Sony BDP-S560

Sony announced two Blu-ray players at its line show, including the BDP-S560 has built-in Wi-Fi functionality.

Standalone Blu-ray players have finally started catching up to the Sony PlayStation 3 for Blu-ray playback, but Sony's game console is still the only Blu-ray player with built-in Wi-Fi.

Luckily, that appears to be changing in 2009, with both Samsung and LG announcing wireless Blu-ray players at CES 2009. And Monday Sony announced its own wireless Blu-ray player, the BDP-S560. The BDP-S560 includes 802.11N Wi-Fi, which means you'll be able to access BD-Live features without dragging an Ethernet cord into your living room.

The wireless connection can also be used for firmware updates and accessing photos on other DLNA-enabled devices. The press release doesn't state whether music or movies can be streamed, but we assume it's limited to just photo streaming, like the company's DLNA televisions from last year. Photos can also be accessed via a front-panel USB port.

The BDP-S560 will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but the press release doesn't mention whether it will have 7.1 analog outputs like its predecessor, the BDP-S550. The BDP-S560 will be available this summer for about $350.

Sony also announced the step-down BDP-S360, which lacks Wi-Fi and the front-panel USB port. Not many details were released on the BDP-S360, except that it will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and feature a $300 price tag when it comes out this summer.