07.17.2008 — Sony is now shipping its BD-Live-ready BDP-S350 Blu-ray player.

The BDP-S350, introduced in February during Sony's "Open House" event, features BonusView (picture-in-picture), a new feature available on some newer Blu-ray titles.

It also supports BD Live, which will be available later this year through a firmware update.

The BDP-S350 comes with an Ethernet port to enable firmware updates and access of Internet-based content.

The player uses Sony's Precision Cinema HD Upscale technology to upscale SD DVDs to full 1080p HD via HDMI.

BDP-S350 also incorporates Precision Drive HD to correct wobbling discs and protect the discs from being bent or scratched.

Sony says the BDP-S350 is 55 percent smaller than the BDP-S300 Blu-ray player. It uses 21 percent less power in playback mode and 43 percent reduced power in standby mode, according to Sony.

The player offers 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoding, as well as DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and Master Audio bit-stream output.

It supports AVCHD discs encoded with x.v. Color technology and is compatible with the following video formats: BD-R/RE (BDMV and BDAV), DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW (CD-DA format) and JPEG on DVD/CD.

The BDP-S350 is available for $400 from Sony Style Stores and authorized retailers.