Entertainment is now on a whole new level. From theatres to home theatres, people are looking for a high definition experience every time. From HD movies to the high end games, everything is now coming in the form of Blu Ray Discs. In order to decode them, the Blu ray players are being released at a rapid rate into the market, and some of them from, particularly from Sony are regarded as the best players of high definition movies. Now, as we all know, Sony occupies the front row seat in producing all the latest and also the finest of electronic goods in the market. It has lately released the BDP S series Blu Ray players, which comprises the BDP-S560, which is widely known for its quality and low price tag. Continue reading to know more.
Design:
The BDP S560 is one of the cutest looking Blu ray players you will find in the market. It is very sleek and stylish in appearance and it has also got a shiny look. It looks very rectangular and the metallic finish on the outside makes it even more attractive. All the sides have a metallic black finish and the front bezel is faintly coloured with blue tint, which is a trademark feature of Sony. This makes the complete design of the S560 and it has one of the best designs ever for a Blu Ray player. There is an LCD panel on the right hand side at the front and here is where you see the display. The digital LCD display is very clear and it is visible from even considerable distances. Then, there are the primary control buttons that can be operated and there is also an infrared panel that receives the signals from the remote controller. On the bottom right hand side of it is the HDMI port. Hence, the S560 is wonderfully engineered in order to make it apt to almost all kinds of environment.
Features:
Sony’s Blu ray players have always had good number of features. Now, coming to the S560, there are a few additions to the past features and they all form a great package of features that will be very useful and it also makes it easy for you to entertain yourself. Here is a brief detail about each and every feature that is seen on the S560.
Full HD 1080:
Most of today’s HD TVs are coming with this special feature. The latest screen resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels, which means that, you will get splendid picture clarity, which is known as 1080p. Hence, it will be great if your Blu Ray player has this particular feature as well. It is known as the Full HD 1080 and it gives a meaningful look to the pictures on the screen of your HD TV. This does not mean that it is not compatible with TVs other than the HD TVs, but it will be great if you have the combination of both of them. Thus, go for the S560, if you wish to experience digital clarity and full HD.
DVD Upscaling:
This has been a very unique as well as one of the very useful features that you will find on the Blu Ray players from Sony. The DVD upscaling means that you can also play your DVDs on your S560, and also with a quality that meets the standards of a Blu ray disc. What happens here is that, when a DVD is played with the S560, the player takes the additional responsibility of upscaling the information on the disc, or in other words, it improves the quality of your pictures. If not perfect HD pictures, you will still receive pictures that are near the high definition range. Improvisation is never better elsewhere as the Sony BDP-S560 Blu Ray Disc Player is a master in doing it.
Built in Wi-Fi:
This special feature has become a part of the daily round. For the past half a decade or so, this feature is being used in many electronic devices and its utility has now increased to a great extent. To be a little more confirmative of this fact, you can see that there is almost no Blu Ray player in the market without Wi-Fi. This built in wireless functionality, technically called as 802.11 N/G/B/A, allow you to connect to the internet directly and then stream and download BD Live Content, about which we will talk later in detail. To make it easier for the users, Sony has seen to it that the S560 is compatible with most home wireless routers. In addition to that, this Sony BDP-S560 Blu Ray Player also corroborates Wi-Fi protected set-up, or the WPS system, for means of a fast and simple connection to all WPS enabled wireless routers. Hence, you can do everything wirelessly and that too within seconds.
Bravia Sync:
If you have a Sony Bravia LCD TV at your home, then you cannot ask for more from the S560. This is the best available combination in the market today. You might have already known about this Bravia Sync feature. With the help of the HDMI cables, you can connect your TV and the S560 and hence experience high definition pictures from your Bravia TV. No problem even if you do not have a Bravia TV as this is just an extra option for those who have it. This means that you will have a direct connection from your player to your TV, thereby giving you the best quality of pictures and videos.
USB 2.0:
Even though there are plenty of options for watching movies and stuff, Sony has also provided the USB 2.0 port just in case, so that you can download and save the media files from the internet through BD Live. You can also transfer movies and music files from your computer to the USB flash drive and then play them by connecting it to the S560 Blu Ray Player from Sony. Hence, this is another feature that strengthens the connectivity of the S560.
Photo Streaming:
This is a sub feature that takes the help of Wi-Fi. You can stream photos very easily by connecting the S560 to your computer, laptop, mobile phone (that is Wi-Fi compatible) or any other DLNA device (Digital Living Network Alliance) and then browse for pictures on your HD TV. You also have the option to select the photos for viewing or to start an automatic slide show of the pictures either in a sequence or at random. This might be a very useful feature because of the fact that there is no need to connect the devices by using wires, so that you will be saving your time and also patience. No matter where in your house these devices are, they will be identified and connected automatically by this special feature, so that photo streaming becomes very easy.
BD Live Technology:
Yet another one of the cool features of the Sony BDP-S560 DVD Player is the BD Live Technology. This technology is pertained to Sony only and is one of its unique features. You have scores of options when it comes to streaming pictures, movies, videos, trailers, music, short films and many other media files. You can connect the player to the internet and then stream all the media and select them for playing on your TV instantly. You can also download them into the temporary memory of the player in order to play the content in the future. Some movie based games can also be downloaded and played using this facility. This means that you can watch movies readily even if you do not have a DVD or BD available at that time. For downloading media files that need more memory, you need to connect a USB flash drive to your player and then you can download them easily.
XV Colour Output:
The XV Colour output is a special feature that makes your S560 player play AVCHD-format discs that have the endorsement for the international XYYCC colour standard, and thereby producing images with great clarity and contrast. To be more specific, this XV colour feature enables the player to play the old pictures with nearly twice as many colours as the current international RGB colour standard. What happens here is the S560 reads the old discs and it amplifies the output signal and a special processor adds more colours to the pictures so that the final picture on the screen looks a lot better and also more natural, so that you will not feel the pictures as old and degraded. This option can also be used when you feel that the picture quality on the disc is too bad or less lively when it comes to the colour.
Xross Media Bar:
When there are special features on your player, it means that there is a need for a new menu for easy access to all the options. This new menu is a must now for all the Blu Ray players. When it comes to the S560, you will find a very exciting new menu, which is obviously very different from others and also very stylish in its own manner. The Xross Media Bar, as it is called in this case, is a kind of user interface that makes things easy for you as it is very simple as well as time saving to navigate through the different features, accessibilities, television menus, various control options, and also user settings. The menu is also well designed by grouping the similar functions and their options together so that it will be easier for navigation. Hence, with this menu, you will just be a few clicks away from entertainment.
Clearly, it is evident that Sony has made sure that the S560 has more features than any other player in the market. Already, this is great news as you can have a single player for multiple entertainment options.
Performance:
Video Performance of S560:
Blu Ray Picture itself is a kind of adjective. The Sony BD S560 is an excellent player that provides you great pictures with the best quality and contrast. It is capable of reading the data exactly from the Blu ray discs and then reproducing them without almost any time lag. The 24p True Cinema helps you watch the movies with a special theatre like experience as the pictures are blended into 24 frames per second, which makes them more realistic. If the performance of the S560 were to be declared in a single word, the word would be ‘fantastic’.
Audio Performance:
The S560 comes with a very good decoding technology that gives you optimum quality of sound. Just like on most of the highly rated Blu Ray players, the S560 has the Dolby Digital True HD decoder that gives you a digital output, so that you can connect your player to a home theatre system and enjoy 3D surround sound effect. Added to this, there is the DTS HD internal decoding system that is a unique feature of this Blu ray player. This special system adds to the already wonderful surround sound effect. Now, this means that your pictures will have a great support from the audio and watching movies was never so great before.
Connectivity:
As we have already discussed above, the S560 is blessed with a range of connectivity options and this has made it easy for you to connect it to many other devices at home. The built in Wi-Fi is not only a very good feature, but it is also a great performer. The connection is very stable and the speed is higher than that of the other players in the market. Ethernet port also is a good idea because sometimes it may be more useful than Wi-Fi and especially while downloading different media files from the internet. The HDMI ports allow high definition picture performance and a direct connection between the player and your TV. The USB 2.0 port is also useful for saving the downloaded media and also for playing movies and other stuff easily. Overall, wherever you see, the S560 is a tailor made player that knows nothing other than providing you entertainment.
Power Consumption:
You will see that the S560 is one of the low power consuming players in the market. While in normal mode, it consumes about 31 W of power, which is very low by any means. Normally, the power ratings of other players, be them either Blu Ray or DVD players, they are significantly higher. There is also the standby mode, during which the player consumes less than 1 W power. When the player is not used for a while but it is still switched on, it goes into the standby mode, thereby saving your energy bills.
Warranty:
The Sony S560 Blu-ray player comes with a parts and labour warranty for a period of one year from the original date of purchase.
Verdict:
There is no doubt that Sony is one of the best brands in consumer electronics. The S560 has once again proved that with all the style in the globe and also a unique design. And, the list of features is longer than that of its counterparts from LG and Samsung. You can really count on its performance since it gives out a full HD output, which will be ideal for watching movies. Another important thing here is that the cost of this player is also quite low when compared with the other prime products in the market, and that too after having lots of features and extra options. So, if you ever wanted to buy a wonderful BD player, the Sony BDP-S560 is the one for you.
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Sony BDP-S560 Blu Ray Player – Technical Specification Table
| Manufacturer | Sony |
| Model Name | Sony BDP-S560 Blu Ray Player |
| Model Number | S560 |
| Display type | Front Panel |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 430 x 70 x 207 mm |
| Weight | 2.3 kg |
| Colour/Finish | Black |
| Media Types supported | CD, DVD, CD-R, BD-RE, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, BD-ROM, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-ROM |
| System features | BD-ROM (BonusView; Profile 1.1) BD-ROM (BD-Live; Profile 2.0) BD-R/RE Playback AVC-HD 8c/12cm DVD Playback DVD Video Playback Audio CD Playback DVD-R/RW (Video Format) Playback DVD-RW (VR Format) Playback DVD+R/RW Playback CD-R/RW Playback JPEG Playback |
| Picture features | 1080p output (via HDMI™) Precision Cinema HD upscale (DVD upscaling to 1080p) Video D/A Converter 24p True Cinema x.v. Colour Progressive Scan Output Precision Drive HD Deep Colour Preset Picture Mode USB Photo Playback |
| Audio output | Dolby Digital HD, DTS HD and Analogue stereo |
| PC Sync | Yes |
| Bravia Sync | Yes |
| Network Ethernet | BD Live |
| PC interface | Mini USB |
| Upscaling | Yes (up to 1080p) |
| Parental Lock | Yes |
| Connectivity | Wireless Internet DLNA Client BD-Live enabled Frimware update via the Internet |
| Convenience Features | Quick Start-up XrossMediaBar™ (GUI) Easy Set up BRAVIA Sync PhotoTV HD Child Lock (Tray Lock) Parental Control Screen Saver Video Bit Rate Indicator |
| Terminal connectivity | 1 x HDMI 1 x Component Video OP 1 x S-Video Output 1 x Composite Video Output 1 x Digital Audio Output: Coaxial 1 x Digital Audio Output: Optical Analogue Stereo Output USB Front port |
| Power Consumption | 31 W (AC 220-240 V) |
| Warranty | One Year |
