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I'm a big fan of Sony products but I've had my share of problems. I contacted Sony for assistance. This time, the movie won't load at all. But I'm leaning towards getting another player like the Panasonic. A week ago, I'm watching a Blu-ray movie and all of sudden near the end of the movie, it stops and freezes. I went through trying to start the movie again and decided that the disc must be bad so I took the disc back to the store and got the same title. I purchased this Sony BDP-S550 over a year ago because of the reviews and because Sony had won the Blu-ray contest with other formats. I don't know if I am going to ship it or get another Sony player.
Lastly, I've read online that this is a common problem with this player. To fix it, I have to ship it to a Sony authorized dealer for $112.00. What the problem is remains elusive. I then purchased a lens cleaner. This player has played my Blu-ray DVDs very well but then again, I'd say I've only watched less than ten actual Blu-ray movies during the time that I've had this player. I've seen other situations where just after the warranty runs out, the device goes bad.
I tried other Blu-ray discs that I had along with other standard DVD titles and nothing works. The cleaner did ok but still, no discs will play. Mine is one month over a year old and now no player and no warranty. Still a good player.when it works.and mine doesn't.and I'm not happy.
Or maybe it just has to do with the size of the disc being inserted---example, inserting a disc of Star Trek the Original Series tends to take up to 30 seconds to load, but never any longer. This is very helpful as the TV I use can technically support 1080p, but its native resolution is 720p. I would not be surprised if older players were even slower than this. I will personally beat over the head anyone who watches a movie with me at this volume, then after its done, changes back to the television without lowering the volume.The menu is quite good, not only easy but almost fun to navigate, as I feel like I might find some as of yet unexplored options to make for a different or more unique movie experience.
For reference, on my HTS, during normal TV, a volume of 10 would be very low, a volume of 16-18 is averagely loud. A volume of 25 is of decent sound, and 21 is soft. Maybe its how all Blu Ray players are these days, but the speed is atrociously slow. What drags this down a star is its problems and little "quirks".The load speed. It also lets you change the output video quality to 720p or 1080i or 1080p etcetera.
Not freeze, not stop, but pause, as in, the movie pauses and there's the II symbol for pause on-screen. This is easily corrected by pressing the "Play" button. This gets troublesome.One odd quirk which I don't think is very serious, nor that many people would take note of, is a tendency, during a Blu Ray movie, out of literally nowhere, for the movie to pause. I wouldn't have any frame of reference though, as this is my first Blu Ray player. To distract us, though, it shows us a tiny little wireframe Enterprise shooting phasers.One of the biggest gripes I have, though, is its autoload.
When I open up the Blu Ray after first turning it on, load in a new disc, close it, it will load. When I bought this, it was the most recent one available.So it does what it's supposed to, it plays Blu Ray discs and DVDs and upscales them. This has happened to me quite frequently, but not nearly enough to be of significant nuisance.Another big huge problem which is easily resolved is the volume. For some odd reason, every Blu Ray played on this player is inherently low on volume.
A volume of 25 is very loud. With my DVD player on, 16-18 is loud, and 25 is extremely loud.By contrast, 16-18 is virtually inaudible on the Blu Ray player. Downloads happen fast and quick and efficient.It plays.
As a result, playing Blu Rays on 1080p tends to have the picture suffer some scratching or tearing things which are very unremarkable and the average viewer would never be able to notice.So that's it, really. That's pretty much what it should do and it does it. I have some ideas as to how this work, but here is the summary: It works sometimes.
if the TV is not on, or if it's turned on to normal TV.If I unload a disc and load in a new one while on the Blu Ray menu, it will NOT auto-load, and instead I need to select BD-ROM and press Ok in orderfor it to load. 30 is around the reasonable volume for a cinematic experience with loud sounds. I have no regrets and I would buy it again if it broke.
SONY support says it isn't an uncommon problem and it needs to be sent to Texas for repair. System worked fine for 10 months. Then it stopped recognizing blu-ray discs, even discs from our collection that it had played on numerous occasions before. Even though it is still under warranty, the cost of shipping makes it hardly worth it. I expect more than 10 months of use from a $350 product.
A few weeks later (total time since I shipped the unit to Sony was now more than a month) I received a message from Sony's TX facility, saying that I needed to send them $329 to have the unit repaired. I ordered this blu-ray player from Amazon in March 2009. I contacted Sony service and was told that the unit was still covered by warranty and I should ship it to their Pennsylvania facility for repair at no cost (except for shipping charges, of course). But then I was told by Sony that the unit would need to be shipped to their Texas repair facility, since they'd stopped doing repairs at their PA facility. Lesson learned: never buy another Sony product. I shipped the unit via FedEx and insured it for $200.
Because, they said, when there is physical damage to the unit, the warranty is voided. It stopped playing discs in August 2009. Why not $104. Some time later I received an email from Sony saying that the unit had been damaged during shipping, and that I should put in a claim with FedEx for $104, to cover the cost of the shipping damage. FedEx promptly paid the claim. In other words, according to them, by shipping the unit to Sony as instructed and then having it damaged during shipping, I'd voided the warranty.
I bought a Panasonic blu-ray player to replace the Sony, and couldn't be happier.
The bluray player i order was out of stock and they replace it with a better bluray player great service.
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