Going Live

摘要

There is some small irony that the company behind what is arguably the most powerful and flexible Blu-ray player - the PlayStation 3 - should have lost the race to deliver the first 'Final Standard Profile' model for the separates market. That honour has already been scooped by both Samsung and Panasonic. So while Sony's ludicrously affordable BDP-S350 may include some substantial technical advances on its previous BDP-S300 model, it does not yet adhere to the final Profile 2.0 specification [see boxout, below]. We are told that Sony's top BDP-S550 model will be shipped ready for BD-Live, but at the time of writing its launch had been slightly delayed. Nevertheless, for enthusiasts interested purely in the combination of ultimate sound and vision, this slip of a player (just 6cm high) is already comprehensively specified. Unlike its forebear, the BDP-S350 has an HDMI 1.3 output that carries Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and Master Audio bitstreams in addition to multichannel Linear PCM. Dolby TrueHD content may also be decoded within the player and output as LPCM for compatibility with the earliest HDMI-equipped AV amplifiers. Sony's '24p True Cinema' mode will output 1080/24p BD film content natively while an improved upscaling regime renders legacy DVD content ready for Full HD displays. Even the BD-ROM drive mechanism has been upgraded. Support for AVCHD discs with x.v.Color is promised along with compatiblity across a spectrum of 5in disc formats, including BD-R/RE (BDMV and BDAV modes), DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW (CD-DA format), and JPEG on DVD/CD recordable media. Neither HD-DVD or SACD discs are recognised.