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unhelpful audio settings
A great player overall, and I think it does an excellent job of upscaling. Not the fastest load time but not unbearably slow.

I have had two problems with it: it and my Sony Bravia have had a devil of a time with the HDMI handshake recently. It worked flawlessly for a month, and now most of the time HDMI does not work. But occasionally it will for a brief period. Very bizarre. I finally broke down and hooked it up with component, and although that's 1080i not 1080p it does the trick. I haven't heard any complaints about it from others (esp. not with a Sony TV) so I am going to investigate my warranty.

The other problem is more definite and inherent in the player. HDMI audio to my TV is only stereo. I imagine this is because my TV reports during the handshake that it only has two speakers or something. But the TV does have a digital audio out which goes to my receiver. Other HDMI devices are able to send Dolby Digital 5.1 through the same pathway just fine, but this player does not. It does of course work to hook the digital audio output up to the receiver directly but this results in more things to change when changing sources.

The audio settings are rather non-intuitive and difficult to understand. I had to research online, e.g. avforums, to even figure out what most of the settings mean and how they would effect what signal gets sent where.

nice bluray overall
the sound quality I would rate 10/10, best I've heard. I have it hooked up with optical to a Yamaha digital sound projector and it rocks

picture quality is good. but in scenes with fast-moving stuff its not really smooth. I'm not terribly picky so I'm not going to say its bad, but could be smoother I guess

worth the money IMO

2 Months - stopped working
After 2 months of usubg a total of about 5 times -- the unit no longer works

Sound cuts out
We bought this player in order to save on wear and tear to the PS3. Installation went without a hitch. Picture quality is as expected. Not too big on the feature set. Just play the movies, I don't need BD-Live or any of the other "extras." That's what I have my PS3 for.

Unfortunately, the audio is a major hassle. At first I didn't even realize what happened. While watching cartoon, the video fritzed for a split second and the audio cut out. At first I didn't notice the fritz, thought my son hit the mute button. So I fiddled with the audio and it came back again. Then it did it again. And again. And again. And again. At completely random times throughout the movie. I thought it was a bad disc so I swapped discs. Same problems. It fritzed even before I could get into the movies. Tried numerous "fix" the problem. All were either unsatisfactory or non-working.

So is the player to blame? I imagine so. The PS3 plays movies without a hitch. Is it a problem Sony could have been aware of? OH YES! There have been reports of this exact problem with different HDMI products dating all the way back to 2005! You would think all of the manufacturers, including SONY, would get their act together and make sure this doesn't crop up.

Movies Wonderful to Watch
The Blu ray has arrived and was easy to install, once you went to the store and bought the cable. The cable should be included like batteries for toys should be included. We are enjoying using it

Dont take a chance on one of these!
I am a long-time SONY purchaser - amps, CD players, digital and video cameras, TVs, but am really frustrated with this particular model.

My low rating comes not from the initial specs and useage (which I was quite pleased about and would have rated a 4*) but due to an apparent common hardware problem with these players. This past month my player froze on a rental disk and would also not play older BD disks from my library (these had all played fine before).

A no disk or cant play disk message now comes on for all disk types. I dont have the latest firmware (5.2), but had upgraded to 4.9 last fall. I was just about to install 5.2 when this problem occurred. Some people have tried to upgrade the firmware to solve compatibility problems, but havent been able to complete the process, and thus are left with a player that wont function at all.

Now, the thing is I have been searching online through various user forums and I have seen well over 20 similar stories of peoples' BDP-S300's stopping disk playback.

Some people have returned theirs for servicing (at a high cost); others have trashed them.

So, I would not recommend people taking a chance on this model, if you still find it around, either new, or particularly if used

Use 5.20 Firmware to make the unit sine!
I bought this machine secondhand for 35.00 without knowing the troubles she had. I went ahead and burned the Latest firmware (5.20) into a disk and as soon as I took her out of the box I updated it before use.

Now she operates very smooth and with no frills and issues!!

I really recommend to use the 5.20 Firmware to get the best out of the player

Junk is what this machine is
Had this device for one year. In shop 4 times, now warrantee is up. You have to update it constantly by disk. Now it won't work at all. Don't buy

13 Months and Dead
This machine has always been slow the start and the BD loading time is endless. Now it sticks on the 2nd command you give it. Tried a hard reset (power/stop) and firmware update, just to jog it back into reality. Can't pull up the system menu.

Verdict: boat anchor.

very disappointing
This product does not live up to the usual quality standards one would expect by Sony. Even with current firmware update this product is very poor. The unit takes an unacceptably long time to power up, is very slow to respond to simple things like ejecting a disc, and you must cross your fingers every time you use the remote to pause, fast forward, etc in hopes that it wont hard freeze...and even then, hard freeze happens fairly regularly.

Its frustrating to have it lock up during a movie - you have to unplug the device power cable. Then wait 3-5 minutes for the thing to boot up again, another 3-5 minutes for the disc to load, cross your fingers the thing wont lock up again when you try to select the scene you were last viewing, cross fingers again as you fast forward through the scene to the point where it locked up...all in all, takes roughly 10 minutes to get back to the point in the film where it seized. Keep in mind you might have to do this more than once during the course of a movie. My wife now jokes how lucky we are if we happen to watch an entire movie without going through this process.

When it is funtioning normally - the picture and sound quality is what you would expect Blu-Ray to be. But the fact the thing is so slow and locks up so frequently offsets anything good you can say about this product.

I cannot reccomend this Blu-Ray player to anyone - its an embarrasment. Once upon a time I would buy Sony electronics without a second thought. This product has made me very skeptical of Sony's direction in quality, and moving forward, will think twice before buying anything else made by Sony

Not bad
I have a 52" W model in the living room and bought a 40V5100 model for the bedroom. The W model is definitely worth the extra money when you look to get a it all.

The pros:
The 40V5100 overall just fine for my bedroom.
Picture quality is fine.
Tuner works great and picks up everything.
Menu is easy to navigate.
Enough inputs.

The cons:
The sound is has a lot of static noise at lower volumes, it's very annoying.
The stations don't change as fast as on the W model.
You can not edit the names of the stations.
Doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a higher end TV.

Great for family room
This TV made for an awesome Christmas present, especially since I got an amazing Black Friday price on it. This is our first flat screen, and we have been very impressed with the picture quality, ease of use, and look of it hung up on our family room wall. We were a little surprised to find how much more we have to turn it up in order to hear well, but it's not any kind of dealbreaker. Overall, super pleased. Highly recommended.

Disappointed--must be a defective TV
I purchased this TV on a Sunday, was very impressed with the good price and the excellent reviews it had received, for the most part. The TV arrived by a box truck shipper on Wed at 7:30 AM, having been shipped from around 60 miles away. I had to run after the driver for his invoice, and he could only deliver it to the door without an "additional charge", but I was very happy with the speed of the delivery, carried it up the stairs, and happily set it up, expecting an upgrade from the 32" 720P Bravia I have watched for a couple of years, which is excellent and I have no gripes about, and was a big factor in "going SONY" with this one.
Unfortunately, the picture quality is poor, and I am going to send it back to SONY at their expense and they will replace it under the manufacturer's warranty within 5- 7 days of faxing them the receipt, which I did today. The problems with the TV are blurriness of numbers and images...the Olympics for example, were of a much better quality on the 2 yr old 32" ,720P Bravia than on this one. It is not extreme defect, but it is not "excellent HD" and the quality in important ways is similar to an old style television. I replaced the cable box, tried a new HDMI cord, and ran a newer DVD through it that should have had an excellent picture. Nothing was better. The words "stunning, and "amazing" that I've read in the reviews here certainly don't apply. There is also too much black in the picture, the black colors predominate. Hopefully this is a defective product and these will not be problems with the new one they send...if so, then I can't understand the other reviews here and I probably have forgone the "return" option (which would cost about 25% of the cost considering the restocking fee and shipping).
I must say the customer/tech support with SONY has been excellent so far, and I hope after the replacement arrives, I can write another review saying "the picture is stunning". If anyone has comments or suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Red flashing and some sound issues
This TV has pretty decent sound and picture, but is plagued by a few issues which could likely be resolved with a simple firmware update (if sony ever provides it)

I am talking about the "red flash" issue. This is actually an issue involving automatic jumping up and down of color temperature during normal operation of the set, but has garnered the name "red flashing" since it can become very noticeable during scenes with lots of red in the background as you can plainly see the colors getting brighter and dimmer at random times during the scene. Scenes with deep blue backgrounds (The Daily Show) can exhibit some pretty severe blue flashing at times too.

The sound pops and crackles a bit when you change channels on this TV, and there is a little barely audible fuzz and static on the built-in speakers. The sound on certain HDMI connected devices may not work if you turn them on before turning the TV on. I think these issues also boil down to the firmware.

The inputs on this TV are awesome, and the experience is otherwise great, and the price is very affordable.

If the above mentioned issues can be addressed by firmware (if only the red flash, since I find it most annoying) I will gladly upgrade my rating to 5 stars.

Sony KDL-40V5100
Received in excellent condition, mounted to wall with easy (and only needed one person). Has been an excellent choice in picture, sound and ease of use. Would recommend a PS3 to go with it for ease of accessing internet, and streaming video from Netflix. Haven't played any games on it yet, but sure with the picture quality already seen it will be a great time.