not too happy with BD550
I'm an LG fan - have two LG TV's and a BD370 that I am real pleased with. Got the BD550 to work on TV 1 and move the older BD370 to TV2. Unit ships with 1080i as the default resolution, and when it is changed to 1080p the display pops, flashes and eventually the unit powers off. 1080p with the older BD370 works fine on TV1, but not with the BD550, so I know it's not a TV or cable problem. LG customer service suggested I leave it at 720p, but no thanks, I want a machine that dos what it says it will do.

This is the good stuff
I wanted a Blu-Ray player that I could also use as a CD player with a good audio system. Based on magazine and user reviews I went for the Oppo BDP-83; it's pricey but quality is never cheap.
This is the best piece of equipment I've bought in ages. You know it's a class act from the minute you open the box: the packing is snug and doesn't crumble, and it's easy to unpack (not so much praise for Amazon's packing: they put the Oppo box in a larger box with loose paper filler, allowing the Oppo box to slide around; no damage, though).
The manual (I always read them): It's written by a literate English-speaker and printed as a full-sized book,in a large, bold font on good paper. It has lots of diagrams and explains everything clearly. There are countless combinations of equipment you could use the player with, but you can easily find the part of the manual that you need. Oppo provides an HDMI cable, too.
The setup: You hardly need the manual, because when you turn it on a setup wizard figures things out and provides appropriate defaults for outputs, video and sound settings. Two minutes and you're ready to play your disks.
Performance: Blu-Ray disks load in a few seconds and the picture and sound are beautiful. The player upscales DVD's, which look as good as you could wish -- not as good as Blu-Ray, of course. As a CD player it produces superb sound (and I'm really fussy), and it plays some disks that don't play on other machines, presumably because of damage or defects in the disks. I have only one SACD but that sounds great too, though I'm not sure the SACD format adds much for my purposes.
Updates: I didn't connect it to the internet but I downloaded the latest firmware and installed it by flash drive. No fuss, no problems.
Missing features: Note that it won't play 3-D video or stream Netflix, if those things are important to you.
I am delighted with the BDP-83. If you agree that quality matters, go for it.

Epic Fail for DLNA
If you are buying this device to do anything OTHER than play Bluray, look elsewhere. Sony claims to be able to play multiple formats (mkv most interestingly). I bought this device after learning it had DLNA support.
To date, even after applying several firmware updates, DLNA does not work AT ALL. I can see my various DLNA media servers, and I have tried at least 5 different DLNA products both hardware and software, but I cant play any media. I get "no playable file" no matter what format, extension, or encoding is used.
After extensive reading on the internet, I learned that mkv files are only supported via USB. That's great, but many .mkv files are 2-17GB in size, and the only filesystem the sony's support is fat32 so forget about putting large mkv's on your usb stick.
Go elsewhere if you want to use streaming or other video formats.
It's a decent Bluray player but thats it. Period, end.

Very easy to use Blu-Ray player
Very well built, easy to use with excellent, clear instructions. Well pleased with the purchase.

Great Player....
This is a super player as to video, passing 24 fps, etc. It's one weakness is it's start-up time. Like so many other players before it, the average time period from "On" to the start-up of video can be as long as 1 minute, but most BD movies are averaging approx. 40 seconds. Other than that, for the price, it's super!

Great for 2009
This unit has been obsoleted by model DMP-BD65 (ASIN: B0038KN114) which would be a better purchase because it is less expensive and has Netflix capablity.

With consumer products, newer has almost always meant better, faster and cheaper and that is the case here.

This unit's time has come and gone if you want the current Wi-Fi capabilities that Sony and LG offer as well.

This was my first blu-ray disc player and it works great after a few minutes of cold start POST (power on self test). A DVD will play in it, but I prefer to use my 3-disc carousel DVD player because it is faster.

Overall, it is a great step up technologically, but it is slow and had a short life before it was replaced with the upgraded model.

Terrific Blue-ray player
The quality of the product is great. It is fast and the picture is great. I also set up Netflix to steam movies and tv shows. It really is amazing how quickly it does the process and how good the picture quality is. The representative at Sony was very helpful in helping me set up the procedure.

After a year, I quit.

I wanted a lower end bluray player to replace an old DVD player so I could watch prerecorded high def movies on my new Sony HDTV. From the first day, the Sony s360 was unreliable. Though easy to connect and use, about 1/3 of the time it fails to either load or finish playing without some sort of audio/video malfunction. This happens not only with regular DVDs but also with bluray movies. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the problem since very often movies that will load one night, will not load or play properly the next. The sound problem can often be fixed by ejecting and reloading the disc, and then manually searching for the scene where you want to resume play. While a hassle, at least you can watch the film. However, there is no fix if the disc won't load. Give up and go for a walk.

If your Sony is unreliable and within the one year manufacturer's warranty you can get a free refurbished unit. I did not know this, and since I am two weeks past the warranty date, I must pay 3+tax. Since I can buy a new bluray player from a different manufacturer for a little more than that, I am going to go in that direction.

mediocre at best
I've been using this BD player, mostly to stream Netflix, for about three weeks.

It is slower to connect to Netflix than either PS3 or Roku. It frequently chokes on content (I'm thinking there's something wrong with the way this machine manages cache, but I could be incorrect about the cause), with long pauses and/or video disruption -- large black bars instead of signal, stopped motion, red screen -- in the middle of a movie. Another irritation: although the Netflix instant viewing queue is visible, no management at all is possible with this Sony machine: can't rate items viewed, can't move or remove items currently in queue, etc.

Yes, I checked, using several methods. It is not a bandwidth or other network connectivity issue. The BDP-S570 itself is the source of the problem. For example, once parts of the screen blank out in black bars, those black bars persist with all other Internet content, on DVD movies, and on BD movies. So far, turning everything off and disconnecting power for few minutes resets to normal.

Overall, there is a good reason this machine is being sold relatively cheaply. The price matches its performance.

Bottom line, so far -- three weeks on -- DVD and BD functions work, though, as usual with Sony, with controls that are awkward and counter-intuitive. (Sony, ever heard of the user-testing concept?) So far, Internet connectivity is possible but barely tolerable, not excellent. All other streaming video methods in the house, one within twelve inches of the BDP-S570, work better than this player. So, three-in-one, yes, but not well done.