Hot on the heels of its format win over HD DVD, Sony has revealed two new dedicated players that, for the first time, add Internet connectivity for downloading future extras and content from BD Live.
The new players are the BDP-S350 and BDP-S550 due this summer, and in the Autumn, respectively. The players finally offer much of the functionality promised – but never delivered - by the Blu-ray camp and which the now defunct HD DVD technology already offered. But at a price.
Both players conform to BD Profile 1.1 and sport Ethernet connectivity and a USB port for transferring content from storage sticks and external HDDs. The new players are the first to offer a picture-in-picture (PiP) feature, called BonusView. Both support 1080p playback at 24fps and upscaling of regular DVDs via HDMI. The S350 and S550 are the first Sony players to support 7.1 Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus sound decoding.
The S550 adds 1GB of internal storage, support for BD Live out-of-the-box and the top end audio HD audio formats, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio.
Typically though, they will not be cheap with the S350 and S550 priced at $400 and $500 in the US. That doesn’t sound too bad when you convert that to £200 and £250 but, by the time they arrive here, expect them to retail for closer to £400 and £500.
Maybe Sony really doesn’t want Blu-ray to become mainstream.-Martin Lynch
sony blu-ray movies
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Comments
They look pretty nice players, but the price, Bit steep if your article proves true.
There is always alternative players from other manufacturers.
Ok, you invented a price and based your conclusion and article on speculation. Thanks for reminding us that this is a bloggers site not a news source.
It's not really a speculative price - if it retails for a price in the US, they generally just convert the $ 1:1 with the £ - how is that speculation when that is exactly what happens with electronics equipment?
I agree with Dom there, although to be fair to Sony, they will have to spend time and money making sure their players conform to various UK regulations.
On the otther hand, are Sony going to be pulling their usual trick of charging other companies extorsionate royalty fees for using their technology? Or is Blu-ray less their technology and more of a conglomorate thing?
Panasonic owns most of the royalties on Blu-Ray NOT Sony.
Prices will eventually drop...They have already dropped faster than DVD prices when they first hit the market.
They are trying to keep China out of the loop because profit margins are practically non-existant on DVD hardware and they don't want the same to happen with Blu-Ray and of course China would make very cheap Blu-Ray players ( Which would overheat but no one mentions that )