The Blu-ray camp has been taking a beating lately in the pricing department as Toshiba slashes prices on their HD-DVD players. Their second generation HD-A2 HD-DVD player can be had now for as little as $249.99 and their top of the line HD-XA2 is selling for under $600.

Meanwhile Blu-ray player prices have mostly been north of $1000 (Sony's PS3 and Samsung's BDP-1200 being the only notable exceptions). Sony's own BDP-S1 was recently reduced from $999 to $799 but this is still outside the reach of many consumers who are hankering for some real HD content to feed their fancy new HDTV.


Now Sony has struck back with the pricing of its second generation stand-alone Blu-ray Disc player, the BDP-S300. It is available now for a list price of just $499 ($100 below their earlier announcement).

The BDPS300 features full HD 1080p output for Blu-ray titles as well as DVD upconversion to 1080p (both over HDMI connections). If you own a "legacy" HDTV, without DVI or HDMI digital inputs, you can still enjoy Blu-ray movies in 720p or 1080i resolution over component video connections, but DVD output will be limited to 480p. Unlike Sony's first generation player, the BDP-S1, the new player supports CD playback as well as native decoding of next generation audio codec Dolby Digital Plus (an optional part of the BD spec).

The model also supports AVC-HD discs encoded with x.v.Color (xvYCC) technology, a new standard for wide color space. The standard expands the current data range of video approximately 1.8 times allowing the player to output more natural and vivid colors similar to what the human eye can actually see.

The new BD player offers Sony's BRAVIA TheatreSync feature which works over an HDMI connection to integrate the unit with compatible BRAVIA flat-panel LCD televisions or audio/video receivers. With Theatersync, you can start playback of discs on the BDP-S300 with a single button - the system auctomatically switches inputs on the receiver and display to accomodate playback.

Although the unit is currently "shipping" to stores, full specifications (such as HDMI version support and actual street prices) have not yet been released. Watch this space for updates.