Our family has moved into a new condo, and we wtenad to upgrade our sound system to include wireless rear speakers, both for aesthetic and childproofing reasons. So this system sat atop the list of HTIBs to get. I've had it up and running for a week or so, and the following are my thoughts.Set-up:This was a breeze to set up. The speaker wires have color coded plugs, the rear speaker unit has a wireless dongle which is easy to insert (though why it isn't built in is beyond me) and the onscreen menus for setting up internet functions are user friendly. I can't imagine anyone but the most technophobic having any issues.Audio: The audio is clean and crisp, and the bass response from the included unpowered subwooferis good. You may not be used to such clean sound, and think it somewhat anemic. My previous (also unpowered) sub had kicked in on everything, which certainly made everything bassy, but I now realize it had muddied things up considerably. Rest assured, on media files that require deep bass (for instance, Lor of the Rings) it is there in spades. The included surround speakers are also clear and clean sounding. Overall, it's a very good surround experience. There is no room to expand into 7.1 chanel territory from 5.1, but really I don't think most users will care a whole lot.Video: When I first put in a Blu-Ray, i thought to myself,  why is this so mushy and soft?  Well, it became clear that Sony has chosen to enable default settings that smooth and otherwise tinker with the video output. These sorts of cheats are unnecessary with a source like Blu-Ray. So, word to the wise, if you want your Blu-Rays to look as crisp and subtly detailed as they did on your other players, go into  Options  while playing a video and set it to  Direct  (which is also left completely unexplained in all materials, but apparently defeats all extra processing). Also head into the XMB main menu and disable other smoothing regimens. After some tweaks, the video is just about as good as any other standalone player. There is still some sort of processing I can't find a setting to defeat, which causes very slightly odd patterns in film grain. I did comparisons watching the same Blu-Ray of Star Trek TNG, on the same TV with he same settings, flipping between inputs. The grain looks different here than on my Panasonic DMP-BD65, and it is detrimental. Would I have noticed it without a direct comparison? Maybe not. Will the average viewer even care? Probably not. But it needs to be said that this may not be the ultimate videophile player. It is adequate, even good. But it's not absolutely top tier, and will probably be bettered by high quality standalones. Unfortunately, unlike the PS3 and Panasonic Blu-Ray players, there is no 1.5x speed video with stereo audio. This was a great time saver for watching TV shows on DVD, and will be missed.Ease of Use: There are only two HDMI inputs, which means that you will have to be frugal with external sources, unless your TV allows for ARC (audio return channel) with its HDMI inputs. Boot up takes maybe 15 seconds, not too bad, but slower than you may be used to on an old style AV receiver. The remote control is adequate, but it lacks direct input buttons, instead forcing you to either go through the onscreen menu or to keep pressing  Function  (not  Input  for some bizarre reason) until you finally get to what you want. The main unit has only a small LCD display, and it is on the top of the unit instead of the front, so it may not be visible in many installations. The most irritating thing in my book is the inability to rename inputs within the menu. I can do it on my TV, why can't I do it on someting that presumably has much more CPU horsepower? Instead, I am stuck trying to remember what HDMI 1 and 2 are whenever I switch. The IPTV content interfaces are hit or miss. Netflix is updated to the newest specs, containing 5.1ch sound and subtitle options. Hulu Plus, however, is not, and you can't display subtitles even though they are present on other devices. On the other hand, you do get a free 3 month trial of the service, which is nice. The radio tuner only does FM. This is really annoying, since I listen to AM sports broadcasts of my local White Sox. I cannot even fathom why AM tuning was left out when receivers from 5, 10, or more years ago can do it easily.So overall, the system functions well, but has a few irritating caveats. Pretty much like anything Sony creates. If you are a Sony veteran, you'll know exactly the kinds of quirks to expect. You should go in knowing that they haven't created the ultimate ease-of-use product this time around. But it still performs quit well in terms of nuts and bolts A/V performance. I think the audio might be a tad better than the video, for what it's worth.

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