At CEDIA Expo in Denver yesterday, Sony unveiled the new BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Disc player, featuring the company’s newly developed HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping Video (SBM-V) technologies. The player is designed for home theater aficionados and well-heeled consumers who want the best in audio and video performance.

The model, which is fully BD-Live capable, features an Ethernet connection and an external flash memory port. The player comes with a 1GB Sony Micro Vault™ Tiny flash memory device for storage of downloaded BD-Live content. The BDP-S5000ES also features Quick Start mode, improving boot-up times to approximately six seconds, which is reportedly up to seven times faster than previous models.

Unique to the model is Sony’s new 14-bit HD video processor, designed to improve the picture quality of standard definition and high-definition sources with the help of HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping technologies. HD Reality Enhancer continually analyzes the original source material bit by bit, sharpening edges and improving detail reproduction, while reducing film grain. Super Bit Mapping effectively upconverts 8-bit Blu-ray and DVD sources to 14-bit precision for better color reproduction on current and next generation display devices. The player also supports Deep Color video output and AVCHD discs encoded with x.v.Color™ (xvYCC) technology.

Sony's BDP-S5000ES is one of the first Blu-ray players to earn the prestigious ES badge.

For DVD upconversion, the BDP-S5000ES incorporates Sony’s new Precision Cinema HD Upscale technology which outputs standard definition DVD sources at 1080p resolution over HDMI. The model also includes Sony’s new Precision Drive™ HD, which helps to detect and correct wobbling discs from three directions, stabilizing playback of bent or scratched Blu-ray Discs and DVDs.

Big Sound to go with that Big Picture

As a component with the lofty "ES" (elevated standard) badge, the BDP-S5000ES is designed to match its higher video performance with exceptional audio. The playerl’s analog audio circuit board is isolated from the video board to avoid interference. Additionally, the unit’s rigid frame and beam chassis helps to reduce vibrations and a custom transformer minimizes the interference of digital noise.

The player offers 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD Master Audio, and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio decoding and bit-stream output, as well as analog 7.1 channel output for use with receivers and surround processors which lack HDMI inputs.

Whether your receiver or surround sound processor is HDMI-enabled or not, Sony's new Blu-ray player's comprehensive jack-pack will allow you to take full advantage of the latest high quality surround sound formats.

The BDP-S5000ES is expected to be available in November for about $2,000 at Sony Style stores, online at sonystyle.com, and at authorized retailers nationwide.