Sony Blu-Ray Players...

[Grimster74]

Great news for the Sony Blu-Ray player owners, Sony announced a new free firmware update for the BDP-S1 that allows it to decode Dolby Digital Plus & Dolby True HD audio codecs. The update will be available next week for download at www.sony.com/blurayupdate. Crutchfield is also showing the new BDP-S300 on their website which will be available soon.

[cheddar]

S300 got a $100 price cut to $499. It's shipping to retailers right now.

http://news.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/10381/360592.html

Not bad. Looks like Toshiba will have to make its promotional discount permanent or risk only having a $100 separation between the low end players for both formats. Can't wait to see what the players go for by Christmas. Competition is putting a lot of benjamin's in people's pockets lately. I hope they keep pounding a way at each other...might be interested in a stand-alone at some point...:D.

[Sherardp]

I'll be nabbing that update for sure. Do u have link?

Edit* I see the link now, thanks

[Silverti]

Great news for the Sony Blu-Ray player owners, Sony announced a new free firmware update for the BDP-S1 that allows it to decode Dolby Digital Plus & Dolby True HD audio codecs. The update will be available next week for download at www.sony.com/blurayupdate. Crutchfield is also showing the new BDP-S300 on their website which will be available soon.

Include the PS3?

[cheddar]

Include the PS3?

The ps3 already decodes trueHD. There was a big update - 1.80 just released that enhanced the ps3's video capabilities including dvd and game upscaling.

[Grimster74]

Just so everyone knows, the update is now available.

[Sherardp]

yes sir got it, too bad I dont have any BLU RAY titles in True HD.

[cheddar]

Well you won't have to wait long. Warner is finally releasing TrueHD versions of its discs. Letters from Iwo Jima was the first. The next up are purple rain and 300 in July. So you can save by not buying the HD-DVD combo version but still getting the same quality audio and video for 300 on blu-ray...

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Disc_Announcements/Purple_Rain_Gets_Dual_Blu-ray,_HD_DVD_Dolby_TrueHD_Release/680

[LuSh]

From my understanding the only Blu Ray player that can actually send out the new high res codec's via bitream is a pioneer elite. Most of the AVR's i've tried when using MPCM experience a 3db drop in sound. With new AVR's coming out between now and September with built in decorders I'm curious how both HD and BD dropped the ball on this one. How in the world can you sell a format without at least allowing the user to bitstream the data out to a decoder.

[Lasareath]

How in the world can you sell a format without at least allowing the user to bitstream the data out to a decoder.

They must feel that the percentage of potential customers who would use a external decoder would be so small that it's not worth of them to include the hardware in the units.

[LuSh]

You would think these company's would take into account that most consumers who would be crazy enough to 'buy' into another format would be early adopters and likely own 1.3 HDMI receivers with built in TrueHD and DTS MA support, that's my point.

In 12month's when they finally release players that can support Bitsream and TrueHD and DTS MA are the mainstream in AVR's alot of early adopters will feel ripped off. Again, i find it hard to fathom how either format will succeed when the end consumer has repeatedly pushed performance aside for availability.