Sony BDP-S360

Sony is recognized as the company that brought Blu-ray technology to the mainstream with the launch of the Playstation 3 back in 2006 and now Sony continues to roll out dedicated Blu-ray players like the Sony BDP-S360 Blu-ray player. Although the Playstation 3 is technically the first Blu-ray 2.0 or BD-Live supported player in the market, the high price tag is due to the fact that the Playstation 3 is a gaming device. The Sony Blu-ray players like the BDP-S360 is more geared towards playing movies and other high definition content.

Sony BDP-S360 | Player Details

Design

The Sony BDP-S360 successfully combines the sleek design adopted many of the latest Blu-ray players released by competitors with some conventional elements that allow it to blend in well with any home theater setup. The front panel of the player is a bit glass-like and dark, but after opening the tray, the whole front panel opens up. The most impressive thing about the design is the slim profile and small footprint. There aren’t many controls found on the player as most of the operating relies on the included remote. The remote was simple to navigate, but it lacks backlighting. The design is simple, and the button layout is pretty easy to navigate, even in the dark.

Features

Like the many other Blu-ray players released today, the BDP-S360 has the Profile 2.0 compliance allowing it to play some of the extra Internet exclusive features that are present in some of the newer Blu-ray titles. In order for this feature to function, an Ethernet cable must be plugged in as there is no Wi-Fi support and a USB drive needs to be plugged in to serve as the primary storage of the content.

The BDP-S360 includes full internal decoding for all of Blu-ray’s advanced audio codecs, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. You can also choose to simply bitstream them in native form. Combined with amazing video playback functionality, the Sony BDP-S360 successfully does what it is supposed to do better than a lot of the competition.

On the side, it has an HDMI output port for outputting Blu-ray movies in their Full HD 1809 resolution and can upscale the older DVD formats to the top resolution as well. Legacy support is fairly supplied as well allowing people to output Blu-ray and DVD titles at 480p or 480i using the component and composite video outputs.

Actual user review:
” I bought this player when I was on vacation in Toronto three weeks ago and it is really great. It is small, fast, decodes all the HD audio codecs (including Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD and DTS-HD MA) and it has profile 2.0 with BD live. I was looking for a good and cheap region A player with all the audio decoding and I found exactly what I was looking for with this player. The picture is really good, even better than the picture from my Playstation 3 and equal to the picture on my region B BDP-S550.” – E.Aleksander (Norway)

Performance

Sony has pushed the price/performance benchmark with the BDP-S360’s video processing. Previous players did a good job with 1080p/24 playback of blu-ray movies, but their deinterlacing and standard DVD playback left a lot to be desired. The BDP-S360 features very good video processing that actually improves upon Sony’s flagship BDP-S5000ES’s performance.

The BDP-S360 performed exceptionally well when playing Blu-ray titles and the image quality is outstanding for an entry level Blu-ray player. It also doubles as a good quality DVD player as well as it passed some tests including the 2.3 pulldown test and kept the jaggies to a minimum in some popular movies.

While the BDP-S360 has not reached the level of the outstanding PlayStation 3 in terms of load and response times, it’s definitely faster than previous Sony models. Sony also includes a Quick Start mode that turns the player on a bit faster than normal. It doesn’t cut down on load times, but it gets you up and going quicker.

Bottom Line

This particular Blu-ray player is a good choice for people that don’t need any of the fancy features such as Internet streaming as the Ethernet port only connects to the BD-Live features. It has a basic, yet acceptable design that doesn’t have any real weaknesses aside from the disappointing lack of open tray button on the remote. Overall, Sony has definitely improved upon its previous players and delivered a solid Blu-ray player with the BDP-S360.

Average User Rating:

• “This was my first purchase into the Blu-ray world – and it didn’t disappoint but in a totally surprising way. The unit is sturdy, quiet, and runs flawlessly. I had been worried about firmware updates but so far there have been no reason to update it – so no complaints there. I ordered some Blu-ray discs (despite the ridiculous cost of them) and they are spectacular. Now for the surprise – my old DVDs are spectacular too. This player makes DVD pictures an order of magnitude better then my old DVD player.” – R.Alan (TX,USA)
• “I’ll start with the bottom line about this player-it just works! If you’re looking for a nice, fully functional Blu Ray player that’s going to just WORK as you’d expect it to, on anything you throw at it, this is a nice, safe buy. You’ll have no problems upgrading from a normal DVD player to it. If you’re like me and just want something that WORKS without hassle, this is a great choice.” – WolfPup (USA)

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