Review Of The Sony BDP-S360 Blu Ray Player

Consumer Electronics — on September 30, 2009 at 10:30 pm | Comment Now

Sum n substance:

Thumbs up: Simple User interface, Fantabulous picture quality.

Thumbs down: No Wi-Fi, slow disk loading, no multichannel outputs.

Inside the trunk:
Price at launch :£200.00

Supported Format (Interlaced): 1080i, 480i (SDTV), 576i

Supported Format (Progressive) :1080p, 1080p/24, 480p, 720p

MPN: BDPS360BCEK

Inputs :USB2.0

Picture Adjustment Options : 24p True Cinema

THE WHIZ-KID SPEAKS:
This latest one from Sony offers good replacement to the BDP S350 with a nice decent set of features. With this one, I guess Sony is trying hard to move its standalone players out of the shadow of the PS3 and that too, without burning a hole in the user’s pocket.

This one looks absolutely drab with the conventional box shape and a full black finish. The only way to jazz this one up was probably to add a little ray of blue light and LOL they’ve done just that. For starters, the USB port is located at the back of the player. I mean what sense it makes to have the USB port behind. Everytime someone needs some easy access to media, he will have to search for it behind. To add to this there are no multichannel analogue outputs so you don’t get to enjoy any of the HD TV formats.

Web connection and downloading Live content is made possible with the Ethernet Ports. Alas, they haven’t included the Wi-Fi connectivity. This again is another huge disappointment especially after we have seen the marvels of Wi-Fi with the Samsung BD-P3600. The 1GB of memory which is required to store the downloads has to be added using the USB flash drive which plugs into the back of the player.

Its got something called as the Precision Drive which helps to stabilize any kind of playback which is bent or scratched. To add to the decent set of features we have the 1080/24p output, 1080p DVD upscaling and Bravia Sync.

This may not be a cornucopia of features but with the Xross Media Bar this one pretty much hits right on the spot. Well for the uninitiated this is the name of the brilliantly designed menu i.e. the user friendly interface. Being imported from the PS3 this one is chic and is damn easy to operate.

The layout of the remote is neat and all the controls have been placed spaciously without cluttering the remote.

The loading time of this one again hits it back. It took approximately 54 secs to load “Star trek”. Whoa.. now that’s a lot of time especially when compared to its Korean counterparts. Though this can improved upon by using the Quick Start mode, doing this eats up a lot of power.

The Sony BDP-S360 Blu Ray Player

Coming to the picture quality… with a price tag like that, the hi-def picture quality that this one offers is brilliant. I won’t say that it can match up with the speeds of the latest ones by Panasonic and Pioneer but its surely worth all the talk. There is a lot of detail in every scene and every frame looks absolutely magnificient on this one. It kind of gives a killer 3D feel to the entire scene. Every colouur on the spectrum looks brilliant and the colours blend in really smoothly. The dark colours are deep and bright shades are mesmerizing as well. Frankly the colour fidelity is just so brilliant it just absorbs you into the whole scene.

Converting Star Trek’s HD soundtrack into LPCM was just as easy. The results were exceptional and I could hardly make out any difference between the deck’s decoding and the test receiver.

Playing Metallica’s ‘turn the page’ on the player also provided wonderful results. The sound quality is absolutely brilliant and the sound levels are well balanced.

Nitty-Gritty: For a £200 player this one gives a power packed performance. However the few missing features compared to its rivals take a toll on this one’s overall value. Add some more cash and you could definitely get a player with features like Wi-Fi and multichannel output. But if all those features don’t really make any sense to you then what are you waiting for?? just go ahead and grab it!!!