Dorian Lopez
- Comment
I just wanted to write this small review to let everyone know that a longstanding plague on this model of sony blu-ray player has finally been fixed. Here is my story: I was looking for a blu-ray player for the living room. I have a PS4 in my bedroom and it has always played blu-rays without any problems, but there was a need to have a blu-ray player in the living room for the whole family as the dvd player we had owned for a long time finally gave out. I went to my local target and picked this blu-ray unit up for $67 (it was on summer sale during " summer movie rush", normally it retails for about $150). This is the model that needs an ethernet cable not the one that has wifi. But I figured we dont need all that streaming stuff, all i needed was a good box that can play a disc. I took it home and it worked for 1 day. Then i turned it off and didint use it again for about 10 days. When I went to use it again on sat night all of a sudden i couldnt get the tray to open. Every time i pressed the open/close key on the remote or on the box itself i would get a message saying that the child lock is on and the eject key is disabled. When i would press the 3 keys to disable child lock (STOP-HOME-TOP MENU) it would say on the screen that the child lock had been disabled but then when i would hit the key to open the tray i would once again get the "child lock has been enabled" message. In effect, the bluray player was trapped in a vicious loop and what it meant for practical purposes was that i had spent my money a paperweight instead of a bluray player because there was no way to get a disc into the player. I tried re-setting to factory settings several times and it still did not work--the disc tray remained locked. Given the fact that i had barely used the blu-ray player i was very upset. I went online to research the problem and found that many people had experienced the same problem that I had and there was a lot of anger in the sony users forum and other places where the problem was discussed. I had spent over 5 hours trying to fix the problem and had come to the conclusion that the unit was a piece of junk. I had come to the decision to return it to target and buy a samsung blu-ray player instead (they are much more expensive), when i noticed one thing that i had not yet tried. I went to check the firmware update. On user forums online people had said that earlier firmware updates to this unit had not even addressed the problem and that it was a waste of time. When i went to the sony website to check on the firmware update I saw that the latest update was only a few days old. THE LATEST UPDATE WAS DATED JULY 12th, 2016--only a week old!! And among the various notes for the update one of the bullet points said "fixes a recurring issue with the child lock feature." This was vague, but i figured i had nothing to lose since the worst that could happen was that it wouldnt work- in which case i was no worse off than i already was, and i would return the unit to target. I followed the directions for installing the firmware update to the letter. I downloaded the file from the website and then unzipped it on my computer and transferred the unzipped update folder to my usb memory stick. the memory stick was then plugged into the usb socket in the front of the unit and i started the update process via the bluray players menu. You may need to run it more than once. The first time i got a message saying the update had failed and to try again. The second time i tried the update went smoothly, with no problems at all. After checking the firmware version on the blu-ray player to make sure that the new firmware was in place i decided to put the blu-ray player through the wringer. After close to 3 hours of testing, putting in different discs (both dvd and blu-ray), stopping the movies in the middle and ejecting, turning the unit on and off, pressing the open/close key several times in a row with no disc etc. i am glad to say that the tray did not lock even once. I can now open the tray and successfully load and unload discs every single time. The problem now appears to be fixed for good. If the problem recurs, i will update this review. The unit came with the extremely buggy firmware M30.R.0040 out of the box. The firmware must be updated to version M30.R.0306 Important--After you download the new firmware file onto your computer be sure to check and see that it is 147,379,972 bytes before attempting to transfer it to your bluray unit. If the file is not the amount of bytes specified then you have to download it again. In order to get the info on a pc you can right click on the downloaded zip file,or on a mac you can control click and then choose "get info." The unit itself is very compact (anything that saves space is great in my book) and is excellent for what it is--a barebones blu-ray player with excellent resolution and colors. It will also upconvert your dvds. This will not play 3d blu-rays nor will it play 4k material. If you want those functions then you need to get a different model blu-ray player. Also please be reminded this is the ethernet version of the player---this means that if you want to take advantage of the internet capacity on this blu-ray player to access some of the streaming functions you have to run an ethernet broadband cable from your internet router/hub to the back of this unit. This unit DOES NOT have wi-fi capacity. If you want your bluray player to connect to the internet via your home wireless network then you have to buy the next model up in the chain. In my house our internet router for cable tv and internet is in our basement, so we use this bluray player strictly as a box to play discs. Again--it is a very good player for what it does and I feel that it has a lot of punch for such a small device. It does get a star off however because no owner should have to go through as much aggravation as I did in order to get such a basic function as opening the disc tray to work properly. Sony should have these units with the updated firmware right out of the box. The sony firmware website for this model bluray player is [...] I hope this posting has been helpful and happy blu-ray watching to all!!