June 2009 Reviewed by Jeff Van Dyne	Sherwood BDP-5003 Blu-ray Player

Description Model: BDP-5003 Price: $249.99 USD Dimensions: 16.9"W x 2.2"H x 10.25"D Weight: 7 pounds, 11 ounces Warranty: One year parts and labor.	Features Blu-ray Profile 1.1 Plays Blu-ray, DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3 CD Video outputs: HDMI 1.3, component, composite Scales output to 720p, 1080i, 1080p via HDMI 480p component-video output 24-bit/192kHz audio DACs TosLink and coaxial digital audio outputs Two-channel audio downmix output Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital DTS-HD, DTS-ES, DTS

When I began researching the Sherwood brand, I was surprised to learn that they’ve been around since 1953. I’d known about them for several years, but had no idea they went back that far. I’d never owned any of their products, but several years ago I bought an inexpensive Sherwood stereo receiver and CD player for my then in-laws. I compared the receiver to a couple of other inexpensive mass-market receivers in the same price range and was pleased to find that the Sherwood’s sound quality blew them away. Much has changed since then, but Sherwood appears to still be building high-value equipment.

Description and setup

Sherwood’s BDP-5003 Blu-ray player ($249.99) is a solid first effort in that category. The player itself is attractive enough, with a gloss-black finish very much in sync with that of my DirecTV HD DVR. There’s an illuminated Blu-ray logo in the middle of the front panel, and five blue backlit transport buttons on the right, which looks kind of cool so long as you don’t have to stare at them in a darkened room. An option to dim the display would be greatly appreciated. I like the fact that the Power button on the left side of the player turns it off completely. I often wonder exactly how much electricity I’m wasting with the large number of electronics I have that are forever idling in Standby mode. The remote control is functional and well laid out, but it feels lightweight, and suffers from that common malady of home-theater remotes: it’s not backlit.

Around back are the HDMI, component, and composite-video outputs, a single analog audio output, and optical and coaxial digital outputs. What you won’t find is an Ethernet port -- there’s no chance of the BDP-5003 supporting BD-Live, if that interests you. However, it does support Bonus View, which I think is the more useful feature anyway.

The BDP-5003 took about as long to load a disc as does my Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player -- not with lightning speed, but more than fast enough for the job. The drive itself made a fair amount of noise while reading and loading discs, but was quiet enough after that. During play, there was an ever-so-slight lag in accepting commands that I don’t notice so much with the Panasonic -- nothing irritating, but the Panasonic feels a little smoother and more polished in everyday use.

Setup was simple enough -- the options are pretty basic. The setup menu indicates that the BDP-5003 supports 576p/i output, though I wasn’t able to see if that worked in NTSC mode. This will be useful if you have one of those rare projectors that operates in 576 mode. For most TVs, setting the ColorSpace to xvYCC lets the player automatically select the best option. Setting the Film Mode to On will correctly output video signals originally recorded at 24 frames per second, provided your display supports this capability. The Audio menu consists mainly of the standard digital output settings.

Viewing

If you want to really trip up a DVD player, feed it a particularly bad non-anamorphic transfer. One disc I use for this purpose is the 1999 edition of The American President, which has poor resolution and lots of edge enhancement. (Maybe one of these days Warner will grace us with a better transfer.) This edition of this film will never look great on a large-screen TV, but I was a bit surprised at just how poorly the BDP-5003 handled it. At times the video was actually jerky, with more jaggies than I’ve seen from a standard-definition DVD in a long time. In contrast, my Panasonic DMP-BD30 produced a much smoother picture, with no jerkiness and very few jaggies. The resolution was still poor and there was a ton of noise, but the picture was much more watchable.

This piqued my curiosity about how the Sherwood would react to a good transfer of a black-and-white movie. A quick search of my library turned up Artisan’s superb transfer of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. The BDP-5003 handled it beautifully, so I can’t blame the non-anamorphic The American President for tripping up the Sherwood. This time, there was virtually no difference between the Panasonic and the Sherwood.

The Superbit release of Superman II, a much-better-quality DVD than The American President, fared better with the Sherwood. There was no sign of jaggies, and none of the jerkiness displayed with non-anamorphic releases. Colors were properly saturated, and detail was very good. Overall, the picture looked just fine. When I switched to the Panasonic for a comparison, I thought I detected ever so slightly better detail, but any differences were vanishingly subtle.

Wanted is a stupid movie, but at least this basic action flick with great visual and sonic effects looks and sounds fantastic on Blu-ray. The Sherwood didn’t disappoint, with great detail and color rendition that at least made the visuals look realistic, even if the movie itself isn’t. The rainbow of colors in the background of the market scene was rich and fully saturated. I found nothing in the way of performance to criticize here -- a direct comparison of the picture qualities of the Sherwood and Panasonic resulted in, essentially, a dead heat.

I don’t normally watch concert videos, but my brother kept telling me to check out the Blu-ray edition of Roy Orbison’s Black & White Night, filmed in 1987 in black and white and originally broadcast by Cinemax. It’s now probably the best concert video I own. Orbison is joined onstage by the TCB Band, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, k.d. lang, and Jennifer Warnes. Great stuff. The audio has been remastered to DTS-MA and sounds phenomenal, though some will quibble with the overuse of the surround channels, which effectively place the listener in the middle of the band rather than in the audience. I say just enjoy the music. Black & White Night is my only 1080i Blu-ray, but I saw no artifacts in the BDP-5003’s conversion of the video from interlaced to progressive scan.

The BDP-5003 failed to play the Blu-rays of The Princess Bride and Australia, both of which play fine in my Panasonic DMP-BD30 with a very old firmware release. I attempted to update the Sherwood to see if that would resolve the problem, but was unable to get the firmware to load by following the instructions provided on Sherwood’s website. I can think of a few reasons for this, but if the online instructions aren’t clear enough for somebody with experience to get it the first time, then I have to assume that firmware updates are never going to happen for the vast majority of people. This detracts considerably from the Sherwood’s appeal. It’s nothing new -- disc-based firmware updates have been a source of frustration for many owners of Blu-ray players. However, Panasonic provides detailed instructions, with tips in case there are problems with the update. Sherwood’s entire set of instructions consists of five sentences. If you’re going to sell something that’s essentially a computer that requires occasional software updates, you’re going to have to provide better support than this.

Although running a very old firmware release, my Panasonic player is rarely tripped up, even as many newer players from other companies still haven’t gotten it quite right. There’s nothing I hate more than getting a new Blu-ray Disc, only to discover that I can’t play it until I’ve downloaded, burned, and installed a firmware update. That has almost never happened with either of my Panasonic players. However, Panasonic has been at this game longer, and has had longer to shake the bugs out of their products.

Conclusion

In most respects, the Sherwood BDP-5003 is a respectable player of DVDs and Blu-rays. The only thing that tripped it up was an incredibly poor DVD transfer, but with any source material of reasonable quality its performance was virtually indistinguishable from that of my Panasonic DMP-BD30. The Sherwood was a little slower to respond to commands than the Panasonic, but not terribly so.

While the Sherwood BDP-5003 is a capable enough player, as of this writing it costs only $50 less than the Panasonic DMP-BD60, which operates more smoothly and has an Ethernet port. It’s a value proposition: First, you have to decide if you care about BD-Live, and I’ve seen nothing to date that makes a compelling case to go there. Second, you have to decide whether a smoother interface and the ability to handle very poorly mastered discs is worth 50 bucks.

Manufacturer contact information:

Sherwood America
13101 Moore Street
Cerritos, CA 90703
Phone: (800) 962-3203
Fax: (562) 741-0968

Email: service@sherwoodamerica.com
Website: www.sherwoodusa.com

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