Get it together!
Today, we enjoy entertainment from a wide variety of sources. You can get your favorite flicks in Full HD video and HD audio on Blu-ray Discs, plus those discs let you use BD-Live to access even more entertainment, you've still got those stacks of DVDs, and quite a few MP3s on your computer plus a couple dozen CDs from the pre-digital era. But, you can also go on YouTube to show all your friends The Evolution of Dance, listen to Slacker Radio to get your own custom radio station, or even stream many Netflix movies. But the problem is that those media sources aren't usually all in the same place. Then again, what if they were? With the Sony BDP-N460 you get all that and more in one "simple" component. This Blu-ray Disc player also supports CDs, DVDs, and two USB input sources. But, on the back panel, an ethernet connection allows you to access content from over 25 different providers, including Netflix, Slacker, and YouTube. It's all the entertainment you can handle in one sleek package.
The colors of the rainbow
So . . . you may be wondering what's different about Blu-ray Discs as opposed to standard DVDs or even CDs. And really, the difference all comes down to color. Do you remember learning in science class that different colors have different wavelengths? That's what matters here. DVDs (and CDs) are written and read using a wide red beam of light, whereas Blu-ray uses a much narrower blue-violet laser for reading and writing discs. Because the beam is so much narrower, a lot more info can be stored on the same disc, because it can be placed closer together. How much more? Try: more than five times more. The benefits of all that extra space will soon become apparent . . .
Sacrifice no more
In case you haven't ever seen the benefits of Blu-ray Discs, here's what your missing out on: 1080p. This refers to the picture resolution. You see here, all video content is really made of tiny squares of color, arranged in a grid of horizontal and vertical lines. All together that forms the images you see. Normal TV and DVD movies have resolutions of 720 lines horizontally by 480 lines vertically. This is known as 480, since the resolution is determined by the vertical line count. 1080p, also known as Full HD has a resolution of 1920 lines across by 1080 lines vertically. That might not sound like much more, but if you do the math, that's almost six times as many pixels, which gives you six times as much detail. Six times clearer! That's a lot! But that's only half the equation. The "p" in "1080p" stands for "progressively-scanned." DVDs and TV are 480i for "interlaced." Progressive scanning provides much better picture than interlaced, especially with much motion in the video (for a full explanation of why, please see our articles). Luckily, Blu-ray Discs are able to store 1080p video, which is the best available now. DVDs can't. One note though: to fully benefit from 1080p video, you need a 1080p HDTV and an HDMI cable. You can display the video on a lower-resolution screen, or with a different cable, but it would have to be downconverted, so it probably wouldn't look any better than a normal DVD.
The other half
But video is not the only thing that benefits from the extra room on Blu-ray Discs. No only do you get Full HD video for your favorite movies, you also get HD audio. HD audio? Seriously. Blu-ray Discs also have the capacity to store full 7.1-channel uncompressed audio. That's quite a bit better than the 5.1-channel compressed audio found on DVDs. The BDP-N460 supports these HD audio formats, with decoding and bitstream output for both Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio, so you can have the sound handled by the Blu-ray player or by your receiver. If you've got a good speaker set-up, you'll get all the sounds the director wanted you to hear.
You want more?
So you have your favorite movie. You've watched it dozens of times, watched with every commentary possible, viewed every deleted scene, watched all the bloopers, and even watched it in Spanish just for fun. What now? With a DVD, more of the same. But that's not the case with Blu-ray. You see, Blu-ray is actually a more interactive experience, since Blu-ray Discs let you access BD-Live. Here's how it works: hook your Blu-ray player up to the internet, then plug a USB flash drive into the port on your Blu-ray player, and you can download additional content to go along with your movie experience. What sort of content, you ask? It could be anything from games, to picture-in-picture video commentary, to trivia, even to interacting with other people through BD-Live.
One cable to rule them all
In order to transmit the Full HD video and HD audio found on Blu-ray discs, or the BD-Live content you can download, you need an HDMI cable. That's right, only one cable to carry your audio and video. HDMI is the only cable with enough bandwidth (think of it as the amount of data it can transfer at any one time) to transfer the large amounts of data that make up Blu-ray audio and video. So don't forget to order an HDMI cable with your BDP-N460 to fully enjoy the Full HD video and audio from Blu-ray discs.
What's in the box?
Your purchase includes an A/V cable, two AA batteries, an AC cable, owner's manual, a remote control, a warranty card, and, oh yeah, the BDP-N460 Blu-ray player.
MY CART
Meet Geoff
Product
