Panny BDT220/320, LG BP620, Sony S590 owners - please help me chose a new deck!

mentasm

Distinguished Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
7,089
Reaction score
1,626
Points
1,225
I’m looking to update my ageing Sony BDP-S550 player as it’s started to exhibit a few problems. Last night I put a disc in while I went to do something and it started playing a film, so I hit the menu button to return to the main menu and it promptly began skipping. I stopped and started again, but it then refused to even load. I went as far as clearing the player’s cache and unplugging it for a bit, but still no joy. This morning it worked… It’s obviously becoming unreliable and it’s also painfully slow by today’s standards; the £50 Toshiba BDX1200 in the bedroom is nippy as hell and happily jumps over minor disc defects that cause the Sony to lock up.

Anyway, I’ve read a few reviews (including some on here) and I’ve narrowed it down to three or four models. It looks like prices (and build quality) have dropped dramatically since I bought my main deck, so I should be able to pick up mid-range deck with superior performance, wireless and various media features for less than I paid for the S550. Although the Toshiba in the bedroom is very quick, it often emits a very loud whine during playback (although it’s been okay for the last couple of weeks, touch wood) and the menus are very basic, so I’ve discounted their latest model. That leaves:

Panasonic BDT220
Panasonic BDT320
LG BP620
Sony BDP-S590

Both Panasonics received positive ratings in the reviews on here. The specific LG model I’m looking at wasn’t reviewed, but the model without wireless was and received ‘highly recommended’ (in spite of scoring worse than the Pannys). The story is the same for the non-wireless Sony reviewed here, which received a ‘best buy’ award. I appreciate that different people reviewed them, which could account for the supposedly superior BDT220 only receiving a ‘recommended’ award, but if owners of these models could offer opinions it would be appreciated.

I really want to hear opinions on build quality, operational noise, speed/playback reliability with slight disc defects (important areas these), media streaming, online services etc. I believe the BDT320 might offer slightly better build quality than the 220, but that the remote is terrible. If the 220's build quality isn’t significantly worse and it's not hugely noisy I’m happy to discount the 320, but I’ve left it in for now just in case. At the moment I am leaning towards the 220 because of Panasonic’s track record, but the AVF review was a bit lukewarm compared to many of the other reviews I’ve read, which is what lead me to the LG and Sony. After reading reviews of those two models I'm torn as to whether the Pannys are worth the extra money!

I'm looking to order in the next couple of days if possible.

Thanks!
 
Externally the build quality of the 320 doesn't seem to be much better
than the 220. Both are largely made of plastic. To get a step up in
build quality from Panasonic you'd need to consider the BDT500,
which is a little bit better.

I can confirm that the remote used for the 320 is of a slightly
misconceived design. It is by no means unusable, but is a little
bit awkward. Sometimes it seems to interpret a swipe as a tap,
for example.

If the remote puts you off, but otherwise you like the 320, you
might be able to get a 220 remote from Panasonic.
 
None of the remotes excite. Build Quality seams OK but no more and noise is generally not an issue. The Sony 790 can be had for < £200 from amazon and has slightly better build quality.
 
Are you both Panny owners? How would you rate them for speed of operation and playback performance? Any problem discs (with BD-Live etc.)? I can live with a slightly plastic design - that seems to be inevitable these days unless you spend a lot more - but I would like something that can handle the odd tricky disc. I'm also interested in DLNA and USB playback, as I have a bunch of mkv files that I'd like to view on the TV downstairs without having to bring the PS3 down all the time.

I've noticed that there's an Panasonic Android app that seems to do the same, if not a better job than the 320's remote, so if I got for a Panny it'll probably be the 220. Not sure I'd like a slot loading player either.

When you say noise isn't an issue, do you mean that there's sometimes a bit of whirring when loading, but otherwise okay during playback? The cheap Tosh I bought frequently emits loud whines even when playing from USB (has to be an electrical thing as there's no disc in it) and I could never live with that for my main player.

Thanks for the info about the Sony, but hat's getting beyond what I want to pay at the moment. I don't think it'll offer a significant visual improvement over the Panny and I use an amp for decoding audio, so as long as the 220 doesn't feel like it will fall apart I'll manage. (Will be a bit odd after the relative brick that is the S550 though.) I called Richer Sounds today and they will have them in tomorrow, but only the multi-region version. I said I didn't need that and they offered to do it for the same price as the standard (not surprising seeing as the MR hack is free for them to perform), so I'm kind of tipping over the fence.

Cheers
 
mentasm said:
When you say noise isn't an issue, do you mean that there's sometimes a bit of whirring when loading, but otherwise okay during playback? The cheap Tosh I bought frequently emits loud whines even when playing from USB (has to be an electrical thing as there's no disc in it) and I could never live with that for my main player.

My Panasonic blu ray player is very quiet once it
gets a little way into the disc. It's initially not so
quiet, and I put that down to it spinning the disc
very quickly at first to speed up loading.

One of the reasons it is quiet is that it is fanless. I
wonder if it was the Toshiba's fan you were hearing.
There doesn't seem to be much to be much point in
spinning up the drive for USB playback.
 
I'll put in a pitch for the Sony on your list. I recently bought (after similar soul searching) a BDP 490 to replace my 350. The 590 and the 490 are identical except that the 590 has a wi-fi link. As my player is next to my hub it was a simple matter to hard wire it in.
I managed to buy my machine locally for just under £100. Beware Sainsburys who are selling them for for an additional £40!! Actually £30 more than the price on the Sony website. You can add a dongle to the 490 if you want a wireless connection at a later stage.

The unit was easy to set up to my amplification system (Onyko). I used the existing optical link. A number of cheaper players seem not to have this facility. The web connected painlessly with any need for setting up etc. I use Virgin Media for TV so I was not really looking for all the additional 'Channels' that the 5/490 offers. There is access to Netflix and the like as well as Sony channels and BBC & C5 iplayers. Hopefully ITV will arrive eventually. The deck is silent in general operation and does not need a fan. Switches between modes easily using the now conventional Sony cross/hatch system. I have a Sony TV so the two match up pretty well. The remote is a bit on the small side, but I can use most of the controls on my TV remote. I can also operate it from a Samsung Pad App which enables me to do web searches using a full keyboard.

First thing I noticed was that the loading of the Blu-ray was quicker than my 350. The sound from CDs seemed much improved. Upscaling form DVDs was fairly good. A lot about this performance depends on the mix of TV & player. I would have liked the front display to been a bit more comprehensive, but it's enough for the job. Overall for the money it does the job effectively.
 
Last edited:
My Panasonic blu ray player is very quiet once it
gets a little way into the disc. It's initially not so
quiet, and I put that down to it spinning the disc
very quickly at first to speed up loading.

One of the reasons it is quiet is that it is fanless. I
wonder if it was the Toshiba's fan you were hearing.
There doesn't seem to be much to be much point in
spinning up the drive for USB playback.
Nope, not a fan (don't think it has one), more of a high-pitched whine. It's temporarily stopped now though.

I'll put in a pitch for the Sony on your list. I recently bought (after similar soul searching) a BDP 490 to replace my 350. The 590 and the 490 are identical except that the 590 has a wi-fi link. As my player is next to my hub it was a simple matter to hard wire it in.
I managed to buy my machine locally for just under £100. Beware Sainsburys who are selling them for for an additional £40!! Actually £30 more than the price on the Sony website. You can add a dongle to the 490 if you want a wireless connection at a later stage.
I actually went to Richer Sounds at lunch and tested both the BDT220 and the S590. I took a known problem disc with me to test.

Panny was fairly quick to load, but the picture broke up with the problem disc. It's also a bit tacky looking what with the drop down flap at the front.

The Sony was marginally slower at loading the disc, but it played flawlessly. Even the Toshiba exhibited a minor jump with this disc (it has a slight surface defect), but it was seamless on the Sony. I was very surprised because my S550 and my PS3 lock up with the same disc, so Sony must have made improvements in their recent models. It's still a bit of a plastic player, but aesthetically better than the Panny.

Now the kicker - they only had the display model and wouldn't sell it. The S490 has no wireless and I don't believe the additional features S790 are worth and extra £60, so I had to walk out empty handed. Seavenoaks across the road didn't have it either, so it would appear that the mid-range model is harder to come by. I even tried John Lewis who were a tenner more. RS are supposed to have some on Friday, so I'll have to wait.

It's sad that I couldn't actually give anyone my money, but I guess that's the reality of the high street these days. Glad I was able to test them though, as I think the Panny would have disappointed if I'd bought it sight unseen. I now have a case of the 'can't waits'.
 
Probably not much use but I bought my Sony from:


Hughes Direct | Electrical Goods, White Goods, Electrical Appliances

They actually have a shop close to me and they sold me the 490 for £40! less than their current website price. According to the site they have 590's in stock. Warehouse is in Thetford, Norfolk.

Might be worth giving them a ring.
 
Last edited:
I had a bit of a brainwave last night. I'd completely forgotten about Sony Centres and there are two of them around here. One had stock so I went and collected an S-590 last night. Had to pay full retail (£150), but I didn't mind paying a tenner more to have it in hand rather than waiting for stuff to potentially come in elsewhere.

Have to say, I'm glad I went with it over the Panny. The XMB isn't quite as nice to look at as the BDT220's interface, but the performance is better. The disc with the surface defect doesn't falter in the slightest, so it's even better than the Toshiba in that respect (which showed a slight hiccup). Only the BD drive in my PC has managed flawless playback of that disc before now. It's also very speedy in terms of navigation. Noise is slightly worse than my S-550, but that's because the older model is more solid and thus has superior noise dampening properties (thicker case, flap at the front that conceals the drive). It seems to be worse with certain discs though and most are quiet. DVDs are whiny, but I have an Oppo DV-981 for that. As was also pleasantly surprised by the boot/loading speed after reading various reviews claiming it was slow. It's marginally slower than the Toshiba (which is very fast), but we're really not talking much and it loaded Cabin in the Woods in about 20 seconds including the BD-J components. Even Prometheus was under a minute. Obviously image quality is good as most players look roughly the same these days. I am bitstreaming to an AVR so audio is dependant on that, but it sounded fine to me from the small samples I heard while testing.

So, BD performance seems to be pretty good on the whole. I'm also quite happy with the media playback. I tried Netflix last night and it streams in X-High quality over my WLAN (802.11n). Also tried a few of the free services like Crackle (Sony movies), but the quality of the streams is quite poor. DLNA streaming from my PC was hassle free as I simply used PS3 Media Server. I also tried a USB stick and external HDD and I was able to play a variety of formats (mp4, mkv etc.) from both without issue. Fast forwarding is nice and quick that way as well.

Overall I'm fairly happy with it. I prefer the physical appearance of the S-790, but when I actually got my hands on it the build quality wasn't anything special (still a lightweight plastic). That's not worth an additional £50 for me though.

Anyway, I'd happily recommend one of these if you're looking for a good all-rounder.
 
The more interesting fact is that the Sony played this "test disc" it would be interesting if there is a technical reason or it's just happenstance.
Alex
 
One imagines it's because the Sony has a better/more tolerant transport. The disc in question has a very small 'dimple' on the playing surface that shows through to the label side. My S-550 and PS3 simply lock up on the defect, repeatedly trying to read the defective section. The cheap Toshiba I bought for the bedroom skips over it with a very minor but still noticeable visual glitch. My BD-Rom drives play it without any obvious interruption, as does the S-590. Whatever the reason it saves me from having to buy a new copy!
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom