PS3 Currently the Only Blu-Ray 2.0 Player
The top-selling Blu-ray player by a huge margin is Sony’s PS3. That should be good news to all current owners, since the PS3 is (supposedly) the only Blu-ray player currently on the market that’s compatible with the Blu-ray 2.0 specifications. If you’re currently an owner of another Blu-ray player, suck it up, the bad news is you may need to shop for a new deck or take it in for some sort of crazy parts install.
What makes the 2.0 spec so hard to meet? Unless you’re reading this on an iPhone your PC already meets the requirements: two secondary decoders, 1GB of local storage, and an internet connection. The Playstation 3 meets all those requirements, with its hard drive and Ethernet port covering the last two items and the extra graphics horsepower covering the decoders. On the other hand, I figure most PC and laptop Blu-ray R/RW’s probably meet the standards too. If you dropped the cash on one of those hold your breath and hope your manufacturer is around long enough to dish out the firmware upgrades.
[via Ars Technica]


{ 01.23.08 at 1:35 am }
Meh to Ars Technica (and a little to me).
I’ve been doing some research and this chart of Blu-ray player capabilities lists several 2.0-class players. So far the: Panasonic BMP-BD50, Sharp BD-HP50U, Marantz BD8002, and GOWELL G870 models support the latest Blu-ray standards.
{ 02.17.08 at 10:07 pm }
[...] you’re now in the market for a Blu-Ray player, the PS3 is future-proofed with support for version 2.0 of the Blu-Ray format. Oh, And, it plays games [...]