Color me semi-surprised, but Sony Electronics (the originator of the world’s first consumer Blu-ray player) appears to be forging ahead with 2016 plans to delay the release of a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player until next year. As first reported by the trade publication TWICE, the company says it wants the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray market to mature and saturate itself with media before officially launching a 4K player.
This begs the question: Why?
The surface answer is that Sony is hedging its bet with the impending launch of a 4K High Dynamic Range streaming service. This isn’t to say the company is completely ignoring the physical media side of the equation. After all, they are manufacturing and releasing movies on 4K Blu-ray. But the ugly truth – the sad and painful truth – is that Sony is entering a wait-and-see mode. In other words, Sony appears to be cautiously implying that the 4K Blu-ray player world has limited life; streaming is the new and true battleground.
Yesterday, the company further cemented its 4K Blu-ray player stance by releasing a new standard player. The new BDP-S6700 ($130) is deceptively called a “4K Upscaling 3D Streaming Blu-ray Disc Player,” which implies it’s capable of playing true 4K UHD discs. Alas, it’s not. Instead, the S6700 is built around technology that up-scales standard Hi-Def video material to “near 4K quality,” enhances the quality of compressed music, and provides access to PlayStation’s cloud based videogame platform. It also houses LDAC Bluetooth technology that’s able to stream audio to wireless devices at nearly three-times the bandwidth of regular Bluetooth. And with onboard DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), owners have easy access to streaming and transfer of music, film, and photo files.
So, for a relatively small investment (only slightly more than other standard BD players on the market), Sony’s new player brings streaming convenience to the table. As of now, it doesn’t appear that the S6700 will exclusively offer access to any kind of Sony streaming video network. But it does provide access to current popular app based services like Netflix and YouTube.
The UHP-H1 is due to be released soon.
Sony also announced a pre-sale of its forthcoming UHP-H1 Premium Audio and Video Player. This model is a different animal and is the company’s new flagship Blu-ray player, with a price tag that’s more than twice as large ($350). Much like the S6700, it does just about everything but play a 4K Blu-ray disc. It carries everything the S6700 offers in addition to a step-up digital sound enhancement engine and versatile Hi-Res audio playback of FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, DSD (up to 5.6 MHz), and WAV (192kHz/24-bit). Sony says the UHP-H1’s chassis is smaller than traditional players and offers anti-vibration construction.
So there you have it. Sony’s 2016 Blu-ray player offerings deliver on a bevy of consumer friendly and hi-res performance parameters…but swing and miss on the one front most videophiles have an eye on: 4K UHD Blu-ray playback.
Surprising? Most certainly. A mistake? Only time will tell.
Image Credits: Sony Electronics