Sony rolls Blu-ray gear with Wi-Fi, wireless audio

[gadgtfreek]

Finally, starting to see built in wireless.

As part of a round of updates, Sony this evening updated its Blu-ray lineup with two players and two home theaters, half of which focus on wireless as the central feature. The BDP-S560 movie reader is one of the first Blu-ray devices with 802.11n Wi-Fi that lets it access BD-Live special features, player upgrades or DLNA-supporting media sources on the local network without either requiring an Ethernet cable or sacrificing relative speed. It and the lower-end BDP-S360 nonetheless have Ethernet connections for a physical link.
Either player supports x.v.Color (deep color) Blu-ray video with a supporting TV, 7.1-channel surround over Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio (including bitstream), and upscaling of standard-definition footage. Both also have USB ports, with the S560 getting a front port. Sony ships the two sometime during the summer at prices of $300 for the S360 and $350 for the S560; a complementing HT-SS360 home theater system with 5.1-channel audio and 1080p support ships ahead of these in May for $350.

Two home theater bundles with Blu-ray built-in will accompany the stand-alone players. The BDV-E500W draws on Sony's in-house S-AIR audio standard to pipe basic surround sound to as many as 10 matching receivers within the format's 164-foot range; the BDV-E300 goes without but can take an adapter to get the same features. On wired connections, either supports the same 7.1-channel output as the S360/S560 and also get a proprietary Digital Media Port to add peripherals like iPod or Walkman docks as well as Bluetooth to stream audio from phones. Both theater systems come pre-packaged with 5.1-channel speaker arrays and will ship in June; the E300 starts off at $600 where the E500W's wireless lifts the price to $800.

 

[Zookster]

Finally, starting to see built in wireless.

And it only took two years after putting it in the PS3. Heck, if even the Roku for $100 can do it, why can't all the major brand BD players?

 

[meStevo]

Because like the PS3, you're charging 100% of buyers for a feature only a fraction will use.

An Ars or Gamasutra article had the wireless usage in the PS3 as a very small %, single digits or teens, I can't find it at the moment.

If it's the similar materials used in the PS3 then I can see a possible cost savings and them just leveraging this for another marketing bullet point over rival players not in a position to offer this feature without a higher cost. It's 802.11n though, so not the same as the PS3, not sure what cost savings they can have there.

 

[Bobby H]

An Ars or Gamasutra article had the wireless usage in the PS3 as a very small %, single digits or teens, I can't find it at the moment.

I wonder what they use as the basis for that claim. Most of the people I personally know who own PS3 consoles have it connecting to the Internet via WiFi. Those same people are mainly using the console for playing Blu-ray movies as well.

 

[Zookster]

If that article is accurate, I would conjecture the average person is much more familiar and comforatble with plugging in an ethernet cable (even if they have to run a line across their house), than they are with setting the player up to connect to a secure wireless home network.

Just the other day, I mentioned "WEP 26-character encryption code" to my dad (who wanted to make his open wireless router secure) and his head just about exploded. (I had originally set up his wireless system as secured until a neighboring IT tech/bandwidth hog, convinced him and instructed him how to make it "open.")