Sony BDP S300 - Expert Reviews

Review summary: Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc (BD) Player delivers admirable picture and sound quality, and, as with many BD players, it can upconvert regular DVD movies to 1080p format. It can also play back multimedia files recorded onto relatively spacious (and inexpen

Pros: Plays JPEG and MP3 files on DVDs. Supports 24-Hz output with Blu-ray movies. Provides basic picture control settings and presets.

Cons: Slow disc load times with some Blu-ray movies. No 24-Hz output with DVD video. No bitstream audio output (HDMI).

Verdict: Sony's least-expensive Blu-ray Disc player isn't a speed demon, but it delivers solid detail and a pleasing viewing experience.

Review summary: The Sony BDP-S300 delivers the kind of picture performance that we've come to expect from an entry-level BD deck

Verdict: However, as a straight DVD spinner, the S300 is only average. Frequency response at 5.8MHz is mediocre, and player deinterlacing is poor. It failed both our jaggies test and a horizontal text crawl test

Review summary: A Blu-ray player for under £250 from Sony - what's that catch?

Verdict: The BDP-S300 might be one of the cheapest Blu-ray players on the market but be prepared to make sacrifices if you buy one - it only supports one of the four HD audio formats and its Profile 1.0 spec means you won't be able to access Bonus View features.

Pros: Good value for money, great high-definition playback including 24Hz support

Cons: Slightly long lag times with Blu-ray playback and power-up, lack of support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD audio codecs

Verdict: The BDP-S300 is an excellent value Blu-ray player, delivering a great feature list for a much more affordable price than most advanced units.