Sony BDP-S480 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) (2011 Model)

I received my Sony BDP-S480 yesterday and have been playing with it for few hours now.The setupBlu Ray player connected to Onkyo HT-RC360 via HDMI and connected to Ethernet, TV Samsung LN52B630As soon as I started the player it started my TV, onkyo receiver was off at this stage and running in pass-through mode. The completed the easy setup and player was ready within few 2-3 mins.I started playing with YouTube and everything I searched was running fine, I liked the part that it was running all the videos that were listed as part of search. I was able to move forward/backward with ease and the load time was normal.Second I started Netflix and started playing with the menu, I am used to Netflix app on Wii and the Sony interface looked a bit dated. It shows only 3 titles for a category at a time and you have to click on more to see whole screen of titles. I played some SD and HD videos and most of them started within few seconds. The HD videos took little longer as the player was checking bandwidth before playing every movie. Once the movies started it was streaming without any issues. The picture quality was really good, a lot better than watching through Wii.Next I tested my NAS device (Synology DS207). The player listed my device as a service just like Netflix or YouTube and identified shared folders listing music, photo and movies, I played some random files that includes avi, dvd rips and hd video copies, it played all of them without any issues. So far I have been using Popcorn hour A100 for this purpose and now the blu ray player will replace it.Since I am Amazon prime member I get those prime videos for free. The choice is very limited but I guess the content will keep increasing over time. Only issue with Amazon instant video is main screen shows movies/tv that can be purchased with one click and only need a pin number. If your kids know that pin number they can easily purchase any movie.I tried all these things through Onkyo receiver and everything ran the same was as pass through setup. The player was on for almost 6 hours and didn't show any heating issues or stuttering.I will be playing with some blu rays next and will update the review. So far I am extremely happy with the selection. I was trying to select between Samsung C6500, Sony S580, but this choice seems better so far.The bad so far is no HDMI cable included, but that seems to be standard with all players now.Update II tried two BD movies, Kings Speech and Rango. The player was quick in loading both movies. Since Sony has removed 1 GB storage that used to be standard on older models, you get message that can not connect with BD live content. I will try next adding external storate and test it. The blue ray quality was excellent and scene selection, moving forward/backward seems to work perfectly fine.Update II - 9/30/2011I have been using Iphone app for this player and it's a time saver. Now once I have started the player I end up using this app instead of remote. I can use all remote function via app without worrying about facing the player. Plus the app allows me to search with full keyboard (iphone touch kepad) instead of time comsuming numeric pad. Netflix, Youtube, Amazon VOD, all have search capabilities and the app has made it lot easier to search.ConsSo far I am annoyed with the youtube app. It can search fine but does not return all records returned by search on a computer. I tried using my account and it listed all the playlists I had, but it listed only few videos from the playlist. I updated my playlists from computer but the player app is not showing me updated playlist videos.I found few type of AVI files the player won't play. It plays mkv, most of avi, mpegav files fine.

Surprised to see negative reviews for network functionality. Perhaps these have been fixed via firmware since those people have purchased it.The BDP-S480 is small, lightweight and setup was easy and straightforward. I don't subscribe to Netflix but I use Amazon's VOD service frequently and this player's performance has been perfect.I also like the DLNA functionality that allows me to watch our home videos over our home network -- no more burning discs! I have not had any format issues but all our videos are either WMV, MP4 or h.264, formats that, I believe, all blu-ray players are required to play. If you have another format and are having issues, I would suggest trying another server program like Tversity, which can encode on the fly (Windows Media Center can't.) I like that I can FF and REW videos while watching over DLNA, which was something DirecTV MediaShare could not do.

I've been using the BDP 480 for a few months now and I am very pleased with the purchase. I have it connected to my home network via the Ethernet cable and run a single hdmi cable into my avr. I use this player for BD, DVD, CD, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, You Tube, Pandora, and DLNA music streaming from my NAS. Even though my avr can access Pandora and DLNA streaming, I find that I use the Sony because the sound quality is better and it is more stable than the AVR.To me, there are a few things that keep this from being a five-star product1. The interface for entering text with the remote makes searching Netflix and You tube painful2. The unit does not support seamless play. A lot of the music that I listen to are full-length albums that have seamless transitions between songs. The pause between each song with this unit is really annoying3. No Airplay support - If this had Airplay, it would be the only content device I needDespite these criticisms, I highly recommend this unit. I feel that I got an incredible amount of functionality for less than a hundred bucks.

I bought this S480 BD player mainly to enable Netflix on my aging plasma tv, and found out it makes my TV completely new again! The player has many great apps and the Netflix works smoothly. Regualar DVDs are visibly better than with the old DVD player. I hooked my portable hard drive to it last night, and wow it plays pretty much everything! I have not tried the 3D function. But frankly, with such an affordable player, I am more than satisfied by what I have seen. Beside, the player looks nice and modern, operates quite and cool. The only thing I wish is Sony will put on a dedicated ipad app for it. The iphone app is too smallish for my taste. All said, this S480 player deserves five stars!

I purchased this BluRay Player because it was a Sony, and could handle 3D disks to go with my 3D TV. I have not tried any 3D disks, yet, but the BluRay playing is magnificent!Then I plugged in my Ethernet cable and followed the instruction to receive enhanced services and I was pleasantly surprised with the available Online capabilities that this unit provides. My flat-screen TV becomes a Web Browser which I never expected! I will admit that it is a bit clumsy to use without a qwerty keyboard, but it is still a Browser. There are also services of which I was not previously aware that provide dazzling travel-log videos in HD, and other entertaining short clips.I have read comments about how difficult it is to be Online. This model uses an Ethernet cable as opposed to Wifi (available in model 580) but I have had NO problems with this. I am completely satisfied with it, and then some!If you buy this, you will not be sorry!