Sony BDP-S480

The Sony BDP-S480 is an entry level 3D compatible player. In spite of budget pricing it has all the most common ins/outs and numerous features. It offers, for example, BD Live support and DLNA 1.5 via the Ethernet socket as well as wi-fi (optional).

Hardware, design & build

With a black metal lacquered design, the Sony S480 has a simple and elegant look. Sony has also worked on its compactness to reduce depth to 19.9 cm, which means it'll fit into almost any TV furniture you have. There's an On/Off button at the front on the extreme right hand side. Next you'll find the Blu-ray disk slot, the eject, play and stop buttons.


Two USB ports are available, one at the front on the far right and the other at the back, which means you can link up a storage peripheral (1 GB minimum) to download data for BD Live or playback video, music and audio files using the built-in media player. You'll find the rather reduced but sufficient connectivity at the back: HDMI, component, composite, coaxial digital audio out, stereo analogue audio out and Ethernet port.

This is a very rapid player. It comes out of standby in just two seconds and the first Blu-ray images take 23 seconds to display.

Image quality

The 3D quality is excellent. We used a 3D VT30 plasma TV for the tests along with the film Monsters vs Aliens. Liquid spurt effects and the depth of the image were perfectly displayed. Faultless.


In both 2D and 3D films, both colours and different brightness levels are very well respected. HD quality is quite simply perfect and upscaling from various SD sources (DVD, SD digital tuner and so on) is well supported. We do still prefer the PlayStation 3 here, with smoother rendering and no aliasing effects.

Energy consumption

The PlayStation 3 does better with upscaling but its energy consumption is also a good deal higher (76 Watts). The S480 draws less than 10 Watts during the playback of a Blu-ray film and 0.1 Watts in standby.