Playing with Sony's Player
As Blu-ray disc market is gradually taking off, Sony has rolled out its
next-generation disc player with a slew of features. It’s available
at Sony Style retail outlets, sonystyle.com,
and other authorized Sony retailers in the U.S. It’s BDP-S350 if you’re
interested in the model label. You need to shell out $400 to buy it.
Giving the
product details, Sony says that the BDP-S350 supports BonusView
(picture-in-picture), which is featured on select new Blu-ray Disc home
video releases, and is also BD-Live ready, with an Ethernet port for easy
firmware updates and access to Internet-based interactive content
features. A firmware update enabling BD-Live is planned later this year.
It also features
quick start-up mode improving the player's boot-up time to approximately a
few seconds and offers an external port for local storage for BD-Live,
allowing users to add an optional flash storage device (sold separately).
"We leveraged our
expertise in film production and digital technology to build a machine
that movie fans would truly love," said Chris Fawcett, vice president of
marketing for Sony Electronics' Home Products Division. "An advanced
Blu-ray Disc player like the BDP-S350 is a must for every HDTV owner
because it delivers the ultimate video and sound quality, while unlocking
features you can't find on DVD, downloads, or video on demand."
Since many
consumers own extensive DVD movie libraries, the BDP-S350 incorporates
Sony's new Precision Cinema HD Upscale technology that converts
standard-definition signals (480i) to 1080p and outputs a full HD
equivalent resolution signal to 1080p TVs via HDMI. Additionally, the
model also adds Sony's new Precision Drive HD, which helps to detect and
correct wobbling discs from three directions, stabilizing playback of bent
or scratched Blu-ray Discs and DVDs.
Compared to
Sony's previous BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc model, the new BDP-S350 model
reduced the overall unit size by 55%, reduced packing material by 52%, and
reduced the unit's total weight by 38%. The compact size of the finished
package allows Sony to reduce the C02 emissions related to shipping by
approximately 43%.
In addition, the
unit features 21% less power consumption in playback mode and 43% reduced
power consumption in stand-by mode. It also features lead-free solder,
all-paper packing, and the user guide is printed on 70% recycled paper
with Volatile Organic Compound-free vegetable oil based ink.
The model offers
7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoding and bit-stream
output, as well as DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and Master Audio
bit-stream output.
The BDP-S350
supports AVCHD discs encoded with x.v.Color (xvYCC) technology, an
international standard for wide color space reproduction. The standard
expands the current data range of video by about 1.8 times, allowing the
players to output more natural and vivid colors similar to what the human
eye actually sees in the natural world. The players also feature
compatibility with an array of video formats, including BD-R/RE (BDMV and
BDAV modes), DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW (CD-DA format), and JPEG on
DVD/CD recordable media.
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