Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Disc Player
Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Disc Player (Available August 2006 - $1000)
Sony's First Blu-ray Disc Player
he BDP-S1 features 1080p (1920 x 1080) full HD-video output for brilliant HD imagery and upscaling of regular DVDs to 1080p output. It sports a sophisticated design and exceptional build quality with rigid beam construction, as well as finely tuned audio and video parts and circuits. The player offers HDMI output and advanced digital audio support, including MPEG-4 compression compatibility.
What Is Blu-ray?
Blu-ray is a new, high-capacity format for DVD capable of storing and playing high-definition images. Using advanced technology, a Blu-ray disc is densely layered and read by a thinner laser than conventional standard DVDs. This means that a Blu-ray disc can store over five times the amount of data that a standard DVD can.
What Is the Difference Between Blu-ray and HD DVD?
Although Blu-ray and HD DVD are both high-definition media formats that rely on blue-laser technology, there are some important differences between them. One of these is capacity. Because a Blu-ray player utilizes a shorter wavelength blue-violet laser than an HD DVD laser, it can focus even more closely to read more densely packed data. This allows a Blu-ray disc to have higher capacity. A standard HD DVD can hold 15 GB per side (30 GB on a dual-layer disc), whereas Blu-ray can hold 25 GB per side (50 GB on a dual-layer disc). More capacity per disc could mean more extra features included with movies, higer quality audio, or more interactivity wityh titles should the studios choose to incorperate these features on the discs they release.
Movie studios supporting the Blu-ray format include: Sony Pictures/MGM; Disney; 20th Century Fox; Paramount; Warner Brothers; Lions Gate Home Entertainment; and Eagle Rock Entertainment. These companies combined for 90% of the DVDs sold in 2005.
Why Is Blu-ray Better Than Standard DVD?
If you've ever seen a high-definition TV broadcast on an HDTV, then you know that an HD picture is more vivid and incredibly sharp. This stunning level of detail and resolution is impossible to reproduce on a standard DVD, which has a maximum resolution of 480p (or 480 lines). In contrast, Blu-ray has the capacity to store all of the data needed for high-definition video, so it is able to reproduce the high-definition images at a resolution of 1080p. The result is that Blu-ray brings your favorite home entertainment to life with more clarity and higher quality than ever before.
In addition, the extra disc space means there's room for significantly more content and special features. When you buy a DVD movie, you're usually not just getting the movie--you're also getting the extra features that come along with it, like director's commentary and making-of documentaries (depending on the disc, of course). With Blu-ray, there's the possibility for previously unheard-of special features. Imagine, for example, interactive content, like a director on the screen explaining the shooting of a scene while the scene is playing in the background.
Thanks to the greatly enhanced audio/video quality and additional content capability, Blu-ray is a huge step forward in the DVD viewing experience.
What Does This Mean for My Current DVD Collection?
The Blu-ray players coming out will be backward compatible and should play your current discs. The bottom line is, you can probably upgrade to a Blu-ray player and still enjoy your current DVDs. But you should double-check the particular model you are considering, just to be certain that it will play standard DVDs.
Product Description
Here's the perfect partner to HDTV and home-theater. Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format. The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs will offer an unprecedented HD experience. The BD player is designed to deliver 1920 x 1080p output, the highest HD signal output currently available through an HDMI connection. The player supports various high quality video codecs, including MPEG2, MPEG4-AVC and VC1. Analog component output for 1080i has been included so people who own HD-capable televisions without HDMI can enjoy the Blu-ray Disc experience. The new BDP-S1 model is compatible with standard DVDs with the added feature of 1080p upscaling through HDMI, which gives new life to existing DVDs libraries. Enhancing the BD entertainment experience further, BD-Java interactivity has been incorporated, allowing for the design of advanced interactive features. The BDP-S1 player offers uncompressed multi-channel linear PCM digital audio output via HDMI, delivering optimum surround sound to an HDMI- equipped receiver. The player also has optical digital audio out and 5.1 channel decoding capability for backward compatibility with existing receivers. In addition, the unit has a separate audio circuit board, finely tuned audio components, rigid beam chassis construction, drive brackets and off center insulator feet. This robust BD-ROM/R/RE player supports DVD playback from DVD/DVD+R/+RW encoded discs, as well as MP3 audio files and JPEG images stored on DVD+R/+RW discs. Pre-recorded BD are expected to be released in June 2006.
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