Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray player with IPTV Sony’s BDP-S380 Blu-ray bantamweight packs quite a punch. A mere 36mm tall, it barely looks big enough to swallow discs, but this plasticky pugilist can hold its own against full-size separates and is well stocked with features. Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray player Budget offering: Sony BDP-S380 The BDP-S380 is IPTV enabled, …
Strange, I have 4oD, ITV player and of course the iPlayer, but just checked this morning and doesn't seem to be any method for Demand5. Some consistency across the bluray player ranges would be nice. I can use the browser to get to the Demand5 page but of course it want Flash.
Sony if you read this, could we get Demand5 on the PS3 and 4oD on your dedicated bluray players please?
Thanks
...it costs more than *you* are prepared to pay..
It's a *budget* blu-ray player. The proportion of people buying the device who will actually use the download feature is likely to be small. So keeping the predominantly unused memory off the cost of the machine makes sense.
Do you also winge when mobile phones come with an (empty) expansion memory slot?
I've owned this player (US-spec) for about a month, and your assessment, as far as it goes is spot on. I downgraded from the erstwhile TOTL BDP-1, which recently gave up the ghost. The BDP-S380 is certainly faster loading Blu-ray discs, and the internet connectivity is a bonus. Having experienced HT 3D, any 3D capability is not missed in the least (how anyone can enjoy it is beyond me), and lack of built-in wi-fi is also no cause for concern.
However, I do miss having the multi-channel outputs for playing SACD in surround, and musical performance via the analog outputs is not as good in general (cooler-sounding midrange, very thin bass). Clearly the addition of SACD was an afterthought, and while it's a nice little addition, it may give (or reinforce) the perception that high-res audio sources are not worth the price or trouble.
But, for the price (I paid less than US$110/£70, new) and intended market/purpose, it's more than satisfactory.
Overall, this looks like a smaller successor to the BDP-S370 (and smaller can be a positive), but the lack of DLNA playback over a LAN is a fairly hefty weight in the "d'oh!" column.
Mind you: as I've posted here before, the S370's DLNA implementation had its fair share of downsides - the biggest for me being the inability to play MP4-container video files over a network (i.e. over 90% of our own collection).
Whether by a firmware upgrade on the S370, or a side-feature of Synology's latest NAS OS, the player has only just started offering MP4 videos over DLNA on our home LAN. It would be ironic if, just as Sony gets its DLNA implementation approaching useful, they've removed it from the S370's follow-up...
I have had its predecessor (the 370) for ages and it is brilliant. As that was discontinued I bought a 380 for use in another room thinking it would be an upgraded version (however slight). Very disappointed to find that DLNA had been removed. If like me you are connecting it to a home network to stream your media this is a major issue. I really can't get me head around why it would have been removed as I limits you to running about with a USB stick to watch your movies.
Also, the review misses Xvid from the list of supported video formats. Obviously this is a very useful inclusion but again, this was supported on the 370 together with DivX ..which has been removed from the 380.
Despite these niggles it is still a great player and worth every penny, but a bit of a downgrade from the previous incarnation. A cynic would suggest that Sony are trying to push everyone onto the more expensive 4 and 5 series boxes which do include DivX and DLNA....
Sony has succeeded in creating a whole class of people who actually think that waiting a whole bloody minute after slotting in a disk before being able to actually see a menu is normal and acceptable.
Well, I guess congratulations are in order, then. The brainwashing is proceeding as planned, obviously.
my mid end pioneer that is 2 years old takes longer than that! so annoying i agree. and if i want to just take the disk out it still seems to take a minute to load the disk before i can eject! grrrrr. image quality is superb though!
its quicker to turn on the ps3 and play but then you have that annoying ps3 fan, which is the reason i got a dedicated player anyway.
I got its much bigger brother the S780 a few months back. I'm fairly happy with it, and have learnt not to interrupt it with remote presses too much when it's picking up streaming as it tends to get upset and hang.
My biggest beef is that it when it comes to streaming from NAS/Mac, it doesn't seem to accept as many codecs as the PS3. It's a bit annoying as one of the reasons I purchased the thing was so that I could let the PS3 concentrate on games only.
Great to see they haven't improved the pig-ugly remote control since I bought my 370. Why is it that even the sexiest, most slimline of shiny boxes always comes with an ugly lump of matte black plastic to control it? I don't believe I've ever seen an attractive one. You'd think it would receive some attention, with it being the part the user actually interacts with and sees the most.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
