Will a cheaper Blu-ray player sell more for Sony?

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Wednesday, 28 February 2007

Sony has released a new Blu-ray player that’s $400 cheaper than the initial model at $599, offering faster performance, 1080p resolution, CD compatibility and more in the size of a traditional DVD player to spur new sales of the high-def contender.

With Sony’s original BDP-S1 player costing US $999, at nearly twice the price of the Blu-ray capable PS3, it’s no surprise that those wanting a Blu-ray player have generally opted for the PS3 to do the job.

But the price of a standalone Blu-ray player has fallen substantially now that Sony have released the BDP-S300, a smaller and faster model that offers 1080p playback over HDMI to tempt consumers who prefer to buy standalone devices.

With prices expected to fall below US $500 by the end of year, and potentially even faster than that, Blu-ray is currently holding the lead over HD DVD in terms of players sold and titles available on the market, giving Sony hope that the Blu-ray format will win the format war after all.

Still, it is very early days, with Sony’s second Blu-ray player unlikely to truly boost sales into the stratosphere just yet, especially as even faster, cheaper, slimmer and better models undoubtedly keep rolling off the production line over the months and years to come.

The number of movies on Blu-ray is still massively dwarfed by those on DVD, with the two high-def formats also having to content with new video download services allowing consumers to bypass physical media altogether.

That said, high definition quality movies present multi-gigabyte file sizes which are still too cumbersome to download except over the fastest connections, ensuring that Blu-ray and HD DVD players will continue to be with us for some time yet.

Sony’ BDP-S300 also features CD and DVD playback, can play back high-definition AVCHD discs recorded in new high-def video cameras, has Dolby Digital Plus Decoding and also offers multichannel linear PCM digital audio output via HDMI.

Sony’s new player won’t end the format wars, but is an important step towards making Blu-ray players affordable for the masses, although we’ll need more price reductions to happen in the future before that truly happens.
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