Pioneer's and Sony's first BD players to support full 1080p resolution

January 5, 2006

Pioneer
and Sony have both announced their first BD players at CES. Pioneer's player has
the model name BDP-HD1 and will be available in June under the Pioneer Elite
brand for $1800 while Sony's player has the model name BDP-S1 and will be
available in early summer for an undisclosed price. An interesting feature both
players have is that they will be able to output video in full 1080p resolution
while most HD products today only support 720p and 1080i (p = progressive, i =
interlace). Pioneer's player also has some interesting network
capabilities:

Pioneer
BDP-HD1

HD
Quality & Interactivity

Pioneer's
new BDP-HD1 Blu-ray Disc player is designed to deliver 1920 x 1080p
output, the highest of the three high definition signals, providing
consumers simple access to amazing audio, video and interactive content.
It will now be as easy as stopping by the neighborhood video store to
bring HD quality movies into the home. Hollywood studios are filling their end of the
bargain by releasing some of the hottest movie titles on Blu-ray Disc and
adding interactive features not possible with DVD because of its limited
space capacity. The American
public has grown to love DVD and once they experience Blu-ray Disc,
they'll feel the same emotional attachment to this new technology. Pioneer's BDP-HD1 does offer
backward compatibility for standard DVDs so consumers can maintain their
existing DVD movie collection as they begin a new Blu-ray Disc collection.

HD
Home Networking

Pioneer's
full-featured unit takes home networking to another level with IP network
capabilities that allow consumers to enjoy high definition video and
multi-channel audio content directly through the player rather than a
computer. For simple
integration into the home theater, the unit provides a single high
definition HDMI connection for users to view and hear all content
transferred through the home network in HD.

For
those operating a networked home, the BDP-HD1 was designed with Digital
Living Network Alliance (DLNA) guidelines. When utilizing the IP networking
capability, users will be able to access and easily load protected content
currently stored on a DLNA compliant server or Windows XP PC using Windows
Media Connect. In addition to favorite photos, music and movies, users can
download new content straight to their computer for immediate viewing on a
television through the player.
The unit's playsforsure™ compliance provides compatibility with all
existing Microsoft software.

Playback
Compatibility

Blu-ray
Disc: BD-RE,
BD-R, BD-ROM

DVD
and other Video: DVD-R,
DVD-RW, +R, +RW, WMV

Audio:
DTS-HD,
Dolby Digital, WMA, MP3, LPCM

Photos:
JPEG

Sony
BDP-S1

Sony's
first Blu-ray Disc home player, model BDP-S1, will be available in early
summer and features 1080p full HD video output for brilliant HD imagery
and also DVD upscaling to 1080p. This initial BD player features a
sophisticated design and exceptional build quality with rigid beam
construction as well as finely tuned audio and video parts and
circuits.

A
picture of the Pioneer's BDP-HD1 is available at watch.impress.co.jp's website
here. Worth noting is that Pioneer's player, although it will
cost $1800, does not seem to support playing CDs. According to various sources
Pioneer has now also disclosed the price of the previously
announced BDR-101A
PC BD writer and it will cost you another $1000…

In the
beginning of the summer Sony also plans to ship a BD writer with some of its
VAIO computers. No CD support is mentioned for this drive either so it will
perhaps be an OEM Pioneer BDR-101A drive? A triple format (CD, DVD and BD)
retail drive will follow later this year from Sony. Sony single layer 25GB
BD-R/RE discs will be available this spring while Sony dual layer 50GB discs
'will follow in the subsequent months".

Pioneer's
press release is available here while you'll find Sony's press release here.

Source: Pioneer and Sony