We finally made the jump to Blu-Ray recently, because we like movies in HD, and were very unsatisfied with the selection of movies on “Charter-on-Demand” (not to mention the price was a bit high too. I ended up choosing the Sony BDP-N460 because, as far as I can tell, it’s the only one that has BD-Live (pretty common now), Amazon Video on Demand, AND NetFlix HD Streaming. Granted, AVoD and Netflix are both not all that useful to us right now without Closed Captioning, but I’m hopeful that that feature gets added soon.

It doesn’t include wireless network connectivity, only wired. Rather than run another wire or add an expensive wireless router option, I just took advantage of the fact that the kids’ XP machine is close, and has both wireless and wired ethernet ports. Hooking it up as a bridge was pretty easy – the downside obviously being that the PC needs to be on for wireless to work. But I’m OK with that, because I think the majority of our viewing will be actual discs for now.

I have it hooked up in Component mode at 1080i. HDMI supports 1080p, but my current A/V receiver doesn’t, and my TV doesn’t support discrete device selection. I’m keeping my eye out for a good 7.1 A/V receiver with HDMI switching support.

So far, I like the device overall. I’d heard some bad things about start-up time, but I haven’t really noticed any issues with this so far. I have these gripes with the system:

1. The “Home” button on the Remote takes you to the DVD configuration screen, and pressing “return” does NOT take you back to the place where you were; instead, it takes you to the start of the disc. Who the heck at Sony thought that THAT was a good design?
2. The Blu-Ray DVD’s that I’ve watched thus far have the “unskippable” movie previews. I HATE this feature. A friend at work told me that Samsung players ignore that setting on discs, but Sony (being in the media & hardware businesses) does not. I’m hopeful that this doesn’t happen on other discs from other studios.
3. The “tray” on the device is hidden behind a large movable faceplate. While this LOOKS cool, I suspect that it’ll wear out prematurely.

I still wish that HD-DVD had won the format wars. But, hey, this is coming from the guy who still has a collection of Laser Discs!

Ever since Amazon released their Kindle Reader, I’ve maintained that is pretty much a proof-of-business-concept for them; I don’t think Amazon wants to be in the hardware business, and instead wants someone else to handle the device, while they sell the media. While the Kindle is very cool, it strikes me as a first-gen prototype that COULD have been designed a bit more gracefully. So, my theory is that Amazon, after waiting a few years for someone else to do it, finally lost patience with the slow pace of ebook up-take, and is jump-starting a new sales channel for themselves.

That’s why this device called the Readius intrigues me so much. It’s a very cool and sleek looking device based on the same display technology as the Kindle.. and it doesn’t appear to have content partnerships lined up. Amazon wants to sell content, and these guys want to sell devices.. seems like a match made in heaven to me!

Amazon’s front-page should be outlawed. They show you the items you’ve viewed in the past, along with recommendations on stuff you may like (which are surprisingly accurate), and to top it off, show you what other people have done after looking at whatever item it is. It’s peer pressure, really, except that I don’t know these people. I mean, how the heck do they know that I like Star Wars, Ginger Altoids, AND books on Wiki’s? WTH?? (oh yeah.. I bought all that shtuff there)

In my defense, though, Red Sox season is starting, and my ‘old’ TV never really cut it as a HD set, even though it was big (51" Samsung). So, when I was browsing on a Lenovo X61 Tablet I’m evaluating, and went to Amazon to buy some printer ink for our Canon MP960, I saw the Sony Bravia KDS-55A3000 taunting me. I tapped my tablet pen on the "buy me.. you deserve it! you’ve worked hard! Think of the children! They need to see the Sox in HD!" button and told Mary Lou (my wife) that I’d kinda/sorta, you know… bought a TV. She just rolled her eyes.

BTW, this set was one of CNET’s Highest Reviewed sets of 2007, and earned an Editors’ Choice award.

Mary Lou and I actually picked it up at a Fedex depot early, to get a couple of days use out of it before it was actually scheduled to be delivered. It was surprisingly light (151 pounds). Hooking it up was pretty easy and intuitive – I really like the placement of the inputs on the SIDE of the set, and not on the back where these things normally are.

The first ‘real’ show I watched was the Red Sox in Japan – live HD Red Sox at 6am is pretty cool…

The picture is downright amazing. I’m finding myself watching shows that I don’t even like (like Hockey) just for the 1080 signal. I can’t say enough about this set – I’m thoroughly impressed. I’m running everything through a Sony A/V Receiver using Component cables; it doesn’t support HDMI switching. But if I end up buying a Blu-Ray player, now that the HD DVD wars are over, I’ll probably upgrade the receiver too.