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Sony Introduces Exciting new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player (1 Viewer)

Scott Merryfield

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I didn't think this Sony was considered a standard player, it's priced more than most but less than the Oppo (till you buy the modded version).

The Sony is very competitively priced at $300 for a UHD player. That's the same price as the new LG UHD player and last year's Samsung UHD player, much less than last year's Panasonic UHD player, and a little over half the price of the Oppo. It also plays SACD and DVD-Audio discs, which the Samsung, Panasonic and LG do not.

The one thing that the Oppo and LG models have over the Sony is the commitment from the manufacturers to provide Dolby Vision support on those players with future firmware updates. Sony has made no official announcement regarding eventual DV support on its player, although the hardware will support the format.
 

Scott Merryfield

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There is a new firmware update available for the Sony X-800. It is supposed to address an issue with macro blocking when playing 20th Century Fox BDs, along with other issues. I have been avoiding playing Fox BDs on this player due to the reported issue, using my Panny BD player instead. I just installed the update, so will have to give a Fox BD a spin to see if I encounter any issues.
 

Scott Merryfield

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I finally tried a streaming app on the X800 the other night. I have been experiencing a "chirping" audio issue with Vudu on my Roku Ultra which others have also been reporting. We had a free rental with Vudu that I had to use before it expired on Friday, so I tried the Vudu app on the player. It worked fine, once I deleted one of my old devices that was registered with Vudu -- they put an 8 device limit on each account for some reason. I got rid of an old Roku device and my old Panny BD player.

Anyway, the app's interface looked identical to the Roku, and the picture and audio quality were very good, as well. We did notice that the video would pause slightly a few times during the film. I'm not sure if it was the player or the film, though -- we were watching the HDX version of Logan.
 

DavidMiller

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I finally tried a streaming app on the X800 the other night. I have been experiencing a "chirping" audio issue with Vudu on my Roku Ultra which others have also been reporting. We had a free rental with Vudu that I had to use before it expired on Friday, so I tried the Vudu app on the player. It worked fine, once I deleted one of my old devices that was registered with Vudu -- they put an 8 device limit on each account for some reason. I got rid of an old Roku device and my old Panny BD player.

Anyway, the app's interface looked identical to the Roku, and the picture and audio quality were very good, as well. We did notice that the video would pause slightly a few times during the film. I'm not sure if it was the player or the film, though -- we were watching the HDX version of Logan.

The pauses sound like buffering issues.
 

gadgtfreek

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Sometimes the apps also jump when they make a resolution bitrate change, Amazon does that sometimes.

I ended up with using the Sony player for everything, its the best all around player IMO if you use Netflix, Amazon and discs. Plus the 800 is cheap.

I gave up on the Roku...
 

Scott Merryfield

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Sometimes the apps also jump when they make a resolution bitrate change, Amazon does that sometimes.

I ended up with using the Sony player for everything, its the best all around player IMO if you use Netflix, Amazon and discs. Plus the 800 is cheap.

I gave up on the Roku...

The Sony doesn't do HDR with Amazon right now, which my Roku Ultra does. The audio chirps with Vudu are annoying, though. I didn't experience any chirps or video pauses using the casting app on my Vizio display with Vudu, but it's more cumbersome using that method, as I need to use an Android device to cast the app to the display -- not ideal when you are used to using a single universal remote for everything. The Roku seems to work fine with Amazon and NHL.tv, although I will not be using that hockey streaming app again until autumn when the new season starts. NHL.tv is not currently available on the Sony, but I can cast it on my Vizio display.

The pauses with the Sony only happened 3-4 times and were very brief, but even my wife noticed them. I've never had this issue (if it's a buffering issue as David suggests) with the Roku or Vizio casting. Other than this and no HDR for Amazon, though, the Sony has been very reliable for me. It has become my primary disc player for UHD, BD, DVD and SACD playback. My Panny BD player has not got any use in over a month, and I am only using my Oppo DVD player for a TV series on DVD we are watching -- saving me from needing to swap out the disc. I'll probably use the Panny BD player similarly if we watch a TV series on BD.
 

gadgtfreek

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I can live without the HDR on Amazon for now, I just dont think the Roku Premier + PQ is as good as the Sony. Plus all the other bugs I have with it.
 

Scott Merryfield

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I have not tried Amazon on the Sony yet. I may give it a spin, as I am not currently watching anything in 4K HDR on there anyway. Amazon's been very reliable for me on the Roku Ultra, though. I have read that others are experiencing issues with the Amazon app on the new Roku 4K players, so I guess I'm lucky there.

Vudu doesn't do UHD on either the Roku or Sony at this time, so the lack of audio chirps is definitely a plus with the Sony. If I want to watch something in UHD on Vudu, I have to use the Chromecast app on my Vizio display. I only have a few UHD films in my Vudu library, though -- and I own them all on UHD disc, so there's no point in watching them via casting anyway. Vudu's rental price for a UHD version is too high compared with the HDX version for me, so I only rent the HDX versions -- I am not paying $10 to rent a movie.
 
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Robert Crawford

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I finally tried a streaming app on the X800 the other night. I have been experiencing a "chirping" audio issue with Vudu on my Roku Ultra which others have also been reporting. We had a free rental with Vudu that I had to use before it expired on Friday, so I tried the Vudu app on the player. It worked fine, once I deleted one of my old devices that was registered with Vudu -- they put an 8 device limit on each account for some reason. I got rid of an old Roku device and my old Panny BD player.

Anyway, the app's interface looked identical to the Roku, and the picture and audio quality were very good, as well. We did notice that the video would pause slightly a few times during the film. I'm not sure if it was the player or the film, though -- we were watching the HDX version of Logan.
Yeah, I had to delete some old devices too after that Vudu update.
 

Scott Merryfield

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No lockups here. Once or twice, the player would not recognize I had a disc inserted, but taking the disc out and re-inserting fixed the issue.

Todd, are your lockups happening when playing a disc or using one of the streaming apps? I have been using the player almost exclusively for playing discs. I've only watched a few movies via the Vudu app, and used YouTube once to play an audio/video sync video to set the audio delay properly on my Denon receiver.
 

Todd Erwin

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No lockups here. Once or twice, the player would not recognize I had a disc inserted, but taking the disc out and re-inserting fixed the issue.

Todd, are your lockups happening when playing a disc or using one of the streaming apps? I have been using the player almost exclusively for playing discs. I've only watched a few movies via the Vudu app, and used YouTube once to play an audio/video sync video to set the audio delay properly on my Denon receiver.

It has occurred on both discs and streaming. Got absolutely nowhere with Sony's call center tech support (they could not even read me back my phone number correctly), called various Sony phone numbers I found online for various corporate offices here in the US, and someone finally took my number and had a Tier 2 tech call me back (apparently she gets lots of people calling her about Sony's Tech Support), who said the same thing as the knuckleheads in the Philippines, that this is the first they had heard of it (I found many similar and recent complaints in various forums all over the internet). They asked me to ship them the player for exchange because their engineers wanted to examine it. That was over a week ago, and although I was promised over the phone that an exchange would take only a few days after they receive it, Sony Support is telling me it will be another week or so.
 

Scott Merryfield

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I hope Sony gets it straightened out for you, Todd. It's frustrating having a device that doesn't perform properly. If the replacement player does not solve the issue, it has to be some sort of a HDMI handshake issue.

I finally enabled the Amazon Prime app on my Sony last night and watched Underworld: Blood Wars (rented it for a buck). The app worked fine, and the interface looked identical to the Amazon app on my Roku Ultra.

I did finally run into a disc playing issue recently, though. My UHD copy of Expendables 3, which I bought as part of the Wal-Mart exclusive UHD-only 3 film set, cannot be read by the Sony. The player attempts to load the disc for a couple of minutes, then displays a disc reading error. The disc is 100% clean -- no fingerprints, scratches, etc. Since this is the first disc I've had this problem with, I am assuming it's just a bad disc. I'll have to see if I can get the receipt online if I want to do a disc exchange, although I may not even bother. I rarely go to Wal-Mart (had to make a special trip for this package) and I received the UV codes for the films, too, so I can just watch it that way. The UHD discs for the first two films worked fine.
 

dpippel

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Yeah unlike AVS we don't go batshit if you post bargains here. Freely post bargain prices when you find em, please!

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PaulGo

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They had this on display at my local Costco. It does not have the two free disk promo sticker on it, I purchased the X800 at Best Buy and when I showed them proof of the lower price they matched it. This is not typical Best Buy practice but since I was within my return period they decided to match it.
 

Colin Jacobson

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After researching the various options, I took the plunge and ordered this player from Amazon tonight - delivery estimate 1-3 weeks! :eek:

(Yeah, I could get it quicker elsewhere, but my Amazon credit card meant it was free!)

I was torn between this one and the Oppo but just couldn't justify the price difference - the Oppo is more than $250 more!

Hope I don't regret going with the Sony!
 

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