Sony BDP-S350 and BDP-S550: new Blu-ray players, affordably priced for your first step into high definition discs

Sony maximises the potential of your high definition television and brings a new level of interactivity to home entertainment through its two Blu-ray Disc players launched today. The BDP-S350 (pictured above) and BDP-S550 (below) are capable of accessing advanced interactive features such as Bonus View and BD-Live.

Both models are capable of utilising BD-Live, a newly developed Blu-ray feature that lets you access the internet during a movie to download a variety of up-to-date content, such as refreshed previews and exclusive special features like ringtone/wallpaper downloads, peer to peer interactions, live events and gaming. This is achieved through an Ethernet port, which also enables easy firmware updates. A Bonus View feature provides “picture-in-picture” capability with select Blu-ray Disc titles – useful for viewing director or actor commentary while the movie plays.

A USB port lets you connect USB flash-based memory to store downloads from BD-Live. The BDP-S550 ships with a 1GB storage device.
Sony’s Blu-ray players feature 1080/60p and 24p True Cinema output. They are compatible with most standard DVDs and feature 1080p upscaling through an HDMI connection to capable HDTV sets, improving the picture performance of existing DVD libraries.

These two models include the latest audio technology to ensure sound is just as powerful as the image quality. With 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoding, bit-stream output, plus dts-HD High Resolution Audio and Master Audio bit-stream output, the BDP-S350 sounds incredible. The BDP-S550 adds dts-HD High Resolution Audio and dts-HD Master Audio decoding as well as 7.1 channel analogue audio output for an out-of-this world sound experience.

Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray player

BDP-S350 features, price and availability

Features: BD-R/RE (BDMV & BDAV format), BD-ROM, DVD+/-R/RW (Video Mode and VR Mode), JPEG and CD playback, x.v.Colour for AVC-HD, Dolby Digital plus and TrueHD decoder built-in, LPCM HDMI bitstream out, multi-channel decoding, Full HD 1080/60p and 24p True Cinema Video Output via HDMI, DVD upscale up to 1080p, Precision Cinema HD upscale, BRAVIA Sync, Ether port for Network Update, USB port for BD-Live External Memory, Xross Media Bar (XMB).

The BDP-S350 will be on sale in October, for an RRP of $449.

Read the GadgetGuy review of the BDPS350.

BDP-S550 features, price and availability

Features: BD-R/RE (BDMV & BDAV format), BD-ROM, DVD+/-R/RW (Video Mode and VR Mode), JPEG and CD playback, x.v.Colour for AVC-HD, Dolby Digital plus and TrueHD decoder built-in, 7.1 channel analogue audio output, LPCM HDMI bitstream out, multi-channel decoding, Full HD 1080/60p and 24p True Cinema Video Output via HDMI, DVD upscale up to 1080p, Precision Cinema HD upscale, BRAVIA Sync, Ether port for Network Update, USB port for BD-Live External Memory, Xross Media Bar (XMB).

The BDP-S550 will be available in November, at an RRP of $649.

Source: Sony