Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player

5 comments

1. 

   sonofagunk on December 3, 2009 at 6:53 am

   Bought it to use with Netflix. EVERYWHERE it seems to say that it is compatible. You do not find out that it is feature that is coming in the future until you hook it up and try it.

   Sending it back tomorrow.

   Love the comments from the other people that says it is everywhere. Have ANY of you even seen the box? No where to be found on it.

   and here is the MAIN part about the player from amazon. Other places on the page it says it is coming (like in fine print under a picture and such), but far down the page but in 5 other places it says that it plays netflix, youtube, … NO DISCLAIMER.

   (October 13, 2009)
   
   In addition to playing Blu-ray Discs and DVDs, the Sony BDP-N460 streams one of the largest collections of premium and free on-demand entertainment from the BRAVIA Internet Video platform, including thousands of movies, TV programs, and music from from over 25 leading content providers–including YouTube, Slacker, and Netflix. Simply connect the BDP-N460 to your existing Internet connection

   DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU EXPECT NETFLIX ANY TIME SOON. If it were anywhere close to being available, they would have a date. They lauch a product in Fall of 2009 and they are adding a new feature Fall of 2009 but can say exactly when?

2. 

   Nicholas Gemas on December 3, 2009 at 9:07 am

   I purchased this on 11/28/09, looking for an upgrade to my ancient and archaic Sony BDP-S300. Out of the box it was OK, nothing special, usual assortment of RCA-style cables that nobody actually uses. When will they start packaging these players with HDMI cables? I already have HDMI cables, but this just seems like a basic convenience that none of the major manufacturers are doing, but should.

   The must-have, meat-and-potatoes features I was looking for: 1- fast load times, and 2- the ability to pause or stop a BD disc, power the unit off, and have the unit start the disc from the point left off automatically on restart. This second feature was a MUST HAVE and if the player didn’t do it, it was going back to the store.

   I tested three discs: a standard DVD (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, the New Line Platinum Series edition in the bright green case, widescreen), the new Star Trek (2009) Paramount BD, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Disney 2-disc BD. I selected these three films/discs because Austin Powers is a pretty thorough widescreen DVD with the usual assortment of piracy warnings and disclaimers, Star Trek has 4 trailers that you must click through individually to get to the movie, and Pirates is one of those typical Disney BDs fully loaded with trailers, previews, disclaimers and very Java-heavy. I was also testing the DVD to test the upconvert capabilities of this player.

   A note: my display is a Samsung PN50a550 50″ plasma TV with HDMI.

   On first hookup to the television, powering unit “on”, inserted the Austin Powers DVD, here’s a set-up screen asking me to pick my different preferences. Ok, no problem. Then it wants me to select my movie. Surprised it did not pick up the DVD automatically. I have to manually choose whether I want Internet video, BD data (what’s this?), or the DVD disc. Ok so I select the DVD.

   What happened? Austin Powers standard DVD looked great, upconverted flawlessly on this player, loaded VERY quickly. I stopped the film, powered down the player and restarted the player and the DVD started playback immediately without any buttons pressed on the remote control. It started right from the point where I stopped it, which is the second feature I’m looking for. Good so far.

   Then I put in the Star Trek (2009) BD, there was a little bit of a load time before the trailers. I clicked through the trailers and got into the movie. Image quality in 1080P looks OK, nothing special, not appreciably better or worse than my old BDP-S300. I paused the movie, powered down the unit, and restarted the unit to see if it would pick back up again automatically like it did on the Austin Powers DVD. No such luck. Here we are again with the somewhat annoying blue screen asking me to select which video I want. I select BD disc again, and… it loads the disc direct from the beginning all over again. Here is the “Paramount Hi-Def” animated logo. Here’s the first trailer. Ok, it did not load the movie automatically from the leave-off point like it did for the DVD. Ok, well here we go with Pirates of the Caribbean…

   So I insert the Pirates BD, again there’s that annoying blue screen asking me what video I want to select, I choose “BD disc”. There’s a wait while the disc loads, maybe 30 seconds but still annoying. I know older players that have no wait for the disc to load, why is there a wait here? Finally the disc loads and there’s the usual Disney schwag: trailers, promos, disclaimers, buzz-whoosh Disney Hi-Def logo, finally the movie starts. I use the remote to advance to one of the middle chapters. Image quality in widescreen 1080P looks OK, again not better or worse than the BDP-S300. I’m thinking because this is an older BD, it might allow me to pause/stop, shut down the unit and restart the disc on powerup. Aaahhh no such luck. The player wants me to select “BD disc” all over again, and again I have to start the disc from scratch as with the Star Trek BD previously.

   So the unit has somewhat longish load times on the BDs, and also does not save your progress in the movie. It did do this on the DVD, but no such luck on the BDs.

   Some other observations: the remote control is typical Sony (i.e. small buttons, not ergonomic, no backlight), but it is rather minimalist; there’s no eject button and no dimmer option on the remote to dim the counter on the player during playback. There is a blue light on the front of the player above the counter, no way to disable this during playback. Player has no onboard memory, looks like you have to use your separate memory card.

   So I am somewhat disappointed by the performance, specifically the load time (as this player is brand-new to the market, there should be no load time at all), also the irritating blue menu you must click through before the player loads the discs, also it does not allow saving progress on BD discs. Other than all the above it “feels” fairly mediocre and I can’t justify keeping the player. Alas I will just go back to my old BPD-S300 for now.

   Until we meet again…

3. 

   MARK on December 3, 2009 at 9:22 am

   The player is fine, with no “cons” yet except the remote….
   
   I’ve owned three BD players, one HD to date, and this has by far the worst remote I’ve seen. I’ve seen better remotes on $39 DVD players with no name. No eject button either? Sony, I know you could do better. This one will never see the light of day again, its in the draw for you til I get the streaming Oppo!

4. 

   Tomato Guy on December 3, 2009 at 9:29 am

   My fault. I had spent a considerable amount of time reviewing Blu-ray units. It seems the Samsung models (reportedly) had their networking issues. Then I finally decided on a Sony Bravia LCD TV, so it seemed logical to narrow in on the Sony Blu-ray units (one less remote to fumble with). After considering the BDP-S560 for a while, the N460 showed up as an option. I liked that is had the streaming from Netflix, etc. It was also listed as “Easy WiFi Setup”. I ordered it. I didn’t read all of the fine print – WiFi required a linksys WET-610 – thats another $100. Not even the Sony web site makes that clear when you do a comparison among the models.

   I already have a Roku box for Netflix (Which has been a GREAT investment, something I highly recommend) so the Netflix access in the Blu-ray unit was trying to think ahead as more services become available.

   While I can’t assess the quality of the unit, I did put a rating that reflects my disappointment. I am returning the unit as it arrived this afternoon. I will likely go with the Sony BDP-S560. If you don’t need WiFi, the unit may be just fine.

5. 

   Roy R. Platt on December 3, 2009 at 11:30 am

   Sony Bravia-Sync made it VERY easy to hook up the Sony BDP-N460 to my Sony Bravia KDL-32XBR6 HDTV. I used Mediabridge HDMI and Ethernet Cables (from Amazon).

   The Mediabridge cables came in cardboard boxes that were easy to open and recyclable. Both the Sony BDP-460 and the Sony KDL-32XBR are Energy-Star rated.

   Sony recommends buying a Sony USM2GL external memory to “to enjoy additional content (such as BONUS VIEW/BD-LIVE) on certain Blu-ray Disc titles”.

   It was VERY easy to set up Amazon Video-On-Demand, but it is much easier to search Amazon Videos-On-Demand using a computer than it is to use the “search” function on the Sony BDP-N460. After using a computer to find the video that I wanted to watch, the video was VERY easy to play on the Sony BDP-N460.

   The ’search” function on the Sony BDP-N460 uses an onscreen keyboard that is like a touch-tone telephone dial. When searching, you cannot enter more than 19 characters, including spaces. This seems to be a major fault that hopefully will be corrected soon. The onscreen keyboard also does not include some characters that I have used in my various passwords.

   YouTube is particularly awkward when using the Sony BDP-N460. Sony should adopt the 15 year old technology used in WebTV and MSNTV2 units. The Sony remote already has all of the right buttons.

   Since writing my review of this product, I tried to use it to access Netflix. To activate the Netflix streaming feature, Netflix requires that BOTH one’s computer AND one’s Sony BDP-N460 be connected to the internet at the same time. This requires a router, which I do not have. I cancelled my Netflix account. Amazon Video-On-Demand DOES NOT require that both one’s computer AND Sony BDP-N460 be connected at the same time. I had no problem activating Amazon Video-On-Demand.

   After canceling my Netflix account, I tried to contact Netflix by email to tell them why I cancelled my account. I could not find any way to contact Netflix by email, so I had to call the Netflix Customer Service number. I dread calling ANY Customer Service phone number, as this usually requires a long time on hold and then having to try to figure out what Gupta Rao or Babu Khan is nattering on about.

   Netflix Customer Service answered instantly, and I am quite certain that I spoke to a normal American, who told me that he could activate my Netflix account over the phone. It might have been nice if the Netflix website also mentioned that people who do not have routers could call Netflix Customer Service to have their account activated.

   One can only wonder how many potential customers Netflix has lost because of this. I have since watched Netflix with no problems of any kind.