Sony Says PS3 Will Receive Major Blu-ray Upgrade

LOS ANGELES -- Ever since the updated Blu-ray Disc minimum requirements surfaced earlier this year, Sony's PlayStation 3 appeared to be the only player that might be able to be upgraded to support the highly anticipated BD-Live Internet-connected functionality.

Why so interesting? Well, BD-Live makes it mandatory that--among other things)--Blu-ray players that meet the BD-Live spec ship with a network connection that will allow them to download new content from the Net. So a disc could come with access to new trailers, additional behind the scenes material, etc. BD-Live would let the disc check online for new downloadable content each time it was played.

The PS3 already has an ethernet jack for connecting to the Internet, and has storage in excess (40GB to 60GB--only 1GB is required for BD-Live)--two of the requirements for meeting the Blu-ray Disc Profile 1.1.

Previously, Sony had only said it was exploring the viability of making the PlayStation 3--which remains one of the cheapest Blu-ray players being sold--a full-profile Blu-ray Disc player via a firmware update.

Today at the DisplaySearch 2007 HDTV conference here came the first confirmation that the PS3 will indeed get that update.

When the conversation during a panel about the ongoing high-definition format war turned to interactivity, Don Eklund, executive vice president of advanced technologies at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, noted, "There seems to be a common misconception that Blu-ray doesn't have interactivity, and it doesn't have connectivity."

Eklund went on to counter that Blu-ray does have interactivity and connectivity, and that one player today will be able to handle the BD-Live discs of tomorrow. PS3 will be upgraded to full-profile Blu-ray, Eklund said, "to have picture-in-picture" and other functions to be announced.

Eklund did not indicate when the PS3 update might happen. In a later panel, Phil Rosenberg, a senior vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment America, also said he did not know when the update may come. To date, no studio movie titles use BD-Live functionality; discs with that functionality aren't expected until early- to mid-next year.

The new Blu-ray specification guidelines, which also include a requirement for remixing a secondary audio track within the player, don't go into effect until the end of this month.

Any player launched after October 31 needs to comply with either the "standard" or "full" (connected) profile as outlined by the Blu-ray Disc Association, which oversees the Blu-ray Disc spec. Rumors on the Web hypothesize that the impending new spec sparked the changes to Samsung's anticipated fall Blu-ray Disc player lineup (one player canceled, another, the BD-UP5000, delayed to the end of the year); Samsung has not yet responded to requests for more information about these product delays.

This news is a huge boon to consumers. In PC World's tests of the PlayStation 3, its video quality and handling have already proved it a highly capable Blu-ray Disc player. Now, this announcement confirms that it's also the most future-proof Blu-ray Disc player for sale today. And it plays games, too.

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