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Sony BDP-S500 High-Definition DVD Player

The BDP-S500 is a high-end version of Sony's second-generation BDP-S300, and was announced in September 2007. According to the company press release:

The new BDP-S500, which complements Sony’s current BDP-S300 BD player, features full high-definition 1080/60p and 24p True Cinema output. They support 7.1 channel linear PCM and Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, as well as dts-HD High Resolution Audio bitstream output via HDMI (ver1.3).

HD DVD Reviews wrote:

Sony has introduced the second generation of Blu-Ray players. This time has added some flavor to this generation by adding 24 pictures per second rate support and HDMI 1.3 will is the latest and greatest technology that provides a larger transfer of information of audio and video transmission.

The major features of the Sony BDP-500 are:

- True HD Dolby and DTS HD support

- Plays BD-Rom, BD, CD

- 1080 P resolution with 24fps

- HDMI 1.3 and component video output

The Crave website said:

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.

* Get the Latest Price on the Sony BDP-S500 High-Definition DVD Player.

November 3rd, 2007