Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) Reviews
Other products by Sony Ratting 4.5 Out of 5.0 Special Offer Total New 34 Total Use 7
Order Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player ($56.3 Save)
Experience Blu-ray Disc movies in Full HD 1080p quality with stunning HD sound that supports enhanced audio formats including Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio. You can also play and upscale your DVDs to near high definition. Connect to the internet and instantly stream thousands of movies, videos, music and more from Netflix, YouTube, Slacker and other leading content providers with the Sony BDP-N460 Network Blu-ray Disc player.
Technical Details
- Plays Blu-ray Disc movies in Full HD 1080p
- Instantly streams online entertainment from leading providers
- Upscales DVDs to near high definition
- BD-Live ready
- Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio decoding
See more technical details
“One machine does so much!” 2010-02-02
By Bobcat Woman (Edison, NJ)
Blue Ray technology certainly brings viewing movies into a whole new dimension. Everything visually and audibly are so crisp. It’s a pleasure to watch movies.
“Not yet sure on this one” 2010-02-01
By Alex Brough
I bought this for my husband for Christmas 2009. I decided on this blu-ray model for a few reasons:
1) Capable of streaming not only Netflix, but also Amazon Unbox purchases and rentals, YouTube, and Slacker Radio
2) Video upscaling
3) Sleek design
4) Mostly good reviews on Amazon, minus the few complaining of poor Netflix streaming (which I figured could be fixed with the latest firmware update from Sony)
This was our first blu-ray player and my husband was so excited to get it set up on Christmas day and start streaming Netflix through it so we wouldn’t have to renew our Xbox Live membership, which we only use to stream Netflix through the Xbox 360, as we are not big gamers (The Xbox is our media extender).
We quickly got the BDP set up with a wired Internet connection on our Linksys WRT54G Router and Onkyo TX-SR507 receiver using an HDMI cable. When we turned on the BDP, it walked us through a fairly easy to use setup wizard. After going through the setup, the BDP notified us that a firmware update was available for the player, and indicated in order to use the Internet streaming features we must push the update to the BDP. So, of course we did the update and set out to test all the features of our new BDP.
This is where the problems began.
1) Could not get any BD to play in Dolby Digital to the Onkyo receiver (however, regular DVDs would play in Dolby Digital). Read the instruction manual and could find absolutely NOTHING to indicate a setting change to make this work. Looked all over Sony’s website for any information on this and came up short handed once again. Finally, I took a chance on Onkyo’s website and found information in their FAQ noting that the audio on some BDPs must be set for bitstream. I couldn’t find anything in the audio settings on the Sony BDP-N460 in regards to bitstream, so I manually started changing all of the audio settings one-by-one and then would play the BD to see if it came through the receiver in DD. Well, low and behold… finally when I changed the “BD Audio Setting” from Mix (the default) to Direct I was able to get DD sound on my BDs through the receiver. It was a little perturbing that this setting — and not the Dolby Digital setting — would be the one that would allow BDs to send DD output to the receiver. Sony needs to make this clearer as I’m sure a good portion of their customers hook up their BDPs to receivers and enjoy DD surround sound.
2) Along with the BDP, I bought my husband 8 new BDs for Christmas. Not only did it take an unusually long time for the feature film to load on all of these, but most of the extra features on the BDs would not play at all. I finally broke down and contacted Sony Support on 12/26/2009 for this issue (45 minute wait for Online Chat) and when I finally got to chat with a support representative, I was asked what BDs I was having a problem with. I told him all 8 of the new BDs I purchased (Harry Potter 1-6, Polar Express, The Hangover) would not play the extra features. I was promptly told that this is a known problem with some newer BDs and to wait for the next firmware update to fix it. WHAT?!?! The last firmware update that came out was only 3 days prior on 12/23/2009. If this is a known issue, why wasn’t it fixed in the previous firmware update? The only reason I bought the Harry Potter movies on BD was specifically to watch the plethora of extra features provided on the BD format. And I couldn’t even watch them with this player!!!
We asked a friend of ours who also purchased this model for Christmas if he had the same problem and he indicated he had not, but he also did not have his player connected to the Internet and had not done the firmware update. We began to wonder if the 12/23/2009 firmware update actually broke the ability to play extra features, so we started looking at resetting the player to the original factory defaults, but unfortunately there is no way to back-rev firmware. We tested our 8 new BDs on our friend’s BDP and all of the extra features played without issue.
Ultimately, we ended up returning the unit and planned on exchanging it for another (we decided we wouldn’t do the firmware update immediately). However, at the time, Amazon was out of stock, so we just returned it.
After the problems we encountered, you may wonder why we would willingly exchange it at all. While the problems above were enough to return the unit, there were other features about this particular player that were good:
1) The DVD upscaling was incomparable to any other BDP I’ve seen.
2) With the firmware update, Netflix streaming was decent. It buffered more frequently than the Xbox 360, but it wasn’t intolerable.
3) The Amazon Unbox feature was nice (which we don’t get with the Xbox) and the streaming was about equal to Netflix.
4) The ability to stream more Internet content besides Netflix and Amazon Unbox was nice. The few days we had the unit, we used Slacker Radio and YouTube frequently.
UPDATE:
About two weeks after we returned the unit, it became available again on Amazon and it was $40 cheaper than I had paid for it in November! We went ahead and bought it, and when we got it set up, we DID NOT do the firmware update. We are now able to watch the extra features on BDs and the feature films load much more rapidly than the last unit.
While we can’t stream Netflix or Amazon Unbox due to not applying the firmware update, we settled with keeping our Xbox Live membership going a bit longer as the Netflix streaming was better and had less buffering issues. We may consider applying the next firmware update in order to use all of the features this unit offers, but only after it’s been generally available to the public for a few months and seams stable.
“Blu-Ray” 2010-02-01
By Annie (Silverdale, WA USA)
What a great product. Sony has done it again. The features are great and the capabilities of other services makes this the Blu-Ray to own.
“Problen that won’t quit” 2010-01-31
By John A. Bennett (Olive Branch, Mississippi United States)
This device has not worked since I got it.
Sony customer service is the worst.
Its been almost a month and I still can not watch a Bluray disc.
“Great BluRay palyer” 2010-01-31
By L. Gingrich (USA)
I have had this player a few days and like everything I buy… I push it to see what it will do. I hardwired this player to my home network…
I needed to upgrade to BluRay and looking for Netflix… because FIOS movies are kiiling me in pay-per-view pricing.
BluRay features and quality – outstanding performance… fast load…etc. Upscaling gets a 10…
Netflix is a cinch to download and playback is very high quality.
Internet services – YouTube, slacker radio, Amazon Video-on-Demand and about 2o more services. I only care about Netflix… the other services seem to be a total waste… I played around with all of them for about 20 minutes and lost interest.
This is a great player, easy firmware upgrade, easy to connect to Internet and general setup. I paid too much. But I think I got the expected SONY quality in return.
I don’t agree with the negative comments on video quality, etc. I highly recommend for the average consumer who wants a good return for investment, not a cheap flipsy cabinet like some other brands, very nice styling and easy to use.
I’m enjoying it!!
Images Product
Order Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player ($56.3 Save)