Post by DYohn on Apr 5, 2010 20:35:26 GMT -5
A week ago I replaced my Sony BDP-S300 Blu Ray Disk player with a new model, the BDP-S570. The S570 is one of Sony's newest players, and in the middle of their consumer line as far as model lineup. It was amazingly low priced at $249 with free shipping on the Sony Style web site.
I decided to upgrade from the S300 for two main reasons. First, the load times on the S300 are excruciatingly slow, and second it cannot bitstream the newest audio codecs so I was forced to use its on-board decoder and analog output. With my new Emotiva prepro I wanted to reduce cable complexity and use HDMI only.
I started doing some research into the newest crop of BRD players and was convinced I would probably get the Oppo 83. But a few reviews on CNET and elsewhere said the S570 had "the fastest load times ever tested" and they ranked it as faster than and 83. It also has some of the new whiz-bang stuff like wifi, SACD compatibility, Netflix and Amazon streaming, Profile 2.0, 1Gb internal memory, HDMI 1.4 and 3D capability. So I looked up the Sony and found it was half the price of the Oppo, and decided to go for it. I figured that for $250 if I hated it I could send it back or pawn it off onto someone else.
Impressions of the Sony S570:
If you are an equipment snob like me and want your gear to feel substantial, like a quality device, this machine is NOT for you. I thought the box was empty when it arrived. The machine feels like it weights a few ounces (actually it weighs 2Kg or about 4 1/2 pounds.) Upon opening it, I was even more disappointed. this thing is super cheap feeling - you know how some plastic feels "good" and other plastic feels "cheap" and flimsy? This feels cheap. The buttons on the front are almost repulsive little Chiclets about the size of the buttons on my cell phone and remind me of some kind of toy made by Coleco. The disc tray feels like I will break it if I push it in. At least the remote is pretty nice so I won't have to touch the cheesy buttons. If just feels cheap. The power cord is molded into the chassis. The chassis is a non-standard size, which always drives me mad. It is almost a standard rack width at 17" wide, but it is only 8" deep, meaning it is too shallow for any other piece of gear to sit on top of it. I had to rig some rear "feet" for my DVR to sit it on top the Sony. Initial impressions were not good at all and I thought I had made a mistake buying this thing. At least once it is in the rack it doesn't look cheap. The all-black front is not as nice as the blue tinted plastic on the S300, but it looks like it belongs in a good equipment rack. Just don't touch it.
The connectors on the back feature a single HDMI jack, component and composite video, stereo analog audio (that goes with the composite video), Ethernet, digital coax and optical, and USB. There are no multichannel analog audio outputs if you need these, and I found it odd that it would offer legacy video outputs but force anyone using those to only use digital audio or HDMI for high-resolution audio. The USB connector is interesting as it allows the user to connect a memory stick (and the promise later a hard drive) for storing downloaded video. There is also a USB connector on the front and the machine can display a variety of digital image formats and play back a variety of digital audio formats directly from the USB connections, or via its networking capability. So while I probably won't use it as such, the machine has the ability to serve as a media hub. That's pretty nice.
I plugged it in and connected via HDMI to my UMC-1. The Sony remote codes were in the Harmony database. I fired it up and went through the very logical and intuitive setup routine on-screen without having to refer to the owner's manual. I connected it to my network wirelessly (it has 801.n wireless built in) and had it check for a firmware update. There was one, so before I could try it I let it download and update which took about 15 minutes to complete. After it rebooted, I started exploring.
The user interface looks exactly like the PS3. This is not surprising since this box is pretty much the PS3 without the gaming capability or any on-board hard drive. It was intuitive and easy to navigate. I went to the setup screens and went through all the settings to see if I needed to adjust anything. Then I popped in a Blu Ray disc (Up.)
Wow. I was shocked. Where the old S300 would give me several "loading" screens and I could almost walk the half mile to the nearest Starbucks, get a latte and walk back before a disc was ready to play, this thing flashed the screen a couple of times and boom, it was ready to go. It was literally the fastest load I'd ever seen, faster than the CD player in my car can load a CD. Very impressive. The picture quality was also outstanding, as I expected. The sound, however, was not right.
"Up" has a dts-HD soundtrack, and the Emotiva UMC-1 told me the Sony was sending it multi-channel PCM. Hmm. I went back into the setup screens and it said dts was set to output as dts, but there did not seem to be any settings associated with the HD codecs. Hmm again. So I stopped the disc and thumbed through the owners manual. No mention of anything special I need to do. Time to hit up Google. Nothing obvious came up. Back to the owner's manual and I notice in the troubleshooting section a problem called "Dolby True HD and dts HD bitstream does not work." Aha. It seems one must set a user setting called "BD Audio Mix Output" to "OFF" and then the high def codecs will bitstream. Oh really? So I did this, and boom the Emotiva told me the sound track was dts-HD. There is no where other than this troubleshooting guide that mentions this, and the setup information says the "BD Audio Mix" function has something to do with the secondary audio tracks.
So, if any of you purchase this box or it's siblings, be sure to set this function to "OFF" if you have a pre-pro that decodes the new codecs.
After enjoying "Up" I tried the Netflix streaming function and cued up "The King of California." It came up on the screen surprisingly quickly, and the video quality was not HD but acceptable for casual viewing. It did seem to have to re-buffer too often, but perhaps adding a nice big 32G memory stick to the rear USB port will help this.
Next I tried playing back an SACD (Madman Across The Water.) The S570 outputs SACD as either Multi-PCM or Multi-channel DSD. I had set it to DSD, but the Emotiva will not accept a DSD input. The Sony detected this via the HDMI handshake and output the music as multi-channel PCM. It sounded pretty darn good.
Bottom line, my bias against cheap-feeling gear was wrong and I love this box. I didn't think I'd ever use the Profile 2.0 BD-Live features or something like Netflix streaming but I was wrong, I had a good time checking it out. I still think I'll never use the 3D features but who knows. I am happy I bought this and feel it is one of the best bargain buys I have ever made for my HT.
If however it really is as cheap as it feels and it breaks down after a few months, I'll be sure to let everyone here know.
I decided to upgrade from the S300 for two main reasons. First, the load times on the S300 are excruciatingly slow, and second it cannot bitstream the newest audio codecs so I was forced to use its on-board decoder and analog output. With my new Emotiva prepro I wanted to reduce cable complexity and use HDMI only.
I started doing some research into the newest crop of BRD players and was convinced I would probably get the Oppo 83. But a few reviews on CNET and elsewhere said the S570 had "the fastest load times ever tested" and they ranked it as faster than and 83. It also has some of the new whiz-bang stuff like wifi, SACD compatibility, Netflix and Amazon streaming, Profile 2.0, 1Gb internal memory, HDMI 1.4 and 3D capability. So I looked up the Sony and found it was half the price of the Oppo, and decided to go for it. I figured that for $250 if I hated it I could send it back or pawn it off onto someone else.
Impressions of the Sony S570:
If you are an equipment snob like me and want your gear to feel substantial, like a quality device, this machine is NOT for you. I thought the box was empty when it arrived. The machine feels like it weights a few ounces (actually it weighs 2Kg or about 4 1/2 pounds.) Upon opening it, I was even more disappointed. this thing is super cheap feeling - you know how some plastic feels "good" and other plastic feels "cheap" and flimsy? This feels cheap. The buttons on the front are almost repulsive little Chiclets about the size of the buttons on my cell phone and remind me of some kind of toy made by Coleco. The disc tray feels like I will break it if I push it in. At least the remote is pretty nice so I won't have to touch the cheesy buttons. If just feels cheap. The power cord is molded into the chassis. The chassis is a non-standard size, which always drives me mad. It is almost a standard rack width at 17" wide, but it is only 8" deep, meaning it is too shallow for any other piece of gear to sit on top of it. I had to rig some rear "feet" for my DVR to sit it on top the Sony. Initial impressions were not good at all and I thought I had made a mistake buying this thing. At least once it is in the rack it doesn't look cheap. The all-black front is not as nice as the blue tinted plastic on the S300, but it looks like it belongs in a good equipment rack. Just don't touch it.
The connectors on the back feature a single HDMI jack, component and composite video, stereo analog audio (that goes with the composite video), Ethernet, digital coax and optical, and USB. There are no multichannel analog audio outputs if you need these, and I found it odd that it would offer legacy video outputs but force anyone using those to only use digital audio or HDMI for high-resolution audio. The USB connector is interesting as it allows the user to connect a memory stick (and the promise later a hard drive) for storing downloaded video. There is also a USB connector on the front and the machine can display a variety of digital image formats and play back a variety of digital audio formats directly from the USB connections, or via its networking capability. So while I probably won't use it as such, the machine has the ability to serve as a media hub. That's pretty nice.
I plugged it in and connected via HDMI to my UMC-1. The Sony remote codes were in the Harmony database. I fired it up and went through the very logical and intuitive setup routine on-screen without having to refer to the owner's manual. I connected it to my network wirelessly (it has 801.n wireless built in) and had it check for a firmware update. There was one, so before I could try it I let it download and update which took about 15 minutes to complete. After it rebooted, I started exploring.
The user interface looks exactly like the PS3. This is not surprising since this box is pretty much the PS3 without the gaming capability or any on-board hard drive. It was intuitive and easy to navigate. I went to the setup screens and went through all the settings to see if I needed to adjust anything. Then I popped in a Blu Ray disc (Up.)
Wow. I was shocked. Where the old S300 would give me several "loading" screens and I could almost walk the half mile to the nearest Starbucks, get a latte and walk back before a disc was ready to play, this thing flashed the screen a couple of times and boom, it was ready to go. It was literally the fastest load I'd ever seen, faster than the CD player in my car can load a CD. Very impressive. The picture quality was also outstanding, as I expected. The sound, however, was not right.
"Up" has a dts-HD soundtrack, and the Emotiva UMC-1 told me the Sony was sending it multi-channel PCM. Hmm. I went back into the setup screens and it said dts was set to output as dts, but there did not seem to be any settings associated with the HD codecs. Hmm again. So I stopped the disc and thumbed through the owners manual. No mention of anything special I need to do. Time to hit up Google. Nothing obvious came up. Back to the owner's manual and I notice in the troubleshooting section a problem called "Dolby True HD and dts HD bitstream does not work." Aha. It seems one must set a user setting called "BD Audio Mix Output" to "OFF" and then the high def codecs will bitstream. Oh really? So I did this, and boom the Emotiva told me the sound track was dts-HD. There is no where other than this troubleshooting guide that mentions this, and the setup information says the "BD Audio Mix" function has something to do with the secondary audio tracks.
So, if any of you purchase this box or it's siblings, be sure to set this function to "OFF" if you have a pre-pro that decodes the new codecs.
After enjoying "Up" I tried the Netflix streaming function and cued up "The King of California." It came up on the screen surprisingly quickly, and the video quality was not HD but acceptable for casual viewing. It did seem to have to re-buffer too often, but perhaps adding a nice big 32G memory stick to the rear USB port will help this.
Next I tried playing back an SACD (Madman Across The Water.) The S570 outputs SACD as either Multi-PCM or Multi-channel DSD. I had set it to DSD, but the Emotiva will not accept a DSD input. The Sony detected this via the HDMI handshake and output the music as multi-channel PCM. It sounded pretty darn good.
Bottom line, my bias against cheap-feeling gear was wrong and I love this box. I didn't think I'd ever use the Profile 2.0 BD-Live features or something like Netflix streaming but I was wrong, I had a good time checking it out. I still think I'll never use the 3D features but who knows. I am happy I bought this and feel it is one of the best bargain buys I have ever made for my HT.
If however it really is as cheap as it feels and it breaks down after a few months, I'll be sure to let everyone here know.
