In the June magazine there is a review of the Sony SMP-N200 and the review states it can receive Netflix. I have this box with the latest firmware but no Netflix?
Am I missing something whathifi?
Am I missing something whathifi?
Sony SMP-N200 review & Netflix
- Thread starter topbloke55
- Start date
jeallen01
Well-known member
Having already bought a SMP-N200 (in Dec 2011) and just having had it go wrong this afternoon, I would add a note of caution about reliability and support issues:
I bought mine from Amazon - and since the unit was out of the 30-day Return period, the website advised me to contact the Manufacturer: BIG mistake as you will see:
I then spent a long time on the phone to Sony Tech Support, explained the problem FOUR times (looks like an external PSU fault or an internal fault in the SMP-N200), and the guy having FINALLY accepted that the unit was probably faulty and referred me to the local service agent in W. London, for which I was given just a phone number.
I then called that number - TWICE - only to get just a Voicemail system which said that if I needed something URGENTLY, to leave a message and they would call me back. However, again TWICE, the call-recording facility cut out after about 15 seconds without giving me time to leave my name and number!
Gave up on that approach and tried the other one which was email, and sent a very "forthright" message saying that I was going directly back to Sony there and then - which I did, and somewhat luckily ("maybe", as he seemed to know very little about the unit! ) got the same guy as before and told him of my experience with the service agent. As he did not seem at all in a position to do anything more, I said that I would be going straight back to Amazon since they were the retailer in question and it is actually their direct responsibility under the Sale of Goods & Services Regulations.
I did this by calling their contact line, and - to their credit in this case - the young lady who dealt with it then rapidly assessed the situation and agreed to send out a replacement unit tonight (hopefully to arrive tomorrow).
Just after that, the service agent did call and seemed to less than concerned that I had not been able to leave a message on their system - saying only that it had been working well for a year and he had had no complaints before. That is NOT the way to deal with complaints like mine as what he SHOULD have said was that this was very strange and that he would immediately look into it and see if anything was wrong! Anyway, I told him that Amazon was sending a new unit, and that he need not bother his head any more over it - but also that I had reported the problem with the agent to Sony (see 2nd call to to Sony) and that I would be taking the matter further.
Amazon almost did very well in the situation - but Sony and their agent most certainly did not! Therefore I would caution anyone planning to buy this unit (and maybe any other Sony unit?) to check out the support situation very carefully before they buy
BTW - if anyone from Sony reads this post, your Case ID is 6579206 !!!
John
I bought mine from Amazon - and since the unit was out of the 30-day Return period, the website advised me to contact the Manufacturer: BIG mistake as you will see:
I then spent a long time on the phone to Sony Tech Support, explained the problem FOUR times (looks like an external PSU fault or an internal fault in the SMP-N200), and the guy having FINALLY accepted that the unit was probably faulty and referred me to the local service agent in W. London, for which I was given just a phone number.
I then called that number - TWICE - only to get just a Voicemail system which said that if I needed something URGENTLY, to leave a message and they would call me back. However, again TWICE, the call-recording facility cut out after about 15 seconds without giving me time to leave my name and number!
Gave up on that approach and tried the other one which was email, and sent a very "forthright" message saying that I was going directly back to Sony there and then - which I did, and somewhat luckily ("maybe", as he seemed to know very little about the unit! ) got the same guy as before and told him of my experience with the service agent. As he did not seem at all in a position to do anything more, I said that I would be going straight back to Amazon since they were the retailer in question and it is actually their direct responsibility under the Sale of Goods & Services Regulations.
I did this by calling their contact line, and - to their credit in this case - the young lady who dealt with it then rapidly assessed the situation and agreed to send out a replacement unit tonight (hopefully to arrive tomorrow).
Just after that, the service agent did call and seemed to less than concerned that I had not been able to leave a message on their system - saying only that it had been working well for a year and he had had no complaints before. That is NOT the way to deal with complaints like mine as what he SHOULD have said was that this was very strange and that he would immediately look into it and see if anything was wrong! Anyway, I told him that Amazon was sending a new unit, and that he need not bother his head any more over it - but also that I had reported the problem with the agent to Sony (see 2nd call to to Sony) and that I would be taking the matter further.
Amazon almost did very well in the situation - but Sony and their agent most certainly did not! Therefore I would caution anyone planning to buy this unit (and maybe any other Sony unit?) to check out the support situation very carefully before they buy
BTW - if anyone from Sony reads this post, your Case ID is 6579206 !!!
John
bigboss
Moderator
Sony said the right thing by advising you to go back to your retailer. Once the manufacturer confirms that it is indeed a fault with the unit, Amazon offers hassle free replacement, as it did with my electric shaver when it developed a fault after 8 months of use.
jeallen01
Well-known member
In theory you do have a valid point - IF the manufacturer's support team responds in an intelligent, informed, sensible and correct manner, but that was very definitely not my impression of the person I spoke to at Sony yesterday.
It was clear that he was not at all familiar with the product in question, or its intended use - and this is not good for the support of a product designed for incorporation within a home cinema system, especially when, for the company concerned, it is a relatively high profile item which is relatively widely advertised and sold.
The guy had difficulty in understanding how it is connected up, and that it was displaying the same symptoms whilst disconnected from the system as it was when connected to the system. Those symptoms are simply that the blue front panel indicator comes on about 15 secs after power is applied, stays on for another 10-15 secs, and then goes off again; and will not come on again until the power from the PSU is disconnected for at least a couple of minutes - and then does exactly the same thing again! Of course, misfunctioning like that causes it not to handshake adequately with the AV amp (Onkyo 609) and so the latter briefly picks up a signal from the SMP-N200 and then loses it again after 10-15 secs (max).
He then had to ask someone else as to "what to do next" - which was, as I had just suggested to him (!) to try the Reset function (there is a small push-switch recessed behind a hole in the bottom of the unit case), and which, by the way, had no effect. Thus only after some 20 mins on the phone, did he finally accept that the unit appeared to be faulty!
Also, the fact that I actually got through on the phone to the same person after a further gap of some 20 minutes or so (when I was trying to contact the service agent) indicates to me that the Sony technical support team for this range of products is very small indeed! Therefore my confidence in Sony's ability to adequately support this product is substantially diminished!
Hopefully the replacement unit will be more successful and reliable - and, BTW, the replacement arrived from Amazon whilst I was writing this email at around 8.40am on Saturday! Good work, Amazon but it was still a most unnecessarily time-consuming and "blood-pressure raising" exercise to have to go through all that I went yesterday afternoon in order for this to happen!
And, BTW, I wonder if the new unit does actually support Netflix "out of the box"? We shall see and I will post what I find.
John
It was clear that he was not at all familiar with the product in question, or its intended use - and this is not good for the support of a product designed for incorporation within a home cinema system, especially when, for the company concerned, it is a relatively high profile item which is relatively widely advertised and sold.
The guy had difficulty in understanding how it is connected up, and that it was displaying the same symptoms whilst disconnected from the system as it was when connected to the system. Those symptoms are simply that the blue front panel indicator comes on about 15 secs after power is applied, stays on for another 10-15 secs, and then goes off again; and will not come on again until the power from the PSU is disconnected for at least a couple of minutes - and then does exactly the same thing again! Of course, misfunctioning like that causes it not to handshake adequately with the AV amp (Onkyo 609) and so the latter briefly picks up a signal from the SMP-N200 and then loses it again after 10-15 secs (max).
He then had to ask someone else as to "what to do next" - which was, as I had just suggested to him (!) to try the Reset function (there is a small push-switch recessed behind a hole in the bottom of the unit case), and which, by the way, had no effect. Thus only after some 20 mins on the phone, did he finally accept that the unit appeared to be faulty!
Also, the fact that I actually got through on the phone to the same person after a further gap of some 20 minutes or so (when I was trying to contact the service agent) indicates to me that the Sony technical support team for this range of products is very small indeed! Therefore my confidence in Sony's ability to adequately support this product is substantially diminished!
Hopefully the replacement unit will be more successful and reliable - and, BTW, the replacement arrived from Amazon whilst I was writing this email at around 8.40am on Saturday! Good work, Amazon but it was still a most unnecessarily time-consuming and "blood-pressure raising" exercise to have to go through all that I went yesterday afternoon in order for this to happen!
And, BTW, I wonder if the new unit does actually support Netflix "out of the box"? We shall see and I will post what I find.
John
jeallen01
Well-known member
jeallen01 said:
And the answer is NO (and that is after the software update download which it did during the installation process) - or at least in the UK!!!
The next question is thus - and this is to the "What Hifi" team! - so how/why does the 3rd para of the review on P69 of the June issue say that it does??
Was your review sample somehow different from those that are commercially available, or what else is causing this problem?
John
jeallen01
Well-known member
jeallen01 said:
The same situation is still true after I went through the full registration on the Sony Entertainment Networks website and registered my credit card - LoveFilm is there but Netflix is not!
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