It was all but inevitable that Sony would join the 3D TV brigade, which it did a little while ago at its official CES presentation. The electronics giant is debuting three series of Bravia 3D sets (all with LED backlighting), with the top line, the Bravia XBR-LX900, including a built-in 3D transmitter and a pair of active-shutter 3D glasses. The XBR-HX900 and XBR-HX900 are “3D ready,” but don’t come with the transmitter or glasses.
The XBR-LX900 (pictured above) comprises four sets—ranging in size from 40 inches to 60 inches—will be available this summer, and comes with built-in Wi-Fi to take advantage of Bravia Internet widgets. They also include the company’s 240Hz Motionflow refresh rate technology, and a clever face detention feature that will dim the TV’s backlight if no one is in the set’s viewing area. The XBR-HX900 sets have a couple of image-enhancing technologies that the XBR-HX800 series lacks, but otherwise they all have local dimming of the LED backlights and 240Hz refresh rates like the XBR-LX900 TVs. They also lack built-in wireless connectivity. The XBR-HX900 only comes in 52-inch and 46-inch varieties, while the XBR-HX800 comes in 55-inch, 46-inch, and 40-inch flavors. Of course, no pricing info has been announced, which may be related to seeing how Sony’s competition prices its own new 3D HDTVs.
Sony is also releasing details on its initial 3D Blu-ray player, the BDP-S770. In addition to waiting for 3D Blu-ray discs to start showing up, the player has built-in wireless and an Ethernet port to give you access to Sony’s Internet Video platform along with Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand streaming services. Of course, it can handle standard DVDs and two-dimensional Blu-ray discs as well as the 3D format. No pricing has been released, but availability is listed as “this summer.”
The company also has a 3D Blu-ray home theater system on tap—the 5.1-channel 1,000-watt BDV-HZ970W. Neither pricing nor availability information has been released.
