Yamaha BD-S1065BL Blu-Ray Disc Player

3 Comments

1. Nina Forsyth Thompson says:

   February 16, 2010 at 1:12 pm

   This is an excellent blu-ray player. The colors are vibrant and the picture is crisp connected to my Sony LCD television via the HDMI port. Disc loading times are miniscule, with the player initiating playback in no time
   
   I have tested both recent and older blu-ray titles (The Prestigeand have experienced no problems loading the disc or enjoying the non-BD Live special features. The unit itself is very sleek and slender and weighs less than five pounds. Additionally, the player is silent during use.

   I highly recommend this player to anyone interested in owning a great blu-ray player at the decent price spectrum. Yamaha as always knocks the competition out or perhaps im biased towards Yamaha.
   Rating: 5 / 5
2. K. Klein says:

   February 16, 2010 at 2:38 pm

   After dealing with playback issues on lesser Blu Ray players, I decided to go all in and buy something high end. This is a true piece of A/V equipment, not half toy / half computer. It has played everything I’ve put in it without skipping. Several DVD’s that I thought were scratched because they always skip at some point play without hesitation in this player. The sound in fantastic, partly due to my Yamaha reciever, but I do notice a difference.

   The remote is OK but I use a Logitech Harmony so it doesn’t matter for me.

   The case is full sized, not ultra slim player here. I had to adust my shelves to fit it in my A/V cabinet.

   My only issue so far is that the USB port is in the rear and you can’t download updates directly from the internet. When I attached the ethernet cable to the network, I assumed that the updates would be downloaded onto the flash drive I had inserted. Not so. I had to download the files from the internet to put on the flash drive and re-insert into the rear of the player. This is not too big of an issue for the way I have my setup, but I could see how it could be a pain if someone didn’t have easy access to the rear of the player.

   I have the LG 60PS80 so I don’t miss the Netflix and YouTube, but I found on other players I had that I didn’t use them much anyway for it to affect my purchase decision.
   Rating: 5 / 5
3. Extemporaneous says:

   February 16, 2010 at 4:56 pm

   When Dorothy and crew approached the castle of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, she encountered a old, dilapidated wooden sign that read . . . “I’d go back if I were you”, and this expresses my sentiments perfectly for anyone considering the Yamaha BD-S1065 Blu-Ray Player. As a diehard Yamaha fan, I truly wish that I could offer prospective buyers of the Yamaha BD-S1065 something ‘positive’ about this particular player, because I’ve been a staunch supporter/consumer of all things ‘Yamaha’ for many years. The fact is, they make some of the finest home “audio” components available anywhere, but I’m afraid the same cannot be said of their “video” gear including the BD-S1065.

   Let me say at the outset that I own the Yamaha RX-V863BL A/V (home theatre) receiver ($600) and its an awesome unit! I also own a full line-up of Yamaha home theatre speakers including the Yamaha NS-C444 center speaker ($150), two Yamaha NS-B750 bookshelf speakers ($1200/pair), and a Yamaha YST-SW315 sub-woofer ($250), all of which operate flawlessly for me. So it seemed to make perfect sense to trust in the purchase of a new Yamaha BD-S1065 blu-ray player ($400) for our developing home theatre system. But unfortunately, that trust was completely shattered when I connected and evaluated the BD-S1065.

   The first unit I received had more problems than I care to articulate (right out of the box), but the single most troublesome flaw was that it took the player “eons” to load a new (standard issue) blu-ray disc. I mean it took literally 4-5 continuous minutes of scanning the disc before anything at all appeared on the television screen, and even then, it would re-enter yet another secondary “reading” phase that made the unit completely unusable in practical terms. I tried it on multiple discs of variable manufacture, and it misbehaved the same on each and every one of them. However, it also had a grossly outdated version of firmware, so being the optimist that I am (i.e., thinking that this might be the source of the problems), I foolishly went to the trouble of downloading the newest version of firmware from the Yamaha website to a CD/R disc via home computer and then transferring the new firmware to the BD-1065. Unfortunately, despite the firmware update, the problems all continued. In fact, some additional issues arose after the update including completely random stoppage of blu-ray discs right smack in the middle of viewing a movie (almost like a screensaver event)! Weird! Very-very weird. And significantly, the faulty behavior could not be duplicated using the same discs with a PlayStation 3 (PS3) or other (Samsung) blu-ray player.

   Fortunately, Amazon has always been great about returns, so I sent the unit back for a replacement. A week later, the second (new replacement) BD-S1065 arrived, so I plugged it in (just as before). To my utter dismay, all of the same issues or problems with the first unit were present with the 2nd (replacement) unit including protracted load times, excessive and multiple disc readings, random stoppage of the disc in the middle of playback, etc., etc. And believe me, the list of headaches goes on from there! In each instance, I used brand new blu-ray discs all of which played without incident on a blu-ray equipped PS3 and similar Samsung unit, and in each instance, I was able to repeat the problem by returning the disc to the Yamaha BD-S1065. End of story.

   Bottom line? This unit is NOT worth considering for your blu-ray needs. Sorry Yamaha, but I’d recommend that people look elsewhere for their blu-ray needs.
   Rating: 1 / 5