Sony has announced the
BDP-S500 Blu-ray Disc player, the high-end version of the already available
BDP-S300. It will support 1080p24/60 video and 7.1 audio output, as well as a motorized front panel. The new player will also support Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD internal decoding, and will also pass the bit stream for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD via HDMI v1.3 to a capable receiver. No price or release date has been set at this time.
The player looks strikingly similar to the Panasonic DMP-BD10 (mostly due to the front panel which conceals the Blu-ray drive) and may hint that a new Panasonic model will be announced soon as well.
Sony also announced that a copy of the Spider-man Trilogy on Blu-ray would be included in the purchase of either the BDP-S300 or BDP-S500, but since this announcement was made in Germany, we are trying to confirm if this deal only applies to Europe or if it will be extended worldwide.