Harry, I bought a SONY Blu-Ray player as well, so let me take a shot at answering these.
Harry Dresden wrote:
Should it really take 10-15 seconds for the tray to open every time I want to put in/take out a disk?
Mine takes that long as well... not to mention the load time for the menu's...
Harry Dresden wrote:
Why does the fast forward/rewind not advance smoothly like a regular DVD player?
I never really use the FF/RW buttons, so I can't comment. If I do, I must not notice anything.
Harry Dresden wrote:
Why does the pause feature not have some sort of incremental advance?
I'm pretty sure mine does. Have you tried pressing pause again?
Harry Dresden wrote:
Are these normal issues, or did I get some kind of a dud?
It seems to be normal with my SONY as well.
Also, what sucks is that my Blu-Ray player has a higher resolution than my TV, so EVERY movie STILL has the black bars on the top and bottom. Irritates me.
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I've won the 100k DD bet so many times, I should have the title "Mr. Luck"