New Sony Blu-ray players, but still expensive

The Sony BDP-S2000ES.

(Credit: Sony)

Editors' note: Neither the BDP-S2000ES nor the BDP-S500 offer DTS-HD Master Audio compatibility, either via bitstream or onboard decoding. We originally speculated that it should be able to output DTS-HD Master Audio using its bitstream output, but have received confirmation from Sony that neither player can.

Over the summer, Sony introduced the cheapest standalone Blu-ray player yet, the BDP-S300; now it's filling out its product line with two higher-end models: the BDP-S500 ($700) and the BDP-S2000ES ($1,300), both coming this fall. According to the company press release, the two models are largely the same, sharing the following features:

BDP-S500 and BDP-S2000ES key features:

• 1080p at 24-frames per second output;
• Onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus;
• Bit-stream output for DTS-HD High Resolution, but not DTS-HD Master Audio;
• HDMI 1.3 port;
• Support for AVCHD discs encoded with x.v.Color.

The Sony BDP-S500.

(Credit: Sony)

The step-up features for the BDP-S2000ES are mostly related to build quality, with Sony touting "dual-shield construction," to prevent dust from getting inside the player, and "a rigid-drive bracket" which supposedly minimizes vibrations. There is also greater separation between video and audio boards, which Sony claims can deliver better quality. With many people getting both their video and audio from the digital HDMI output, we're a little skeptical that there will be any real-world audio and video performance improvements.

While the BDP-S500 looks to have a solid combination of features, Toshiba's HD-A35 will be released in October with the same key features and a list price of $500. The high price of hardware has been a problem for the Blu-ray camp, and these new players don't help.

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Toshiba's desperate

The only reason the Japanese came up with "high-def" DVD players was because current-gen DVD players had become a cheap commodity dominated by the Chinese. The Japanese needed a new profit engine. "High-def" was supposed to equate to "high profits" because everyone would pay a premium for the picture quality. As the New York Times reported sometime ago: Not so fast, buddy.

However, Toshiba (especially) and everyone else in the HD-DVD camp saw that Blu-Ray was litle by little becoming the preferred format, judging by disc sales. So they bit the bullet and chose to lose the profits in favor of growing market share (read, staving off death), thus we have cheap HD-DVD players... probably two or three years ahead of the usual pricing curve.

Toshiba's desperation shows in how it bribed Paramount to abandon Blu-Ray, a particularly shortsighted move on the part of the studio considering the sales trends and the little fact that Blockbuster is going Blu-Ray exclusively. But, it's only for 18 months and Paramount can use the interim period to wait for cheaper Blu-Ray players to arrive.

That said, Sony's killer "app", so to speak, is the PS3, a remarkably cheap Blu-Ray player considering that it also sings and dances. Sony is losing a few hundred bucks with every PS3 sold, so it likely doesn't want to repeat the experience with its mainstream BD players, hence the usual (and expected) price point.