Sony BDP S185 - new budget blu-ray player

[Anonymous]

Try your nearest Sony Centre....they appear (from earlier comments in this thread) to have stock.

Thanks for the reply Clare, but the Sony website also has it priced for £99.

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm. I've just looked on Sony's website and found it listed for pre-order at £134.99! http://www.sony.co.uk/product/blu-ray-disc-player/bdp-s185

 

[Clare Newsome]

No, not the Sony website - the real shops on your local high street or in nearby shopping centre!

List of all the UK Sony Centre shops here

 

[Anonymous]

Still, it seems like the news story promoting this as an affordable £80 player may be misguided, whatever Richer Sounds were and some Sony centre stores still are selling it for. Amazon now have it for pre-order at £109, which suggests this may not be a cheaper alternative to the 380 afterall.

 

[Anonymous]

EDIT: Double Post

 

[bigboss]

Have patience. Let it be available widely. Remember that the S380 retailed at £150 at launch. This is to cash in the popularity. Let's wait for Richer Sound's prices, apart from checking Sony's high street shops. I'm certain this will sell for £80 or less very soon & less than £50 on boxing day.

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

The Sony BDP-S185 Blu-ray player was officially launched today - more info in our news story here. Review to follow....

Have you managed to get one yet? - and if so when will you post the review?(sorry to hassle,appreciate there's a lot going on)

 

[cs2011]

The big limitation with this player is that it doesn't have a display.

If you want to use it to play CDs as well as BDs/DVDs (as I would), you have to have your TV switched on. Not impressed.

 

[Paul.]

So I assume this new player does bit stream audio if its the same functionality as the 380? I may pick one up when it gets cheaper, as my PS3 fat is a noisy beast and has no bit stream audio.

 

[bigboss]

The big limitation with this player is that it doesn't have a display.

If you want to use it to play CDs as well as BDs/DVDs (as I would), you have to have your TV switched on. Not impressed.

I never bother to read the display (well, I never use my BDP to play CDs). If you want a display, go for the £99 S380. For most, this £79 player will be adequate.

 

[cs2011]

None of the Sony players (or Panasonic, for that matter) have particularly informative displays.

I have a Sony DVP-SR600 midi sized DVD player, and that has a crap display too !

 

[Clare Newsome]

As confirmed elsewhere, we will post our Sony BDP-S185 review online here first - should be on the site next week; we've got the player in and it's going through its paces as I type this....

I'll link from this thread once the test is online.

 

[strapped for cash]

Thanks for the update Clare. Looking for ward to the review.

Assuming it fares well (which if course is always dangerous) I'll get one for my parents.

 

[strapped for cash]

Oh, and I forgot to ask, can the review team check whether the player emits a high-pitched whine in operation? It became a constant distraction with th S-370 and was one of the reasons I changed Blu-ray players. Many thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

I got mine today for £90 from my local sony dealer, and have been pleased with it so far

Fully agree with Big Boss, it should be adequate for most

Cheers

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

This is my first post to the forums, so please be gentle

I was just about to purchase a BDP-S380, when I caught sight of this new model recently introduced at IFA. My primary use cases are Blu-Ray playback and iPlayer streaming via a wired ethernet connection. The later is the attraction for my other half and justification for another box in the living room!

The one thing has me dithering over the purchase of the S380 are the seemingly widespread issues of iPlayer HD playback - see http://www.sony.co.uk/discussions/message/644151 for a long running thread (Feb - Sept '11) concerning stopping of HD playback around 20 - 25s into HD content.

So my questions are:

1. Can anyone comment on the S380 issues? Is it really as widespread as I think and therefore most probably a firmware defect or is it more a question of IP connectivity between the S380 and iPlayer content servers?

2. Any feedback from those who have purchased one regarding S185 performance on iPlayer HD content - anybody tried this and seen any issues thus far?

2. Will iPlayer HD streaming testing be part of the What HiFi? review scheduled to be published this coming week?

3. Can anybody offer guidance on S380 vs. S185 for the particular use cases I have?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Regards,

Richard.

 

[BenLaw]

I can't give you any comparison, but I've not really had a problem with iPlayer on the 380 - a couple of times it's paused for a short time, but mostly not at all, and I have a fairly slow internet connection.

 

[Anonymous]

I can't give you any comparison, but I've not really had a problem with iPlayer on the 380 - a couple of times it's paused for a short time, but mostly not at all, and I have a fairly slow internet connection.

Thanks BenLaw for the feedback. Just to be clear, you have had no problems streaming iPlayer content when selecting the "higher quality" option for a program. Is that correct? R.

 

[BenLaw]

I can't give you any comparison, but I've not really had a problem with iPlayer on the 380 - a couple of times it's paused for a short time, but mostly not at all, and I have a fairly slow internet connection.

Thanks BenLaw for the feedback. Just to be clear, you have had no problems streaming iPlayer content when selecting the "higher quality" option for a program. Is that correct? R.

Hi rlk,

Sorry for the delay in my reply. We use iplayer mostly for my gf to watch eastenders and it is only just now we have put on friday's episode. It is on the high quality option, and looks pretty good (on pioneer 428xd). The displayed download speed is normally 1.3 or 1.4mbps, right now it is 1.8. As I say, it will normally get through an episode with no pausing, there occasionally are pauses and only once has this happened so often as to be annoying.

 

[ear]

dvd upscale? on par with the 380?

 

[Clare Newsome]

Yes - the BDP-S185 is broadly on a par with the BDP-S380 for DVD upscaling, and certainly way better than previous sub-£100 BD players we've tested.

 

[ear]

thanks.

 

[bigboss]

I just noticed this budget blu-ray player from Sony. Looks very small & smart! Looks like Sony has got a real winner......watch out for a sub £50 Christmas offer!

As I predicted from the very beginning, it's now available at Tesco for £49.97! :clap:

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hot-deals/sony-s185#comment-2671924

 

[Anonymous]

Hi all,
I have just joined this forum and please be gentle

I recently purchased a Sony Bravia KDL-37EX720BAEP to use for HD movies watch. I am unpleasantly surprised when my TV can not connected with the external hard drive ( Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 2 TB , File system: NTFS).

Now i think to buy a ''Sony BDP-S185'' player, but I want to be sure that it will support my external hard drive and i can watch 3D and HD content movies from my external hard drive.

BDP-S185 support all HD and 3D format movies? I am sure I will not use CD/DVD/Blu-ray. I just need player who support all HD content movie formats and 3D. I like BDP-S185 price.

All my movies are in my external hard drive.

sorry for my bad English.

 

[visionary]

Hi vagonka

think I'm right in saying that most tvs/dvd players only talk to external drive in FAT32 and can't cope with NTFS

Others may correct me on this