Audio Video News

If Sony's PlayStation 3 didn't already look like a great deal to people shopping for a Blu-ray player (it costs about $20 more than several other players but comes with an entire gaming system attached), its value proposition versus the competition just shot through the roof.

By the end of March, the PS3 will become the first Blu-ray player on the market with all the extra features of Blu-ray 2.0 technology (also known as BD-Live), according to Sony. Only a couple other Blu-ray 2.0 players will launch this year.

What's in the box? With the firmware update, PS3 owners will be able to download extra movie-related stuff over the system's Internet connection: Bonus scenes, shorts, trailers, subtitle, ring tones and movie-themed games. The souped-up player will also be able to resume a movie after the Blu-ray disc is removed and re-inserted later, and the built-in Internet browser has been upgraded to allow streaming video from Web sites over your TV.

Of course, buckets of download-able content won't be available until later in the year, but Sony is starting out in April with a couple of its own releases, including Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
and The 6th Day. -Rachel Rosmarin

PRNewswire