Sony BDP-S350 in July, S550 in August

[spicynacho]

Somebody posted this over at BR.com, one of the insiders from SPE said that it looks like good information. Also a local Sony distributor told me similarly in Dec. that the next gen of Sony players would be out in late june/early july. So I think you could take this info to the bank.

Sony will be introducing two new Blu-ray Disc Players. One the first week of July 2008, Model# BDP-S350, which passes all high bit advanced audio codecs (like the Panasonic DMP-BD30) to an outboard decorder (Pre-Amp or Receiver) and will be Profile 1.1 . The other player, coming out the first week of August 2008, the BDP-S550, will incorperate all the high bit advanced audio codec decoders in the player and will also be Profile 1.1. Both are HDMI 1.3a, catagory 2 compliant (output). Load times are faster. Both will play CD's, but not SACD. Both will have 5.1 Analog out as well.

The tentative price points will be:

Sony BDP-S350 $ 349.99
Sony BDP-S550 $ 449.99

[snipsnapsappy]

Still no SACD? Lame, Sony, just add it in to make those of us who supported your failed format happy. Ah well, at least my PS3 does it. What is the advancement of the S550? Motorized screen?

[spicynacho]

Still no SACD? Lame, Sony, just add it in to make those of us who supported your failed format happy. Ah well, at least my PS3 does it. What is the advancement of the S550? Motorized screen?

I think the 550's selling point is on-board decoding of all formats.

[mmmmDoNut]

Interesting I thought the next players from Sony were going to be the sapphire prototypes which are 2.0 compliant but I guess those will be much later in the year.

[Maxx_75]

They will feature ethernet ports and be upgradable to 2.0 according to what I have read.

[checkingout]

Just a hunch...but I thinks that Sony plans on a new high def audio format at Spec 3.0. This is why they are not including SACD in recent PS3's and SA's.

Still no SACD? Lame, Sony, just add it in to make those of us who supported your failed format happy. Ah well, at least my PS3 does it. What is the advancement of the S550? Motorized screen?

[mitchelljd]

Just a hunch...but I thinks that Sony plans on a new high def audio format at Spec 3.0. This is why they are not including SACD in recent PS3's and SA's.

Lets all hope.
We can use a better sounding audio format.

Also one that works better than DVD or SACD.

We can use a disc which offers Audio and Video playback all in one. with digital liner notes also.

And im sure it will offer better copy protection for the industry, with allowing for ripping into an itunes type program i bet.

[RedDogSD]

Why would they release another High Def audio format? Every one of them seems to fail. For some reason that I cannot fathom, the consumer just wants 128 sampled MP3 files. It took Apple years just to OFFER uncompressed audio files and I hear that they don't even sell very well.

[checkingout]

I don't know that they will? It is really up to the music studios to back hidef audio, and I'm sure they prefer copy protection. Compressed music is not going away, but there is (at minimum) a niche audience for HiDef audio. Another potential advantage (that SACD or DVD-a did not enjoy) is that people will already have a means to play these files and their BD player is likely hooked up to a decent sound system. Ready to go, if you will.

There are many folks (like me, who already has SACD) that desire HiDef audio. In fact, speaking as a minority, I prefer great audio over PQ!

But ... well see???

Why would they release another High Def audio format? Every one of them seems to fail. For some reason that I cannot fathom, the consumer just wants 128 sampled MP3 files. It took Apple years just to OFFER uncompressed audio files and I hear that they don't even sell very well.