Author: simonmackay

Introduction

I am reviewing the Sony BDP-S390 Blu-Ray Disc player which is one of many value-priced Blu-Ray players that don’t just play Blu-Ray Discs but effectively add Internet TV functionality to cheaper and older TVs.

There is a more expensive variant known as the BDP-S590 which adds 3D playback with suitable TV equipment and a top-of-the-line model known as the BDP-S790 which adds on 4K high-resolution playback for the largest high-resolution displays as well as support for Skype functionality. But I am focusing on the BDP-S390 as a model that ticks most of the network and Internet video boxes at an affordable price.

Price

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$179.00

Functions

Connections

The unit itself

The Sony BDP-S390 is much smaller than most common DVD or Blu-Ray players and may be described as not fitting the average AV equipment rack due to this size. But this wouldn’t be of concern if you you are just plugging it in to the secondary TV set and it is sitting on the bench under or beside that set.

Being a video-focused device, there isn’t a display on the unit and you have few controls on that unit. Therefore, you are encouraged to operate this unit from the remote control and using the TV screen. This may make the playback of audio-focused content like audio CDs or vTuner Internet radio become more unwieldy as if you are listening to digital radio via a satellite-TV or digital-TV set-top box; or listening to the radio through the TV in some hotels.

Connections – Composite video, stereo line-level audio, digital audio, HDMI A/V, Ethernet LAN

As far as the home network is concerned, the Blu-Ray player comes with Integrated 802.11g/n Wi-Fi as well as Ethernet connectivity rather than being “Wi-Fi ready” where it would need a dongle to connect to the Wi-Fi network. It can connect to video systems that use a CVBS (composite) through an RCA jack or HDMI display and can connect to audio equipment via an RCA line-level stereo feed, a PCM or bitstream (Dolby Digital) feed using an RCA socket or a digital feed via the same HDMI socket. This same HDMI socket also allows the player to work with “one-touch-start” setups that use HDMI-CEC control abilities. The front has a USB socket so you can connect up a memory key to store BD-Live data or play / show media content held on a memory key.

The setup routine was relatively quick although you would need to use SMS-style data entry when you enter the passphrase for a Wi-Fi segment that doesn’t implement WPS quick-setup. This routine can be annoying if you have punctuation in the passphrase due to the confusing reference to an “input method” where you would need to press the yellow key on the remote to gain access to the punctuation.

The standard remote control that comes with this player

The Sony BDP-S390 does support “smartphone-as-remote” operation with the Sony Media Remote app for the iOS and Android platforms. This allows you to use the smartphone and your home network as an alternative to the infrared remote control and could allow you to conceal the player in a cabinet yet be able to operate this Blu-Ray player.

As a member of the DLNA Home Media Network, the Sony BDP-S390 ticked all the boxes properly. Here, it worked well with TwonkyMobile on my Android phone to allow me to “throw” a Facebook album image to the TV’s screen and it had come up properly. It could also quickly list every DLNA media pool that existed on the network as part of the top-level XrossBar menu.

The Internet TV experience was very smooth for the visuals and came through without any glitches. As well, it didn’t take long to load up whatever was in an IPTV channel’s lineup.

Even though I had access to an average TV to test this player, the Sony’s picture quality did come up very well with photos and videos. The colours were still true to the video no matter the source.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

The Sony BDP-S390 could provide support for extended DLNA applications like setting up shows to record using DLNA-compliant PVRs; and RVU which allows it to be a user interface for advanced cable-TV PVRs and to some extent, hospitality applications.

The Skype feature could be made available across all of the Sony Blu-Ray players so as to allow existing TVs to work as Skype videophone terminals.

Similarly, I would like to see this set as well as other Sony consumer-electronics equipment be able to work with IPv6 networks so they can be future-proof. As well, this Blu-Ray player, as well as other Sony network-enabled consumer-electronics equipment could support WPA2-Enterprise setups as a field-installable add-on so small businesses don’t need to create separate WPA2-Personal segments to implement Wi-Fi-enabled DLNA-compliant audio and video equipment in their network environments.

Of course, some of us might think that this player looks a bit ho-hum because it uses a drawer to load discs rather than a direct-load slot.

Conclusion

I would recommend the Sony BDP-S390 Blu-Ray player as a valid option when you want to enable an existing TV or HDMI-equipped video projector with Blu-Ray, DVD, DLNA and / or Internet video capabilities. The price makes it even right to purchase this player as an entry-level Blu-Ray player / network-video terminal that can be used with an entry-level flat-screen TV.

For example, you could buy that low-end LCD TV and this player from Harvey Norman in order to get cracking with Blu-Ray Discs and “The Shire” on Channel 10 Catch-Up TV. Or you could use this player and any old LCD TV or HDMI-equipped video projector to set up a DLNA-driven visual-merchandising arrangement for your business or organisation.

The higher-end Sony models could go well with a high-grade TV that excels on picture quality yet you want to get your foot in the door with network and Internet video as well as Blu-Ray playback.

Article

After several generations of loyalty to my mobile phone, the worm has turned on Apple | The Age (Australia)

My Comments

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet – fit for business

I have observed over the past year that the Android platform has yielded a run of highly-capable mobile-computing devices that are placing the Apple iPhone and iPad on notice. These devices in the form of the HTC One X smartphone; the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note smartphones; the Google Nexus 7 tablet and the ASUS EeePad Transformer Prime tablet are yielding what high-performance and high-value are about. The devices that I have mentioned in this list implement highly-strung CPUs and graphics subsystems that can allow them to do advanced tasks like action-rich games or smooth video playback.

This has also been augmented by various features that the Android ecosystem offers over the iOS ecosystem. For example, most of these devices offer a user-replaceable battery. This was demonstrable with my Samsung Galaxy S smartphone where the battery failed to hold its charge and I had to use an external battery pack all the time to gain real use out of it. Then I just went to a mobile phone dealer and paid AUD$40 for an original battery for the phone on Thursday. iPhone users would have had to pony up more than this and be without their phone for a significant amount of time to replace the battery under this circumstance.

Another example is the fact that most Android devices use a user-replaceable microSD or similar memory card as well as onboard storage. This means that you could use effectively an infinite amount of memory with your device by purchasing extra memory cards. Infact I use different microSD cards in a similar manner to those cassette tapes or MiniDiscs that we remember where I have one card carrying music of one kind and another carrying music of another kind.

Speaking of music, you can add your media content to your Android device using your computer’s file manager or media management program if you have your microSD card in your laptop’s SD card slot or a USB card reader; or your Android device tethered to your computer via its USB cable. These scenarios present the device to the computer effectively as a floppy disk or USB memory stick. This is also a similar path for offloading images you took with your Android device. Similarly, if you run TwonkyMobile on your Android phone, you may be able to have the ability to add music to your phone’s collection by picking the tracks you want from your DLNA-hosted music collection and selecting “Copy to your device”.

The user interface can be easily customised by the manufacturer or the user through the use of animated live wallpapers, display and control widgets or similar items. This yields a sense of flexibility to the operating environment that the typical Android device presents, such as a “dashboard” view of battery status, operating modes and social-network activity.

There is even competition on the app and media storefront for these devices where competing app-store providers such as manufacturer-hosted or carrier-hosted stores can exist on the device’s app list. But there isn’t an online newsstand for the Android platform that can rival what Apple offers and this may limit the distribution of digital newspapers and magazines to these tablets.

But what the Android platform offers in value, capability and performance is making Apple and their fanbois worried so much that Apple have been litigating against Samsung and other Android device manufacturers on clams of patent infringement. Some cases such as the UK legal activity have been struck down due to legal assessment that the devices didn’t copy Apple designs.

But I have also observed commentary, including an Age article about the Samsung Galaxy S3, about people who have jumped from the iPhone to the Android platform due to the liberating characteristics that this platform offers.

Some of you may want to decide whether you want to use a laptop’s integrated trackpad or thumbstick as your pointing device on that computer. On the other hand, you may want to use an external mouse or trackball as your pointing device “on the go”.

Each device has its own application

The laptop trackpad which is good if you are on the couch or in an airline seat

I would find that the external mouse can do the job better if you are frequently using your laptop computer on a table or desktop. This is more so if you are doing advanced graphics work and you find that these devices are easier to manipulate for this work and you have the benefit of the larger table or desk surface as your working area. Some of the external mice are available in a very small size so you can stow them in your laptop bag without them taking up too much room.

The regular mouse which works well at a table or desk.

The trackpad or other integrated pointing device can become more handy when you are in a lounge area or are travelling in a plane or train because you don’t have to worry about the extra mouse or trackball in these circumstances. As well, you don’t necessarily have the room to move a mouse around if you are confined to an armchair or sofa. In the case of working in a lounge area like the hotel lounge or someone’s lounge-room, you may get away with moving your mouse around the coffee table if the computer is on that table or on a thick armrest if the computer is on your knee.

You may find that the large ottoman like this one at QT Melbourne may work well with your mouse in controlling this Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake edition laptop

It is also worth knowing that you may have trouble using your optical mouse on a glass table due to there not being any reflection or texture that the mouse can work with. You can work around this problem by placing a tablemat, napkin or piece of paper on the table and moving the mouse on that surface. This may not be of concern if you use one of those wooden dining tables that is finished off with a glass top.

A laser mouse which uses a laser as its tracking light is more flexible with different surfaces like glass tables than the regular optical mouse. There are newer technologies like Logitech’s Darkfield technology that are even more adaptive with glass tables whether they be the wooden table with the glass top or a desk or coffee table that just has a glass top.

What kind of connection

The typical easy-to-lose dongle that comes with most wireless mice

When you choose an external mouse for use with your laptop, you could go for a USB-connected wired mouse or a wireless mouse. If you do go for a wireless mouse, I would recommend that you look for a Bluetooth or WiFi-Direct mouse like the Logitech Bluetooth Mouse M555b rather than the common type that come with a receiver dongle so you don’t need to carry around an extra dongle that you could easily lose.

This is due to the mouse using the laptop’s integrated Bluetooth or Wi-Fi circuitry as the connection path rather than something that is as big as a key and at risk of being lost.

Driver software

Most mice and other input devices don’t need to use any user-installed software for them to work with the host computer. Here, they just use class drivers that are integrated in to Windows, MacOS X or Linux for their basic functionality. Some of them may use a manufacturer-supplied driver for touch functionality or other advanced functions.

Batteries for your wireless mouse

Most of these wireless mice work on AA or AAA batteries so it is easier to get your hands on a set of the batteries for your mouse. You could just pick up a set of them from a drugstore or supermarket or ask Front Desk or Housekeeping for a set of these batteries if you stay in most hotels.

If you are using a wireless mouse, it may be worth running it on lithium batteries rather than the regular alkaline batteries. These allow the mouse to perform at its best at all times that you use it because they are adept at handling short bursts of short power demand. Similarly if you use it with a laptop that you only use during travelling, the lithium batteries have a longer shelf life.

Rechargeable batteries can come in to their own if you use the mouse very frequently such as with a main computer. Some of these can simply be charged on an overnight basis if you are using them daily. The chargers can be ran from AC power directly or there are some that run from a USB socket which would be handy if you have a laptop that uses a “sleep-and-charge” USB port or you use USB power supplies. Some newer wireless mice even have their own fixed-in batteries and are charged by connecting them to the host computer’s USB ports or a USB-based power supply.

All wireless mice will have an on-off switch on them. Here, you use this switch to turn off your mouse when you pack it in your bag for travel so you don’t find that the battery has run down. You will also find that if you haven’t used your mouse for some time, it will “go to sleep” to save battery runtime and will come alive when you press one of its selection buttons.

Conclusion

Once you choose and use the right input device for your laptop, you are then able to gain better use of the computer for the situation that you are using it in.

Additions – November 2020

Further details on Logitech’s Darkfield technology from further personal research, along with further usage notes regarding wireless mice.