converts regular DVD's to increase the picture quality. Now here is why I rate it so low. It takes about 5 years (okay maybe 3 minutes) to just start this Blu Ray player. We have an ongoing joke in our house that if we want to watch the movie, we have to go warm up the DVD player about an hour or two in advance.  Once it finally starts up, it takes about 1-2 minutes before it opens the CD slot to insert the Blu Ray disc.  Once it's in, it's another 3 minutes before it gets to any screen. At this point it is totally up in the air whether or not the Blu Ray disc will play.  We've had to update the firmware 3-4 times in the past 2 years.  This is the only way to get some discs to play. If you have never done a firmware update, it can take up to an hour.  Some discs skip, others just don't play.   I do wish we waited longer. I'd bet the new Sony Blu Ray players are a lot better.

cking9365

Madison, CT

I bought the Sony Blu Ray player for our big family Christmas gift and we love it! It has completely changed the way we watch movies in our house. The picture quality is amazing and the sound is so much better too. We love the extra features that come with Blu-Ray movies like extra special features. When you pause the movie it shows a timeline of that specific movie. I love the fact that we can watch all of our regular DVDs on this player also. I am happy to pay more for this kind of quality and the setup could not have been easier. We opened the Blu-Ray player Christmas morning and by the afternoon we were watching our new movies on our new player. It has completely improved our family movie nights and just about beats going to an actual movie theater. We have never had any problems with the player itself and even reads scratched discs that would not play on our regular DVD player. Hope to have this for a long time!

rdesatoff

Hurricane, UT

We went Hi-Tech this time with a HD 1080 flat screen and now the Sony Blu-ray/DVD to watch our movies on. What a wonderful difference in the sound and picture. We played our first Blu-ray movie rental and thoroughly enjoyed the sharp picture we received. What a difference! It was great also to still view our DVD movies of which we have many and all on one device - it is well worth the money.

softy

Las Vegas, NV