S300 Menus, Remote, and Measurements

The Sony BDP-S300 menus are sort of an enigma to me. Where I'm used to hitting the menu button and having the menu pop up (usually you have to stop playback), with the S300, depending on the state of the player, you get access to different menus. If you want to change many of the settings that I've already described, you'll need to stop playback and select the Setup menu. But if you would like to change how the picture looks, you'll need to have a disc playing and then you can select A/V Control. Let's cover that menu first.

You have a choice of Video Control and Audio Control. Under Video Control you can choose one of the provided settings of Standard, Theater Room, and Brighter Room. Of course the Brighter Room is the brightest setting with the Theater Room being the darkest. You can't adjust these settings in any way. There are however three different Memory settings which can be adjusted by the user. The available adjustments are White Adjust (adjusts the brightness of the white areas), Black Adjust (adjusts the richness of the dark areas), Hue (adjust between green and red), and Color Level (adjusts the color saturation). The White and Black Adjust and Color Level options each has 9 different settings with the Hue having on 5.  The Audio Control menu only gives you the option of engaging the Audio DRC which is essentially a compression codec that will equalize the volume of a Dolby Digital soundtrack. I suggest you leave it set to Off unless you are listening to your movie at a low volume and are having a hard time hearing some passages and can't turn it up.

Editor's Note: We typically recommend you make all adjustments on your display and use a Setup disc such as AVIA or Digital Video Essentials to do so. In the event that your player does not allow you to get an accurate calibration (particularly when dealing with white and black levels) then the player controls should be utilized to get you the rest of the way.

Under the Setup menu there are a number of options in the Video Setup menu that can be changed after your initial setup. TV Type (4:3 or 16:9), 4:3 Video Out (Full - stretches the picture or Normal - puts black bars on the sides), and DVD Aspect Ratio (Letterbox or Pan and Scan) which are all pretty typical of DVD players these days. The YCbCr/RBGPC (HDMI) setting is a bit more confusing. Just remember if you are using an HDMI connection to choose YCbCr. This allows the display to do the conversion to RGB which it is probably better at doing than the Sony BD player. The studio level RGB (16-235) is typically recommended for use with an HDCP compliant DVI connection. RGB (0-255) typically crushes whites and blacks on many displays.

Under Audio Setup, you'll want to leave Dolby Digital and DTS where they are unless you have a receiver so old that it won't decode Dolby Digital or DTS and then you should set them to Downmix. If you are using a ProLogic receiver and the stereo outputs, set DTS Downmix to Lt/Rt and if you are using a stereo receiver, set it to Stereo. Lastly, if you'd like the player to decode all the DTS and Dolby Digital audio tracks for you and are connected via HDMI, then set Audio (HDMI) to PCM. If you want it only to decode the Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks and send everything else to your receiver for decoding, set it to Auto. There are Language, Parental Control, and Options screens that you mostly shouldn't have to touch but you will want to go to the Speakers screen and make sure your Audio Output Mode is set to 5.1 Channel if you are running a surround sound setup and are connected via analogue outputs.

Remote Control

The remote control for the Sony BDP-S300 is black, thin, and lightweight.  Like far too many remotes I deal with these days, it is not backlit and the buttons are pretty much all the same size so it is near impossible to tell them apart in the dark. For the owner, it is going to end up coming down to either waiting for a lighter scene in the movie or memorizing the button locations. There is a Braille dot on the Play button which will help, but other than that you are on your own for the most used video control buttons. The circular control in the center works well but the rounded buttons that surround it are sort of difficult to distinguish from each other.

The only real problem I had with the player and control was that it took sooooo looong to do just about anything. Every time you hit a button you weren't sure if the command wasn't received or if the unit was just taking its sweet time. Powering up the unit took a good 45 seconds. I would literally press the Open button, go look for a movie, and return just as the unit was finishing powering up and the tray was extending. That's just silly. Getting to each of the menus also seems to have a delayed reaction to the remote commands. It wasn't so annoying that I threw the remote across the room but it did irk me from time to time.

Video and Audio Measurements & Testing

Since the Sony BDP-S300 player is certain to be used for upconverting standard DVDs to 1080p via HDMI, it was imperative that we explore how well the player handled the source interlaced signals coming off of standard definition DVDs. In particular, we were looking for solid deinterlacing and jaggie reduction performance, noise reduction and the ability to easily navigate unflagged 2:3 cadences. All final test scores were derived using the Sony's BDP-S300’s HDMI output in 1080p mode unless otherwise specified.

Audioholics/HQV Bench Testing Summary of Test Results

Perfect Score is 130
Sony BDP-S300 Benchmark total score: 50/130

All tests were done with the HDMI outputs at 1080p.  Any failed tests were checked in 720p as well.

Comments on Audioholics DVD Torture Tests

I was really surprised at the lackluster upconversion abilities of the Sony BDP-S300. When playing standard definition DVD's noise was apparent as were jaggies. The lack of 3:2 pulldown indicates that you should perhaps consider letting your display do the deinterlacing by sending an interlaced rather than progressive signal. For Blu-ray playback, the unit performed well despite it failing the two Resolution Loss tests.