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Sony ships new Blu-ray player

Although announced in February, Sony’s latest Blu-ray set-top player has just begun shipping last week.

The BDP-S350 is a BD1.1 player, meaning it has all the BonusView features available. It is also “BD-Live ready” pending a scheduled firmware update. This requires a 1GB flash drive (not provided by Sony) placed in the rear of the player.

Another notable change is its physical size. It’s now 55% smaller than the previous BDP-S300, and uses 43% less power in standby mode. Sony is proclaiming this player “green.”

I have used this new player, and I gave it a tryout in the form of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest. This disc is loaded with BD-Java menus and operates sluggishly on the previous BDP-S300. First I opened the tray while the movie was playing and noticed that it opened much faster, in a few seconds. The S300 player took over twenty-seconds to open. When the tray was closed again the first preview played in approximately twenty-seconds. A loading screen played in the form of the key used to open Davy’s chest. With the S300, that loading screen took over fifteen-seconds to begin displaying, and almost double before the preview played. The BD-Java menu has a 3D skull on the top of the screen speaking while a storm rages through the surround speakers. On the S300 the menu lagged a portion of a second between buttons, but the S350 had immediate response.

This is very promising. So far this is the fastest player I have seen. I’m hoping to try out the new Pioneer Elite BDP-01 player soon.

For $399, the BDP-S350 is also reasonably priced in the mid-fi category. Otherwise, Sylvania and Maganavox have players in electronic retailers at $299.

Source: CEPro

Take a survey, enter a PS3 drawing

Home Media Magazine is sponsoring a contest to give away a free PS3. To enter the contest, simply jump over to homemediamagazine.com, scroll down a bit, click on the PS3 contest image in the right-hand column and then fill out a quick survey.

Sony Why Blu? sweepstakes contest

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has launched a contest to create a poster or video promoting Blu-ray Disc. The grand prize winner receives a Playstation 3, $250 cash, and eight Blu-ray movies including Surf’s Up, Open Season, Across the Universe, Hitch, Fifth Element, Hellboy, A Knight’s Tale, and 50 First Dates. The winner is selected from the top 50 rated entries.

Another prize is given for “most viral” selected from the top 50 most viral entries. Not sure how they’re qualified. The prize package is identical but without the PS3. There is also one prize given away randomly, winning the same Blu-ray package and $150 cash.

Sony provides a few videos, logos and dozens of still images for entrants to utilize. They require using a logo in the entry.

To enter, visit the website: Why Blu?

Managed Copy on Blu-ray is optional

Reports of AACS LA not including Managed Copy in the final specification due later this summer emerged from a Consumer Electronics Daily report this April. However, chairman of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) Business Group Michael Ayers came out to say, “AACS LA continues to work toward a set of final specs and licenses that includes Manged Copy, just as it has been since the beginning.” If this was not clear enough, he went on to say, “There are no plans to drop Managed Copy, and reports to the contrary are in error.”

Even Richard Bullwinkle of Macrovision - who is a leader in fighting digital copies of even legally purchased DVDs - commented to Home Media Magazine saying, “I think failure to allow for Managed Copy would be a mistake.”

In 2005, before Blu-ray and HD DVD had reached the market, Microsoft and Intel pushed for Mandatory Managed Copy in AACS. This was one area that Microsoft broke with Blu-ray over (the other was HDi). HD DVD accepted Mandatory Managed Copy and Blu-ray did not. Later, Blu-ray and HD DVD were equal with a mandatory system. HD DVD claimed (at the time) this was backwards compatible and all discs would work. However, AACS LA had not completed the specification for Managed Copy.

The AACS specification is still not complete, but the latest revision (0.921) released in June does include Managed Copy in Chapter 5. This does look like the Managed Copy Machine is optional. It is not explicit but does say the “BD-J Application can know the availability of Managed Copy Machine and request to invoke a Managed Copy Machine.” This does sound like the Managed Copy Machine does not have to be present.

Certainly we will know for sure once the 1.0 specification for pre-recorded content is available. But studios such as Fox and Lions Gate have already provided digital copies of movies on Blu-ray (and DVD) already without the use of the AACS system.

400GB Blu-ray developed by Pioneer

Pioneer will introduce a sixteen-layer Blu-ray Disc capable of storing 400GB of data on July 13 at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 (ISOM/ODS2008). This holds eight times more data than the current dual-layer 50GB version currently in use on the majority of high-def movies, and double the space of Hitachi’s last eight-layer Blu-ray.

The disc is currently read-only, but Pioneer says it is backwards compatible with existing Blu-ray players on the market.

A new disc structure was developed to reduce crosstalk from adjoining layers, making it able to access all sixteen layers at full bandwidth. Each layer contains the standard 25GB currently available with Blu-ray Disc.

Onkyo planning Blu-ray launch

One of the few hardware manufacturers to actually release an HD DVD player will be releasing a Blu-ray player later this year. Onkyo’s previous high-def effort was a rebadged Toshiba player which sold so poorly they pulled their support for HD DVD within months.

While they have not released model or pricing information, the initial player will support all Blu-ray audio formats on board, and will feature HDMI 1.3 (this is pretty much standard now). Considering this is the extent of the information provided, I can only assume Onkyo will build this player and I’m sure we’ll see an Integra version shortly after release.

Source: TWICE

Is Sony undermining Blu-ray?

Sony is introducing digital movie delivery to the Playstation 3 later this year. The video game console will be host to movies from most major studios. They also have a BRAVIA media link for their lauded line of LCD displays offering online video content. The same movie service will be provided to BRAVIA later this year as well.

I do not think that Blu-ray Disc and digital delivery are peers to be compared, but does this move undermine the retail strategy of the Blu-ray Disc Association?

Two separate marketing campaigns will be engaged at the same time. I don’t mean to bring in World War II analogies, but fighting multiple fronts isn’t always the best way to get things done. It contrasts high-quality optical media with convenient internet video. While Blu-ray is higher-quality and more fully-featured than DVD, it’s physical format does hint at “old technology” while the big tech hit is the iPhone. The new technology is lower-quality than even DVD, but it seems newer, fresher.

These campaigns will have to be targeted with focused scope. Blu-ray should be marketed at the home theater market, and digital delivery at the casual market.



Oddly enough, digital delivery would seem to appeal to the youth and college crowd, but so far it looks like the lion share of Blu-ray adoption is to the younger video game crowd. However 40% of the Blu-ray market is in the over 35 crowd.

What do you think? Is Sony latching onto Microsoft’s shtick by looking to digital delivery?