Sony BDP-S380 review

We were seriously impressed with Sony’s 2010 range of Blu-ray players, giving the BDP-S370 a Best Buy award. The sheer number of features packed into the tiny player combined with a surprisingly low price made it the obvious choice for most people.

That Blu-ray player has now been discontinued and is replaced by, logically enough, the BDP-S380. Like the S370, the newcomer doesn’t support 3D Blu-ray: for that, you’ll need the BDP-S480, which costs around £180.

Visually, it’s almost impossible to tell the S370 and S380 apart, the only cue being the curved – rather than angular – button ledge at the bottom of the front panel. A slight update to the installation wizard means you can get up and running quickly, setting your language and the type of cable you’ve used to connect the player. Oddly, there was no prompt to set the HDMI resolution to 1080p, so it remained at 576p until we changed it in the System menu.

The Sony XMB interface is as easy to navigate as ever, letting you get to your videos, photos and music quickly. As well as playing Blu-ray and DVD discs, the S380 can also play Super Audio CDs. This is unlikely to interest users as much as the USB media playback. You can attach a FAT32 or NFTS-formatted disk or flash drive and play JPEG slideshows and MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV files.

Video support includes MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, plus WMV 9, AVCHD (intended for direct playback from camcorders) and Xvid. This may sound no different from the S370’s support, but DivX is now missing, so your collection of AVI files may or may not play depending on whether they were encoded using DivX or Xvid. All the other test files we tried, including high-definition MKV and Xvid clips, played smoothly. As with the S370, the S380 handles video superbly, fast-forwarding and rewinding with no hiccups or delays. Our only complaint was that no thumbnails were shown for videos, album art wasn’t displayed for MP3s and the occasional JPEG thumbnail was missing.

The new remote control is stumpier than the old one. This feels slightly cramped, even though it has fewer buttons than the S370’s remote, lacking the frame skip and Theatre buttons.

Two new audio codecs are supported: Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio. There’s no real benefit to this currently, as we’ve yet to see any discs or digital files using these codecs, but it could come in handy in the future.

Another subtle difference is the removal of the S370’s optical S/PDIF output (there’s only a coaxial S/PDIF now).

Unfortunately, start-up time has taken a step backwards. Although the disc tray ejects almost immediately, it took 44 seconds to begin playing Casino Royale on Blu-ray. The S370 took just 21 seconds. If you’re in the middle of watching a movie and put the S380 into standby, you can simply press the play button on the remote to resume viewing, but that still takes almost 40 seconds.

You can enable a quick-start mode, but while this does save time, it also draws a continuous 6W when in standby and means the fan spins constantly, and will prove an annoyance to those with acute hearing.

Bravia Internet Video has evolved slightly since the S370 was released, but firmware updates mean there’s no difference between the old and new models here. BBC iPlayer’s interface remains sluggish, but fast forwarding and rewinding internet video is still smoother than on other manufacturer’s products. However, it’s worth noting that, as with the S370, there’s only a choice of Normal and High Quality video – not proper HD as you get with Humax’s Freeview HD PVR, the HDR-FOX T2.

Also bear in mind that, as with every other set-top box, Bravia Internet Video provides only catch-up on-demand TV, which means the last week’s worth of BBC and Channel 5, and even then only selected programmes. Channel 4 remains unavailable, despite being added to the PlayStation 3 in 2010. YouTube allows you to sign in and awkwardly search for videos using the number buttons on the remote. Again, like virtually all other set-top and mobile devices, you’ll see a different set of search results than on a laptop or PC: full-length sponsored TV episodes will be unavailable.

If you own an Android phone, iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download the MediaRemote app which lets you control the S380 via Wi-Fi. The only really useful feature is the Disc Info tab which shows you information about the disc currently playing, including cast, director and producer.

The BDP-S380 is still a great-value Blu-ray player with a wealth of features, but it’s not quite as impressive as the S370 was. The lack of DivX support is arguably more of a problem than the ‘missing’ optical S/PDIF output, but the slower start-up time is also disappointing. If you can still find the BDP-S370 on sale for under £120, buy it, but otherwise, this is a great choice if you don’t need 3D support.