Sony's BDP-S560 Blu-ray player goes wireless

Sony BDP-S560

(Credit: Sony)

Standalone Blu-ray players have finally started catching up to the Sony PlayStation 3 for Blu-ray playback, but Sony's game console is still the only Blu-ray player with built-in Wi-Fi.

Luckily, that appears to be changing in 2009, with both Samsung and LG announcing wireless Blu-ray players at CES 2009. And Monday Sony announced its own wireless Blu-ray player, the BDP-S560. The BDP-S560 includes 802.11N Wi-Fi, which means you'll be able to access BD-Live features without dragging an Ethernet cord into your living room.

The wireless connection can also be used for firmware updates and accessing photos on other DLNA-enabled devices. The press release doesn't state whether music or movies can be streamed, but we assume it's limited to just photo streaming, like the company's DLNA televisions from last year. Photos can also be accessed via a front-panel USB port.

The BDP-S560 will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but the press release doesn't mention whether it will have 7.1 analog outputs like its predecessor, the BDP-S550. The BDP-S560 will be available this summer for about $350.

Sony also announced the step-down BDP-S360, which lacks Wi-Fi and the front-panel USB port. Not many details were released on the BDP-S360, except that it will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and feature a $300 price tag when it comes out this summer.

Sony BDP-S360

(Credit: Sony)

[alideb]

The sony blu ray player that will be on the market this year s560 will not have analog audio output ability but it will have a wifi way of down loading upgrades and bd live content..
I have gone to the sony site which has this model 's specs and a photo of the rear of the player .


alideb

[Mozkill]

i really want to know if , just like the Playstation3, will this thing be able to stream any media stream from a media server such as PlayOn, Tversity, PS3 Media Server, or even Windows Media Player 11 ? Otherwise, why buy this when the Playstation does what this thing cant?

[SimonCollins]

This will not stream video from a media server. Beware!