Posted Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 07:00 AM PST by Tom Landy
It’s not 3D capable out of the box, but when it gets a firmware update this spring, the BDP-S470 may be the cheapest player on the market.
Whenever a new technology is announced, people tend to assume it’s going to cost a lot of money. And they’re right, usually. When HDTV launched, most people couldn’t justify the cost. The same is true about Blu-ray players. 3D is different though.
Sony’s announcement of the BDP-S470, which will go on sale this month for a surprisingly reasonable $200, shows that while 3D is new, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.
The problem with the announcement of the BDP-S470 (and its $250 big brother, the BDP-S570) is that there’s no mention of what HDMI specification being used. Since you can’t view 3D content right out of the box, it seems a bit like an HDMI 1.3 unit.
In that case, Sony’s announcement seems a bit off. The PS3 has been confirmed as getting a 3D Blu-ray firmware update, which means that Sony’s had a 3D ready Blu-ray player on the market for some time. Of course, the BDP-S470 would be the first 3D ready standalone Blu-ray player, for what that’s worth.
Source: Sony
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