Got the new toy in today. First impression is it's much nicer looking than the ol' reliable BDT210 and the S790. The S790 is a nice looking unit, but up close it still has a cheaper feel to it and the lit up buttons are not very attractive. BDT500 has a little more heft to it, but nothing near an Oppo 93 of course, regardless it does feel more solid than the more "plastic" players of the last few years.
Bottom feet have much larger rubber pads than you see on cheaper players
210 vs 500 back
Top shot for size, and remotes
Front shot
The top "buttons" are not really buttons. They are inset like buttons but are really just sensors, and nothing is lit up but the time counter when watching a movie, I like this. Remote is a bit long for my taste, but after a few minutes I got pretty good with the touchpad and dont have an issue with it.
I ran the "main" HDMI to my GT30 and the "sub" to the Marantz, but was having a problem not getting lossless audio. I missed a setting in setup to turn the sub HDMI out to Video Off, once I did that it was fine. A playback info windows shows HDMI Main sending 1080p/24 4:4:4 and the HDMI Sub sending out only audio in the form of TrueHD. There is also the ability to have a small orange badge light up on the front when you have video turned off on the second output, I guess so you can know for a fact without looking at the menus that you have video going out of HDMI 1 and audio going out of HDMI 2. It's OK, but a tad bright and does not dim with the timer.
I really like the menu structure, compared to the 2011's. It reminds me a lot of the Oppo 93 in the way you can scroll over the main menu selections, and to the right it shows the settings in that sub menu without having to click on say audio, and then go to a new screen to see the settings. Makes a quick check of your settings much easier. They still have stupid things like you having to turn High Clarity Sound on in both the settings menu and the options menu when a disc is playing. Why they do this I have no idea.
I set the player up with the standard stuff:
Pic Mode Normal
Chroma Process Off
ycbcr 4:4:4
Deep color Auto
1080p/24 output
Bitstream for audio
High Clarity Sound On
All other Audio and Video stuff like DRC and Detail Enhancer Off
Here is some past speed data, and then the new models:
Speed report:
BD35--BD85--BDT110--BDP93--S790--BDT500 (in seconds)
Time to get to where you can select PLAY in final menu, starting with tray open:
Transformers 82--75--64--64--63--66
Iron Man 101--87--67--53--56--55
790 vs 500 on Star Trek which has some trailer skipping
83--81
790 vs 500, power button press to time menu is on screen
2.9--about 1 sec
So the 790 and 500 are snappy like last years models, no huge advances, but overall in my tests the 500 was a hair faster. Everything seemed to go well also after the FW upgrade, the 790 however has issues at times when you turn it off, it just blinks and Ive had to pull the power cord twice before trying to turn it off. Happened a 3rd time today in my testing so Sony has some kinks to work on. I think the current 500 bug is a Netflix IW audio sync if you have a disc in the player as well as quick start on.
Image quality looked phenomenal on Bayformers and Iron Man, I hope to test the streaming services tomorrow because this is where the 790 did a bang up job. If everything works well on the streaming front, this will be my main room player for this year. The 790 is nice, but you cant beat the overall look of the 500 and the Sony menu's suck to be frank. As stated, they also need to work on the blinking hangup because the power cord is not detachable and its hard as hell for me to get to where the cord is plugged into the back of my APC unit. I also like how the 500 is much more dim than the Sony when playing a movie back.
Bottom feet have much larger rubber pads than you see on cheaper players
210 vs 500 back
Top shot for size, and remotes
Front shot
The top "buttons" are not really buttons. They are inset like buttons but are really just sensors, and nothing is lit up but the time counter when watching a movie, I like this. Remote is a bit long for my taste, but after a few minutes I got pretty good with the touchpad and dont have an issue with it.
I ran the "main" HDMI to my GT30 and the "sub" to the Marantz, but was having a problem not getting lossless audio. I missed a setting in setup to turn the sub HDMI out to Video Off, once I did that it was fine. A playback info windows shows HDMI Main sending 1080p/24 4:4:4 and the HDMI Sub sending out only audio in the form of TrueHD. There is also the ability to have a small orange badge light up on the front when you have video turned off on the second output, I guess so you can know for a fact without looking at the menus that you have video going out of HDMI 1 and audio going out of HDMI 2. It's OK, but a tad bright and does not dim with the timer.
I really like the menu structure, compared to the 2011's. It reminds me a lot of the Oppo 93 in the way you can scroll over the main menu selections, and to the right it shows the settings in that sub menu without having to click on say audio, and then go to a new screen to see the settings. Makes a quick check of your settings much easier. They still have stupid things like you having to turn High Clarity Sound on in both the settings menu and the options menu when a disc is playing. Why they do this I have no idea.
I set the player up with the standard stuff:
Pic Mode Normal
Chroma Process Off
ycbcr 4:4:4
Deep color Auto
1080p/24 output
Bitstream for audio
High Clarity Sound On
All other Audio and Video stuff like DRC and Detail Enhancer Off
Here is some past speed data, and then the new models:
Speed report:
BD35--BD85--BDT110--BDP93--S790--BDT500 (in seconds)
Time to get to where you can select PLAY in final menu, starting with tray open:
Transformers 82--75--64--64--63--66
Iron Man 101--87--67--53--56--55
790 vs 500 on Star Trek which has some trailer skipping
83--81
790 vs 500, power button press to time menu is on screen
2.9--about 1 sec
So the 790 and 500 are snappy like last years models, no huge advances, but overall in my tests the 500 was a hair faster. Everything seemed to go well also after the FW upgrade, the 790 however has issues at times when you turn it off, it just blinks and Ive had to pull the power cord twice before trying to turn it off. Happened a 3rd time today in my testing so Sony has some kinks to work on. I think the current 500 bug is a Netflix IW audio sync if you have a disc in the player as well as quick start on.
Image quality looked phenomenal on Bayformers and Iron Man, I hope to test the streaming services tomorrow because this is where the 790 did a bang up job. If everything works well on the streaming front, this will be my main room player for this year. The 790 is nice, but you cant beat the overall look of the 500 and the Sony menu's suck to be frank. As stated, they also need to work on the blinking hangup because the power cord is not detachable and its hard as hell for me to get to where the cord is plugged into the back of my APC unit. I also like how the 500 is much more dim than the Sony when playing a movie back.
