Sony BDV-HZ970W Blu-ray Home Theater System (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I bought the Sony Blu-ray all in one system to replace a 10 year old Pioneer AV system. I loved the Pioneer system, but after ten years I had to turn up the volume considerably louder than I had to in when I first bought it and the lights on the player wouldn't light up anymore. I also bought a 60 inch Sony Bravia TV and wanted a system that would benefit from compatibility of Sony components.One thing that surprised me with the Sony system was the base box did not have a plug. I couldn't believe the base didn't require it's own power. Over all the sound is good, but as good as I remember my Pioneer in it's hey day.The good points:*Easiest stereo system to hookup. The wires are color coded for each component and the directions do a great job on how to set up the system.*It works seamlessly with my Sony Bravia TV. The TV remote controls everything, sound, Blu-ray player, and TV without needing to do anything.*Works great with the Apple TV version 2. It comes with the Sony brand internet option for Netflix, but I prefer to use Apple TV. Instead of buying the Sony cradle for iphone/iPod Touch just buy the $99 Apple TV and use Airplay. It works great.Addition Info added 5DEC2010:Bought S-CN5000 and SS-F7000 to replace center and left/right front speakers and boy what a difference it makes.*Sound is easy to calibrate with included Mic.*Design, I really like how the components look like the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Blu-ray player looks sharp, it is easy to read alerts when needed otherwise not intrusive. Very Zen form factor.*Blu-ray player does a nice job up-scaling DVDs.*Two HDMI inputs, since my TV has 6 HDMI inputs the two on the system are just gravy. The system produces great surround sound even if the components are plugged into the HDMI ports on the TV and not on the Blu-ray/AV receiver.*The wireless back speakers are a really awesome touch. It is nice not to worry about the speaker cables running from the TV to the davenport.Things I wish were better:*Sound, I wish I bought better speakers and since speakers use a unique clip format, I am not sure if I can upgrade the speakers. (I may be able to hook up better speakers by just using the speaker wire that came with the system, the clip into the system is a unique clip but the two ends of speaker wire that go into the speakers looks like plain old speaker wire)*The Speaker stand doesn't look sturdy but it is.I love the system but I am having buyers remorse. I wish I would have bought the Sony SA-VS350H 5.1/7.1-Channel' Home Theater Speaker System (Amazon sells the speakers at nearly half off) and a Sony AV receiver. I don't own a single Blu-ray and I am content with the HD quality on Apple TV although no where near as good as Blu-ray. Over all I gave the system 5 stars for the design, perfect integration with my Sony TV, and makes Apple TV awesome.

Pros:Easy set up. This is a great sounding system. Blu-ray playback works great. Netflix works great. Pandora works great.Cons:YouTube is horrible. Video quality is unacceptable and sound is delayed at least a second as compared to video; this make all YouTube content unwatchable on this system. Also since there is no keyboard it takes forever to enter you search phrases in the YouTube app. It will take you less time to hook up you laptop to a TV, and do a search on it with regular keyboard, than trying to search for a particular video on this system.

First off, I will say that it sounds quite good. Now... the bad. And there's quite a list.To start... the remote. If you plan on using the included remote, don't plan on placing the receiver anywhere but directly in front of you. Either the remote or the receiver doesn't like off-access signals. I often need to deliberately aim the remote directly at the device, where-as most remotes give you at least some margin of error. I have the face of the receiver about a quarter to half-inch over the edge of the shelving unit it's placed on, so there is nothing obstructing the remote's signal. Even pointed straight on, the remote only seems to have a range of about 15 feet.A minor gripe, one that I knew about when I purchased the unit, is the proprietary speaker connections. Don't plan on just getting a spool of copper wire if you want your speakers to reach further than the supplied wires. You will have to solder your wire to the existing wire, because only that will connect to the receiver. I didn't have any problem with this, but not everyone keeps a soldering iron in the toolshed any more.Next, the menu system. It's slow to get to the home page, and once you get there, it's bogged down by too many options. Want to listen to something from the internet? You will wade through 20+ options, apparently set up by what Sony thinks you want to watch. I have never touched the first couple of options, and most definitely not the last 15. When you turn on the unit, if you don't have anything plugged into HDMI input (and turned on), it will default to the "TV" input... but only after about 5-10 seconds, and if you had decided in that time to use Pandora, for example, you will be exited from there and given the TV input. I have never had anything plugged into the TV input; I have no idea why it would default to that. Some way to streamline the menu system would go a very, very long way.But the absolute worst facet of this system is the WiFi network / internet access. I've been listening to Pandora about 90 minutes so far this morning, and had to reboot the receiver 5 times because it keeps dropping the connection. On a typical day, I will have to reboot about twice. Now, mind you, there is a completely unobstructed, line-of-sight path between my WiFi router and the receiver. No other device in this household (2 laptops, 2 smartphones, a tablet, and a Logitech Squeezebox) drops its internet connection. I live in a condo where there are a lot of active WiFi routers, so I would like to blame this on network congestion. However, I find the frequency of problems completely inexcusable. I can get smooth and continuous streaming service on any other device. Adding insult, a reboot takes about a 30 seconds to a minute (with the "Quick Reboot" option turned on). This device is not quick to power up and down. Watching Netflix on this device was near impossible on some days.If this device fell onto the floor and broke in half, I would only be upset by the loss of invested money.