Sony BDP-S470 3D Blu-ray Player (TPV 94)

Sony’s BDP-S470 is their most affordable Blu-ray player that provides 3D playback

September 7th, 2010 -- by David Birch-Jones
Source: The Perfect Vision

If you haven’t yet made the move to Blu-ray, then this Sony might be just the ticket to get you riding on the “Blu” line. It’s got the 3D Blu-ray playback capability that, assuming Hollywood gets their act in gear soon and starts cranking out 3D Blu-ray discs, will be appealing to those who routinely choose to watch 3D versions of movies in theaters.

The player also has a rather extensive feature set, given its very affordable price (listing at $200 at time of launch this past summer and now carrying a tag of $170 (that’s from Sony’s online retail sales division, and is considered to be the gauge of current suggested retail).

OVERVIEW

Consider this Blu-ray player if: You’re going to go the 3D route and get a 3D HDTV, as the new Blu-ray 3D discs won’t play in older players.

Look further if: You’d like a player with Wi-Fi functionality built-in—consider instead the step-up BDP-S570 model, which has that feature and costs $50.00 more.

Ratings:

Video Quality (DVD): 7
Video Quality (Blu-ray): 9
Features: 9
User Interface: 9
Value: 9

features

For a sub-$200 Blu-ray player, the BDP-S470 is quite well equipped. The main feature is of course the 3D playback capability, but the player also has almost, but not quite the full suite of Sony’s Bravia Internet video apps and services, which they provide in their latest web-connected TVs (such as the XBR-46HX909 we tested with this player).

Compared to some makers, who partner up with just one major streaming video supplier or perhaps even two, Sony offers four, including Netflix, Amazon, their own new service Qriosity, and shortly (this fall) Hulu Plus, which plans to stream current and older TV shows from ABC, Fox and NBC, charging a flat rate of $10.00 a month.

Like Netflix and Amazon, who stream both TV and movie fare on a subscription pay-per-view basis, Sony’s recently launched Qriosity (yes, another odd name from them, but it is distinctive) service is up and running with a growing library of movie titles, many offered for rental in both SD and HD versions. Running the player on my bog standard Linksys-based network was an easy plug and play effort, and soon I was running through a number of Qriosity preview clips, which looked nice and sharp on the Sony 3D TV.

There are 30 or so additional video channels, covering niche programming as well as the ubiquitous YouTube and Yahoo! channels, and some additional Sony Music and Movie content mixed in there. The Pandora Internet radio service will appeal to music buffs tired of Top 40 radio, and the only thing missing from the player’s roster of apps was the Picassa picture feature that the 3D TV offers. But, the player will accept pictures and videos from portable media components, as well as jump drives and the like.

Music buffs will be pleased to note that the player will handle SACD, the better-than-CD-quality, high resolution audiophile format co-developed by Sony (who are pretty much the main cheerleader for that format still).

User Interface

No surprises here: the BDP-S470 of course features Sony’s Xross Media Bar interface, which is absolutely one of the best, and has the same look and feel that you’d experience from their TVs and PlayStation consoles. It’s also pretty zippy in terms of responsiveness, compared to some other devices that offer similar functionality I’ve played with recently, and was just as quick as when I operated the same functions on the Sony 3D TV.

The remote is about two-thirds the size of Sony’s full size TV remotes, and has the same overall (mostly good) design, keeping the Home button in the same place as with their other remotes—namely, directly under the cursor keypad—and with the Menu and Return keys likewise in their similar places surrounding the cursor keypad. One feature I wish was on all Blu-ray players is the distinctive Display function this Sony provides, which gives detailed info on-screen about the audio and video streams, including bitrates.

Performance

At this point, with everything going HDMI (and new Blu-ray player models introduced from next January will not be allowed to have HD component video outputs anymore), it’s no surprise that the player produced a thoroughly good picture via the HDMI connection. It did exactly what it was supposed to do with the two 3D Blu-ray discs on hand here, and was entirely happy playing some audiophile SACD discs, a capability I wasn’t expecting in a popular-priced player.

Comments

akrauss -- Wed, 09/15/2010 - 14:25

One important aspect to the purchase of a 3D blu-ray player the review did not address is the ability (or lack thereof) to route the HDMI signal thru a "legacy" Home Theater receiver that can not handle the HDMI 1.4 specification. I recently purchased the Samsung C8000 3D TV and their 7900 series blu-ray specifically because the blu-ray has two HDMI outs - one for the 3D video to be routed directly to the 3D capable TV and the second - audio only, to be routed thru my Denon receiver, so I may watch the 3D AND get the benefit of the latest loseless audio signal processing.

stefano -- Tue, 10/26/2010 - 10:32

Dear Akrauss following your interesting comment and being new to BluRay stuff, I wonder if this Sony model would allow me 1) play Multichannel SACD contents via any of its outputs connected to a multichannel A/V receiver and 2) play audio tracks of a Blu Ray disc still via any of its outputs conncted to the same multichannel A/V receiver. If yes whcih outputs should I use? Optical or Digital and what features should the A/V receiver have for supporting Multichannel SACD and mutlichannel BluRay audio play back, when feeded by SONY BD? Thank you

akrauss -- Wed, 10/27/2010 - 09:02

Stefano;

Not sure I can answer all your questions, but here goes: 1) Yes- the specs of this player (like many Sony players) indicate it can handle SACD. As far as outputs go, as a general matter, optical or digital will give you the same end result. I am not a big fan of the optical connections, because I find they can become faulty over time. 2) Not sure of your question. If you are trying to just play the multi-channel audio off a blu-ray (like a music concert), you should be ok with a non-3D blu-ray. However, to get Dolby True HD or DTS HD (the higher resolution audio on a blu-ray), your AV receiver needs to be able to process those signals. If your receiver is only a year or two old, it likely will handle those formats, however, you should check to be sure. As far as the output goes, you can again go with either digital coaxial or optical. You could also go with HDMI for an non-3D blu-ray, to carry both audio and video. Again, my main point was the problem of playing 3D blu-rays thru a non HDMI 1.4 AV receiver. I think if you are playing standard blu-rays, you should not have the problem. Regards.

stefano -- Thu, 10/28/2010 - 06:29

Dear Akrauss
Thank you so much for your in depth reply. I am now thinking to get this SONY player and build around it a Multichannel system for enjoying Hi rez Videos and Music. I have already had more than positive experience with cheap SONY players in the past, specifically with a Multichannel SACD player belonging to SONY NS range of players that while modest in terms of quality performance when playing RedBook CDs, was and still is a great player with SACD format, given its price. A cheap product able to make you have a go and appreciate native qualities, and superiority of SACD format over Red Book CDs. So I am confident with this cheap player too and interested into checking whether the added functionalities (BD playback capabilities)do not affect SACD quality which, I hope, be at least be on a par with its older brother. Kind rgrds

esampson -- Tue, 11/02/2010 - 12:53

I just don't know how I feel about Blu-Ray yet. I just don't know that I think the quality is so improved that I want to spend the extra money to not only buy the player but blu-ray discs are quite a bit more expensive than regular dvds....I guess for those technology buffs though it's a must have. I will say that it's good at least that the blu-ray players also play the regular dvds in addition to the blu-ray version. I think i'll wait a little longer and see if the price continues to drop so that I can feel high-tech at a low cost!

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