Although this Christmas is looking rosy for Blu-ray, with top titles such as Wall-E and The Dark Knight potentially selling over a million copies worldwide, Sony is hedging its bets by only releasing its flagship BD-PS550 player in limited quantities.
According to an inside source, the 550 'has very limited availability' in the UK, with the company seemingly focusing on its lower-end BD-PS350. AV fans, therefore, will be forced to look elsewhere, and to other companies, if they want better specifications and high-end home cinema-standard performance.
Perhaps, though, Sony is foregoing a push on this deck in anticipation of bringing its esoteric BD-P5000ES to the UK next year...
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
In the latest Home Cinema Choice:
'bout normal for Sony ...
Alan Smithee - 25 November 2008 - 10:15ameverything a different standard for years, then finally, they actually win a format war and £$"£ everyone over by not actually releasing the kit to support it
Is this for real?
Alan Smithee - 25 November 2008 - 3:21pmDo you truly beleive SONY are going to pull out of the Blu ray market!? What complete crap as you've pointed out in the same article maybe it's because of the new model coming out.
I used to like this magazine but that headline is complete nonsense
Totally misleading headline
Alan Smithee - 25 November 2008 - 3:52pmBD-PS350 (and the PS3 for that matter :)) is everywhere at the moment at a good price (sub £200).
HCC seem to have it in for the Blu-Ray format (or maybe it is Sony) at the moment as the previous news article about Blu-Ray being under a "dark cloud" in the subject was also misleading due to the fact that Sony said that Blu-Ray might suffer due to the current economic climate. Well duh! everything, including that $100,00 Meridian projector is going to suffer.
And in what world are Sony
Alan Smithee - 25 November 2008 - 5:29pmAnd in what world are Sony not releasing kit for Blu ray?
Is sony really that bothered?
badtzmaru - 25 November 2008 - 6:08pmWell I think Sony's commitment to Blu-ray players in the UK has been very questionable. They seem to have been content to let the PS3 pick up the sales. Prior to the S350 they've produced nothing of interest - leaving all the action to panasonic and Samsung. I thought the 550 was gonna be the machine to watch - but I guess not.
Come on guys, that headline
Alan Smithee - 25 November 2008 - 10:03pmCome on guys, that headline is sub-tabloid nonsense.
I don't find this that far-fetched
Alan Smithee - 26 November 2008 - 1:58amWith Sony losing hundreds of millions shifting its PS3, I'm not surprised it's giving the format a long hard look.
As a die hard home cinema enthusiast, I'm still not convinced - maybe it's me being unlucky, but I've yet to see a BD demo that didn't have very distracting motion artifacts, something I don't have to live with in my SD world.
sony blu-ray
Alan Smithee - 26 November 2008 - 10:33amWhat a moronic headline. And someone pays you to write this ignorant eye catching rubbish?
What are you saying? that
Alan Smithee - 26 November 2008 - 7:45pmWhat are you saying? that you see motion artifacts with blu ray? complete and utter nonsense I have never seen artifacting with blu ray i would also suggest you get yourself another hobby!
I'm no blu ray fanboy but it is without doubt the finest home cinema experience i have ever had.
As for the article, this is the laziest writing I've seen in a long time, get a grip HCC.
Lance UK
HCC is showing their colours as normal
Alan Smithee - 26 November 2008 - 8:58pmlike the previous article predicting doom and gloom.
But don't worry HD_DVD is ALIVE!!!!!!
it's joke just report A/V news without the bias,lease.
why wouldn't Sony be pushing the cheaper model...is it blu-ray an expensive luxury in the current economic climate
Get a life
Alan Smithee - 27 November 2008 - 11:35amMy son suggested he gave me a subscription to your magazine for Christmas, after reviewing a few of your comments/news items like this one. I have thanked him very much and said no thank you.
I have purchased both HD and Bluray players this year and I am highly delighted with both of them.
In response...
Rik Henderson - 28 November 2008 - 1:15pmIn an attempt to put this argument to bed... At HCC we are all huge fans of Blu-ray, and desperately want it to succeed. We are the only true AV magazine that includes at least eight pages of software reviews, and a majority of those (now) are on Blu-ray. Our collections are brimming with titles and I, personally, have at least one or two BD films on pre-order at Amazon at any one time. I love the format, and DVD doesn't come close. HD DVD did (and I still own a player and a stack of movies) but it's dead. Finished!
However, for Blu-ray playback I own a Playstation 3, because I'm still waiting for a deck to come along that can match it in speed and functionality. I would genuinely like to replace it with a player that can offer as much, along with superior audio and video performance, but the wait continues. Hence, I get cross when the manufacturers are more keen on pushing inferior equipment, rather than the higher-end kit we all deserve.
And before anybody says it; yes, the PS3 is a Sony machine. However, it is developed and, more importantly, budgeted by Sony Computer Entertainment not the AV department. The bottom line of the console does not affect the interests of Sony Consumer Electronics, they are two entirely different concerns. When push comes to shove, the AV arm of Sony will not benefit from sales of the PS3 at all.
Rik - I would be interested
Alan Smithee - 30 November 2008 - 5:42pmRik - I would be interested to understand what deck could possibly improve on the audio performance? Surely an AV enthusiast would want to bitstream HD codecs to an amp that's specifically built for processing audio. It's something the PS3 can't (and will never be able to) do. The same goes for video processing, if I want to upscale an SD-DVD or attempt to refine a blu-ray further then I'll use the upscaler in an amp or scaler.
It used to be AV perfection to have your disc spinner do nothing more than to read the disc and ship the data off somewhere else for processing. Isn't that what the S350 offers but without costing the earth? The reason being it doesn't require expensive digital to analogue components.
For me the S550 contains features that my amp/scaler will perform so to me are completely redundant. Audio remains in the digital domain from disc to amp so I don't see how that can improved on.
Sony have realised that the S550 is too expensive for the general public and doesn't offer anything above and beyond what an AV enthusiast will have built into their other equipment.
Sony will replace Blu-ray with 4K
Alan Smithee - 1 December 2008 - 4:42amI know the leadership at Sony.
They tell me that 4K is their driving focus, NOT Blu-ray.
4K is superior technology
Here is Sony's presentation with respect to 4K...
http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/mkt-digitalcinema/
4k is total different matter
Alan Smithee - 4 December 2008 - 12:55am4k is total different matter and is the focus of Sony Proffesional, while Blu-Ray is from CONSUMER electronics and for the consumer folks Blu-Ray is very higly prioritized.
Sony Stock issues
Alan Smithee - 9 December 2008 - 9:12pmas a Sony dealer we are having more problems getting the BDPS350 than the 550.
Can't see what you are all moaning about!