New Cyber-Shot T500 With HD Movie Mode

Sony introduced another member to the Cyber-Shot family today at IFA – the 3.5 inch LCD touchscreen DSC-T500. Available in piano black, silver, or red stylings, the T500 is a great point and shoot camera for a soccer Mom or obsessed flickr user. Aside from 10.1 megapixels under the hood, it also has a feature that is the first of its kind in a Cyber-Shot: HD Movie Mode, which allows 60 mins (approx) of video to be stored on the supplied 4GB Memory Stick at 720p (1280×720) quality. It’s easy to switch instantly between still and movie modes at the touch of a conveniently placed button on top of the camera, and you can take still pictures while recording video. That is definitely going to be a big hit with consumers.

Sleek and compact, it will ship in late September for about $400.

Cool touch features:

• Touching anywhere on the screen while you’re composing a shot locks focus on that part of the scene.
• Touching a face turns on Face Detection, ensuring that people’s faces in the scene are in sharp focus; up to eight faces can be tracked at a time.

Here are some more pictures of the T500:

(That is the best arm and hand model I have ever seen! Damn!)

Information courtesy of Sony Europe.

Now Playing: BRAVIA VPL-HW10 HD SXRD Projector

One of the overshadowed announcements from IFA 2008 is the Bravia VPL-HW10 HD SXRD Projector, a product Sony is hoping those with a small budget will pick up for big screen, cinematic features. It is fully 1080p capable with 2 HDMI inputs. Featuring a new and stylish design, triple-panel Sony SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) and 8-stage image processing by the renowned BRAVIA ENGINE 2, this projector really packs a solid punch. The super-fast 2.5ms response time means silky-smooth motion reproduction, while a full screen panel alignment function allows you to eliminate any colored bordering at the edges of objects. The VPL-HW10 is equipped with the All Range Crisp Focus (ARC-F) lens that offers a 1.6x manual zoom and both vertical and horizontal adjustment.

Newcomers to the home projector scene will be surprised by the 30,000:1 contrast ratio. This device also supports x.v.Color, which is based on xvYCC, a new international standard for video that defines a color space nearly two times wider than the existing sRGB standard. Sony reports that the operating volume of this projector is only 22dB, which is very quiet in comparison to most projectors that offer similar features.

“Each element of what makes this projector so good is impressive enough in its own right,” says Josh Honda, Sony Senior Marketing Manager. “But it’s what happens when you bring them all together that really matters. Everything works together to give you the detail of Full HD with the clarity and smooth motion that are the hallmarks of a truly cinematic experience. And thanks to continuous engineering advances we can offer this for a price that makes HD available to a wider market than just the rich and famous.”

There is no immediate word at this time on pricing, and availability should be within the next month for most major markets. Sony Insider is assuming (not confirmed) that this will probably cost around $3,000USD at launch, but that is merely an assumption based on features and pricing of other similar projectors in Sony’s current range. Read more about the VPL-HW10 at Sony Europe’s press site.

Here is a helpful spec sheet for the detail-oriented:

View Sony’s IFA Press Conference

In case you missed the live press conference today that took place in Berlin, you may still catch up on the announcements and view the latest gadgetry extravaganza released today at IFA. Sony’s CEO Howard Stringer and friends hosts a 45 minute press conference highlighting their goals for FY09 and beyond as well as showing off a few of the new products we’ve covered today. This is a very revealing presentation for Sony that really shows their investments into Europe, and how they aspire to become a true leader in the BRIC markets.

Speakers include:

• Fujio Nishida : President Sony Europe (Introduction)
• Sir Howard Stringer : Chairman and CEO, Sony Corporation (Strategy)
• Fujio Nishida : President Sony Europe (Strategy specifics)
• Simon McDowell : Senior Vice President, Europe Sony Pictures (Demonstrations)
• Fujio Nishida : President Sony Europe (Conclusions)

Just hit the link and check out all the individual sessions and slides. Enjoy!

Bravia Theater Blu-ray Solution – BDV-IT1000

I have been wondering for a while when on earth Sony is going to release a Home Theater All in One system with Blu-ray. It seems like they keep introducing DVD all in one sets, however we all know Bu-ray won the HD format war and a lot of people are interested in a home theater set that will incorporate nice speakers and deliver Blu-ray as its main content provider to the user. Well, Sony finally woke up and is happy to present to you a set in the form of BDV-IT1000.

According to the EU Press release “In Japan, there’s a popular snack called Pocky® – a very thin, chocolate covered pretzel stick. And ‘Pocky’ is the code name Sony used during the development of the brand-new BRAVIA™ Theatre BDV-IT1000 Blu-ray Disc™ home cinema system. Why? It’s simple: the speakers used in the system look just as slim as the snack!

That’s made possible by an amazingly compact full-range speaker drive-unit developed by Sony’s engineers: just 16mm wide, it’s about the width of a finger. Three of these extremely narrow drive-units are used in each of the front and centre speakers, and two in the rear speakers.

And that’s not the only amazing technology in this superb new system: the BDV-IT1000 includes everything you need to experience the amazing audio and video quality of Blu-ray Disc, make the most of your existing DVD collection, connect up external HD sources such as the PLAYSTATION®3 or an HDTV tuner, and even enjoy music stored on portable devices or a wi-fi network.”

This set sports: 2 HDMI inputs, Xross Media Bar GUI (always a nice addition), audio support for the latest and greatest Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio complemented by 700Watts of Sony’s 32-bit Full Digital S-Master amplifier power, Digital Media port and wireless sourround rear speakers.

Quick specs:

• Super-slim speakers made possible by finger-sized full-range drive units
• All-in-one home cinema system with integrated Blu-ray Disc drive
• Full HD 1080/24p picture quality with Deep Color and x.v.Colour
• Wireless rear speakers for great surround effects without cables
• BD-Live Ready: upgradable to Profile 2.0 for extra content and downloads via Ethernet port
• DVD upscaling to 1080p
• Two HDMI input terminals for connection of games consoles, HD TV decoder boxes or other sources, and one HDMI output
• Optical digital and analogue stereo inputs. Also composite/component video in
• Upconversion to HDMI for analogue sources
• Fast, perfect ‘one-touch’ set-up with Digital Cinema Auto Calibration
• BRAVIA Sync for integrated operation with other Sony components
• XrossMediaBar onscreen display for simple, logical operation of all functions
• Connectivity with Network WALKMAN® and iPod® players, Bluetooth devices and home Wi-Fi networks via DIGITAL MEDIA PORT, plus Portable Audio Enhancer
• 700W total power: 5x100W plus 2x100W for subwoofer, using efficient, high-quality 32-bit S-Master digital amplification

Information courtesy of Sony Europe.

BDP-S350 and BDP-S550 2nd Gen Blu-Ray players confirmed for Europe

We talked about these models last month when they were announced for the US market, but the official confirmation that these will now hit European stores in the next few weeks came today at IFA. The BDP-S350 effectively replaces the current BDP-300 whilst the BDP-S550 takes the place of the BDP-S500. Both feature the usual 24fps True Cinema feature, Bravia Sync, Xross Media Bar and 1080P DVD upscaling.

The 350 is Bonus View Capable but only BD-Live ready out of the box – but a firmware upgrade directly downloadable to the unit via its ethernet port in October will enable this feature.

The 550 on the other hand is BD-Live and Bonus View capable out of the box and features additional audio support with a DTS-HD Master Audio Decoder and 7.1 Ch analogue audio output.

Sountina – One of a Kind Speaker

Not long ago Sony Japan announced a new amazingly built glass tube speaker NSA-PF1 under its own name of Sountina. It is definitely clear visual statement with unusual effective sound streaming abilities. If Qualia line was still alive at this point, I am pretty sure Sountina would be branded under Qualia wings. It is made of organic glass tube which vibrates and expands sound to 360 degrees and provides a frequency response of 50Hz – 20,000Hz, features an input line, coaxial, optical, subwoofer (13cm), a medium speaker (7cm), and a tweeter made of organic glass.

“Why Sountina? Sony’s designers explain the name is a fusion of ‘sound’ and ‘fountain’; just as people gather around a fountain, so the Sountina will deliver amazing music to those all around it, whether they are sitting in their favourite room or standing in the latest fashionable bar”, EU Press release states.

It looks like it will be available in Europe and since Sony allowed its engineers to create something really extraordinary, it will cost around 6500€. Yes, quite an extraordinary lump of dough too! Let’s wait till it gets to the US shores…so we could test it out and believe our ears (when we hear it project sound) as well as eyes when we see the price tag.

P.S. I will follow up about this speaker soon and let you all know how this endeavor came to life at Sony.

Check out the Video:

BDP-S5000ES High-End Player Touches Down

Another mouth-watering piece of kit was announced by Sony today at IFA Berlin. Designed to complement some of the other new ES series products we talked about earlier in the week (the SCD-XA5400ES and the 5400ES amp, which in Europe will be prefixed STR and not TA-DA), the BDP-S5000ES has got to be the most highly spec’d Blu-Ray player to date and will surely be at the top of every home cinema enthusiasts’ shopping list. What sets this apart from the other players out there is the quality of the hardware and components. Everything has been designed to give the highest possible performance and best possible audio-visual experience. For example 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.

On the visual front it features a new “HD Reality Enhancer” that 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. I will be interested to see how this works in real-life, but it sounds very appetizing. Meanwhile Super Bit Mapping, should ensure smoother colour tones.

It goes without saying that this model is fully BD-Live and BonusView compatible so that you can make the most of all of those Picture in Picture commentaries and multi-angle replays and other live content that is now appearing on more and more BD releases.

A natural consequence of this is that the player has an ethernet port that can be used for directly updating the firmware via the internet on to the unit and of course additional BD-Live content can be downloaded and stored on the inbuilt 1GB flash storage.

The player also features the user friendly XrossMediaBar menu system and comes with full Bravia sync capabilites for control over HDMI.

Here are some more photos of this beautiful unit:

Rolly Rolls Happily to Europe

Today we are flooded with Sony news from IFA and one of them is Sony’s bringing its Sound Entertainment Player to good ole Europe. This cool dancing “eGg” (this author’s spelling) does an amazing job in its audio capabilities as well as its movements.

“Sony has always captivated its customers by creating products that merge technologies and push the boundaries of innovation and we are encouraged to see the amount of interest evoked by “Rolly,” said Andreas Ditter, President Audio Marketing Europe.” “Rolly” is a fantastic example of this convergence, providing listeners with a truly unique audio-visual experience made possible through Sony’s motion and audio technology.”

It looks like it is the same model number that is marketed here in the US SEP-30BT. Comes in white and black (if you get the black one, get a microfiber cloth as it is a finger print magnet).

Check out my previous Rolly posts here and here.

Sony Launches New S Series Walkman

Amongst the raft of announcements from Sony this morning at IFA Berlin, came the launch of the new Premium S Series Walkman. The new S series comes with two main variants – the NWZ-630F (shown above and available in 4 different colors) and the NWZ-730F available only in black but with the added benefit of built-in noise cancellation. The exact models and capacities will be as follows:

NWZ-739F – 16GB
NWZ-738F – 8GB
NWZ-639F – 16GB
NWZ-638F – 8GB

New features that are common to all models are Sony’s new SensMe ™ technology which allow users to create playlists based on their mood or the moment. Sony says:

The WALKMAN® S series is the first ever MP3 player that matches your listening to your mood or the moment. Based on Sony’s “12 Tone Analysis” technology and “LCMIR (Low-Complexity Music Information Retrieval)” technology, unique SensMe™ Channels analyse your music collection, suggesting playlists based on each song’s speed, mood and rhythm. There’s no need to spend hours tagging and sorting every track in your music collection. SensMe™ Channels do the hard work, creating a choice of 11 themed ‘channels’, from upbeat pop to emotional ballads.

Codec support includes MP3, AAC, WMA (including tracks with DRM), AVC & MPEG-4 for Video and JPEG for photos. All of these models are drag and drop and feature the usual Dynamic Normalizer, Clear Bass and equalizer options. What is more, being “F” models they also FM radios. The high contrast QVGA screen means videos should be clearer than ever with playback at 30fps.

Finally these are the slimmest Network Walkman offerings to date from Sony, checking in at just 7.5mm thickness. Overall these units get the thumbs-up from Sony Insider.

Pricing at this stage is still TBC for Europe but SonyStyle US has the S736 and S738 listed at $149.99 and $179.99 respectively.

Check out more details on the S series here.

Sony Confirms Release of E & B Series Walkmans

Together with the announcement of the new S series Walkman, Sony also confirmed the release and additional specs of the other two Walkman Series previously reported here at Sony Insider. These are the E series video Walkman (shown above) and the B series USB Walkman. The E series will come in 4GB or 8GB versions and comes with an FM tuner and photo viewer and is aimed at the mid-range market. It can be purchased in four different colors.

The B series is an entry level USB Walkman that again comes in four colorful versions, and features an FM tuner on the B133F and B135F. Capacity-wise there are only two options – 1GB or 2GB.

Full details on the B series can be found here and full details on the E series can be found here. Also check out the Sony press release for full details on all the models announced today.

Here’s a reminder of what the B series looks like.