Among other things at Sony's "buzz"-worthy CES press conference this past week, which featured Green Hornet stars Seth Rogen and Jay Chou, Sony gave us a peek at their latest and greatest Blu-ray Disc players coming in 2011. Of chief to interest to us were the four stand alone models announced: the BDP-S380, the BDP-S480, the BDP-S580, and the flagship model BDP-S780.
All models with the exception of the BDP-S380 are Blu-ray 3D players, which didn't come as a big surprise after witnessing Sony's elaborate "3D World" theme at their CES booth/pavillion. All four models feature the Bravia Internet Video platform, which gives users access to streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Video On-Demand (VOD), Pandora, YouTube, Slacker, and Sony's own VOD and "Music Unlimited" platform, Qriocity.
Sony's 2011 Blu-ray decks are also compatible with Sony's new HomeShare wireless audio products such as the new SA-NS400 Wi-Fi network speaker. This allows you to play audio streams from network source devices (e.g. one of those new Blu-ray players) using your home's Wi-Fi network.
The BDP-S780 stands as the flagship model in this year's lineup, and in addition to its Blu-ray 3D capabilities, additional step-up features include 2D-to-3D content conversion, integrated Skype for video conferencing, and "Super Bit Mapping, Smoothing, and Chroma Processing technologies which deliver smoother color gradation" according to the Sony press release.
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