Firmware version 015 was made available January 29th 2009 for the Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player. The S350 automatically detected that a new firmware version was available. Downloading over the Internet and updating was very simple and took about 7 minutes. I really like the way that some networked AV components make firmware upgrades so easy and painless.Improvements over firmware version 010:
- Improves BD-Java compatibility to enhance interactivity with some BD-ROMs.
- Improves BD-Live performance to enhance interactivity.
Some people have reported that the 015 update fixes the Baraka Blu-ray freezing problem. I am skeptical that something that appears to be a laser layer focus/transition problem could be fixed via firmware. I will update this section when more Baraka user reports are in.
The new 015 firmware did not fix the Wall-E Blu-ray DTS audio glitches that I was having with my Lexicon DC-1 pre-amp/processor. The Lexicon DC-1 has DTS firmware from 1997 so it is probably something that can't/won't be fixed externally. It's time for me to upgrade my old DC-1 to something newer that is HDMI compatible with the newer lossless codecs.
The higher end Sony BDP-S550
model also has firmware 015 available with the same improvements listed. The S350 and S550 firmware download files both have files sizes of 51,822,592 bytes but they have different md5sum checksums so they are not the same. I will update this section when I compare the contents of both firmwares and determine what is different.It has been 4 months since the 010 firmware came out September 30th 2008 that added BD-Live support to the BDP-S350. At this rate the S350 will probably get a couple more firmware updates this year. They will likely only be bug fixes as Sony hasn't announced any future features like their competition has for streaming Netflix, YouTube, and Picassa support. This is sort of discouraging since Sony has such a great track record of adding new features and functionality to the PS3. Time will tell how this affects Sony's AV consumer business.
Netflix members with a $8.99 per month or higher plan will get unlimited instant streaming of HD titles. Here is a list of devices that can do 
The Blu-ray disc of Pixar's Wall-E experiences several brief DTS audio dropout glitches when played on a Lexicon DC-1 THX AC3 DTS preamp with the v2.01 firmware. The DTS audio plays flawlessly until about 18 minutes into the movie when the first brief audio dropout occurs. The glitch is very annoying and it happens about 20 times during the movie. The dropouts are repeatable and they always happen at the same locations. When it happens the Lexicon loses lock on the 5.1 DTS signal, switches to 2ch 48K PCM, and then reacquires the 5.1 DTS signal all in a fraction of a second.
Pioneer has announced that it will build 3000 more LaserDisc players before it halts production. Currently 3 models of LaserDisc player are still being built and they are all produced by Pioneer. So this signals the end of an era. Production of LaserDiscs stopped in 2001 and Pioneer had continued building players for people who had large collections of discs.
that runs until January 16th 2009. The selection is quite large this time. Amazon's slow but free shipping is also available which makes this deal even better.