Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Just got this all-in-one Bluray theater today. In general it's a nice bargain (especially at the GoldBox deal from Thanksgiving). I use it in our Living Room to replace the TV speakers, so the sound is definitely an improvement. I probably wouldn't use this in a true "home theater" since the subwoofer isn't powered. But for general Bluray listening in the Living Room and for Netflix streaming, it sounds just fine. It does what it claims and has a lot of good streaming options (Netflix, Pandora, etc). Picture quality is excellent. Bluray player is similar to Sony's BDP-S370 player.
However, unlike all of the reviews (on the Internet) of this unit that I read before purchasing, this unit does NOT have DLNA support for streaming music from your local network servers. In fact on page 35 of the included manual in the section "Playing files stores on a DLNA server" it specifically says: "Except for BDV-E370 U.S. models".
This is extremely annoying. It's obvious to me that this device *used* to have this feature, which is why all of the older reviews mention it. My guess is that it was removed in a software update. Yes, I did the network update and now it says that no other update is available. I didn't check to see if DLNA was available before the update. The related setup page for DLNA called "Connection Server Settings" in the "Network Settings" screen is also missing.
Unless you get a really good price deal on this, I'd recommend the BDV-E570 instead which has the DLNA support and also includes the WiFi adapter. I had a wired Ethernet, so the adapter wasn't a big deal. But if I had known that this unit really didn't support DLNA, I probably would not have bought it. Now that it's already installed and working, I'll probably keep it.
Maybe we can convince Sony to put DLNA support back into this device. It's obviously just a software issue and I'm annoyed at Sony for not including this and am annoyed at the reviews that all say it has it when it doesn't. But that's why I'm giving only 4 stars.
Update #1: Since there is no HDMI input, to hook up your cable box you need to connect the digital audio output of the cable box to the input on the E370. You use your TV to switch the video and use the E370 to switch the audio. The only problem with this is that the Sony E370 does not support discrete remote codes for the different audio inputs. It only has a "NextInput" command. So you'll need a smart remote (like a Harmony) that can remember what input is currently selected so that it knows how many "NextInputs" to send to the E370 to get it to the correct channel.
Update #2: (12/17/2010) Just installed the latest v735 firmware and still no DLNA support :(
Update #3: (2/11/2011) With the latest firmware update M04.R.752 I can confirm that DLNA support has now been added to this device. It automatically sees my Windows 7 computer on the local network and can play music and see photos. As others have reported, there still isn't any way to "shuffle" a play list, but that's pretty minor. I would now rate this item as 5 STARS. Thanks to Sony for finally updating this device to what it was advertised.
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