Sony announces the Profile 2.0 Blu-ray Player

Sony has announced that its first Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players will be debuting this summer. The BDP-S350 will be Sony's first new player since the demise of HD DVD last week and will feature an Ethernet port allowing it to connect to a home network. Curiously, the player will not be able to access online Blu-ray content until Sony releases a BD-Live upgrade for the player. The company says the player will retail for about $400 USD. The new BDP-S550 will cost about $100 more but will be BD-Live capable from the get go. Both players will be the first of Sony's line to have picture-in-picture (PIP) content although some Panasonic players already have the feature meaning the new players are not the first of their kind. More interestingly, HD DVD players have had PIP and Internet capabilities since 2006 meaning Blu-ray is still catching up.