At this year's IFA, Sony unveiled what they call the "world's most advanced Blu-ray Disc Player." Designed to make the most of Blu-ray Disc movies, the BDP-S5000ES uses the HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping to increase the colour depth and deliver the best possible video quality. The player also offers Linear PCM and HD audio decoding with bitstream output and can handle all formats up to Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. To top it all off, the BDP-S5000ES is compatible with BD-Live and BonusView.
Sony has put all its expertise in video and audio processing into the BDP-S5000ES, making it the best player yet. The combination of the HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping takes the picture quality way beyond what has previously been available from Bu-ray Disc, ensuring a stunning image whether you use a BRAVIA™ LCD TV or a home cinema projector from Sony.
The HD Reality Enhancer continually analyses the image coming from the disc, sharpening edges while not over-emphasising other elements of the picture, reducing the effect of grain on the original filmstock, and increasing the colour depth from the 8 bits on the disc to the equivalent of 14 bits. Meanwhile Super Bit Mapping, which uses unique processing based on human visual sensitivity, enables the player to deliver the best possible quality over HDMI™, with smoother colour tones.
To match all the video capability, the BDP-S5000ES has been designed to sound better than any other Blu-ray Disc Player. It uses a high-stability Precision Drive HD transport mechanism in the center position, an ultra-rigid Frame and Beam chassis to reduce vibration and a low-leakage R-Core transformer.
The analogue audio board is isolated from the video and servo sections to avoid interference, and the player offers Linear PCM and HD audio decoding with bitstream output, and 7.1-channel analogue outputs. It will handle all formats up to Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, either decoded internally or output as bitstream.
It will also upscale your existing DVDs to 1080p using Sony’s Precision Cinema HD Upscale, and even the analogue component video output is superior, thanks to the use of 14-bit/ 297 MHz Video D/A conversion.
Sony has not announced a price. However, with all of these features, the BDP-S5000ES probably won't be cheap. If you'd like to read more, Sony's entire press release can be found here.
