Sony BDP-S760 Blu-ray disc player
Best in class?
Review Sony recently updated its range of Blu-ray players with the entry-level BDP-S560, which is listed at around £300 on Sony’s UK web site, and the BDP-S760 for £400. Shop around online though and both models can be picked up for £80 less.
Top gear: Sony's BDP-S760
Yet, despite the mid-range price-tag, Sony describes the S760 as its new ‘top of the line’ model, claiming that it provides video quality and features previously only found in high-end Sony models such as the BDP-S5000Es, which comes in at over £1000. That’s quite a claim, but we have to admit that the S760 really did deliver the goods.
The player makes a good first impression as you lift it out of its box. The unit measures a compact 70 x 430 x 240mm, and is finished off with a neat silvery-grey upper panel and glossy black faceplate. In some ways though, it’s the back of the unit that is most impressive – crowded as it is with a plethora of audio and video connectors.
There’s HDMI of course, along with composite, component and S-video, stereo audio, optical and coax digital audio interfaces and full 7.1 analogue output as well. That lot should allow you to hook it up to most TVs and audio systems, and includes Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio decoding too.
The unit supports BD Profile 2.0, with its Ethernet port accommodating downloads of updates and additional Blu-ray content. It doesn’t have any built-in hard disk storage but there’s a USB port on the back that allows you to plug in a memory stick or hard disk, as well as a second USB port on the front panel for playing photo slideshows.
Comprehensive AV interfacing and Ethernet networking
One last connectivity option that isn’t obvious from looking at the back panel is the S760’s built-in Wireless-N networking, which will be very handy if you don’t want a long Ethernet cable trailing from your router to the Blu-ray player in your front room. Yet it’s disappointing that the S760 doesn’t support playback of digital music and video file formats other than the obvious audio CD, DVD and Blu-ray. Even its DLNA support is limited to displaying photos, which might deter people who have a lot of content stored on a networked media server.
COMMENTS
Hmm...
Some bizarre ideas on the comments as ever.
The LG is licked in the features and quality department for things that really matter... divx playback on a Blu ray player... ok if you really want, personally i quite like it to watch blu ray on not some crappy downloaded film. As for hacking of multi region wow the Sony can be too, with an all in one remote for £4 from eBay, most blu rays are released around the same time anyway so multi region blu ray isn't necessary and requires hard ware modding anyway.
If you compare the LG to this Sony, you're missing the point of Blu ray by a margin and a half. The LG is a cracking player, but it's not in the same league as this one...
And as for the PS3, again not quite the same really is it.... picture quality isn't as good, no analogue outputs, no deep colour support etc.... fine if you have a PS3 it's a decent player, but this is a far better one if you really want to extract the best from blu ray and have the rest of the gear to go with it.
Criticising a top flight player for not being able to playback shoddy home recordings or divx etc misses the point so much... buy a WDTV for that sort of stuff it's designed for it - or build a MediaPC and try it that way, but i welcome the lack of superfluous shite that has no place in a high end player, introducing all sorts of crap in the signal path that no-one wants.
The only really sensible comment is that of taking note of the quality based on how you actually watch it... sit 15ft from a TV and you really need a 50 inch model as a minimum to really appreciate the picture difference... the audio benefits however just need decent speakers!
I've refused to buy sony products for some time now
Their CD and DVD products have been notorious for their flaky support of recordable discs, or any variation to the standard that Sony themselves don't have a crippling patent on.
You look in the average households attic, and there, under the thick layer of dust will be a £200 sony CD/DVD player, which can't play blue tinted CD/DVDs, usurped from it's position under the telly by a £15 player from Aldi that reads the full rainbow of disc colours, can play Divx/Xvid and nearly any other variation you can find.
This product with have a useful lifespan of approximately 2 years, max. Beyond that, the owner will become increasily frustrated by the ever increasing pile of media that he/she cannot play because this device doesn't support the clever new variations and features that have been added to the format by other organisations.
Sonys products are bought by brandname drooling idiots with more money than sense.
If you want a TRUE media center, then this is worth a look
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166561
Chuck in a £40 external writer, and a £30 DVB-T dongle, you have 100 times the functionality, 5 times the the functional lifespan, and change for a few nights down the pub!
But it doesn't play anything:
<quote>Yet it’s disappointing that the S760 doesn’t support playback of digital music and video file formats other than the obvious audio CD, DVD and Blu-ray.</quote>
Haven't they learned from the DVD disaster? Nobody has Sony DVD-Players anymore as they were essentially worthless, not even playing VCDs.
Now they are bringing out players which can only play their own format which nobody has. You cannot even play back your legal recordings of TV with that box.
still over priced
I ran a comparison of the film wolverine on blu-ray & DVD using my £40 Toshiba Up-Scaling DVD & PS3.
Up close on my LG 42LH5000 the difference was vast but as soon as i sat back down on my settee 15 foot away, the difference was not as impressive as i expected, yes it did look better, but the difference was asimilar to that of changing a regular scart to a RGB one, but not worth the over inflated prices of neither the hardware or media for it.
I then tried it on my daughters 19" lcd & the image was almost identical.
TBH unless you have a large throw away income people sick to DVD.
@Brian 6: BLU-RAY PLAYER
Brian 6 posts, "But it IS A PREMIUM PLAYER..... Did u even read the article ?"
uhhh... yea... that's why I commented. Even did word search in the article looking for key features I was interested inold...
Brian 6 posts, "Sony describes the S760 as its new ‘top of the line’ model"
That's why one should expect more. When people have bought and continue to buy premium content on commercial media, one should expect that a top of the line player will play it back.
Brian 6 posts, "Top of the line...How PREMIUM can u get ???"
The Sony player has composite outputs for video - I have not seen any composite signals carrying crystal clear 1080P lately. With your line of suggestion, the player should not have composite output.
Brian 6 posts, "And it WILL play CD's and DVD, Even VIDEO CD's."
Thanks for clearing up what the reviewer did not cover, regarding Video CD's!
VideoCD was pretty much the standard in China and South East Asia for a decade. There could be close as many VideoCD players as there are DVD players in active global use today that need to be replaced with a player like BlueRay.
Good to hear Sony did not abandon half the global premium media market!
