Sony BDV-E370: Surround yourself in pictures and sound
The BDV-E370 is a home-cinema-in-a-box system, which means it contains everything you need to get started on the road to turning your living room into an Odeon rival.
Admittedly, 3D TV doesn't actually surround you in pictures, but it does confuse your brain into thinking that stuff is flopping out of your TV. The BDV-E370 is a home-cinema-in-a-box system, which means it contains everything you need to get started on the road to turning your living room into an Odeon rival.
It's worth pointing out that, while the BDV-E370 is 3D ready, it's not able to understand 3D Blu-ray movies out of the box. To add this functionality, Sony will later make a firmware update available. This is quite a common tactic, and the company is doing the same with other players, including the PS3. What you do get, out of the box, is a six speaker system, and Blu-ray player, with a built-in amplifier and the ability to decode lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD audio.
Like much of Sony's new gear, you can access streaming video from the likes of YouTube and LoveFilm. BBC iPlayer is coming at some point soon too, and you can already catch-up with Five TV shows like Neighbours and The Gadget Show via the Five on Demand service. Sony's on-demand offerings are very cool, and we're actually starting to think these services are high enough quality, and simple enough for everyone to use.
Sony claims that the system can put out 850w of sound, a figure that we're going to treat with some scepticism, as we often do with such huge numbers from manufacturer spec sheets. However loud it goes, the included speakers are wonderfully compact and should blend in well to most homes, even those with smaller living rooms. There's also the opportunity to make the rear speakers wireless, with an optional add-in module. We think this is an especially worthwhile option, as connecting up rear-effects speakers in is a pain in the screwdriver.
The E370 costs around £430, and can be readily obtained via the Internet, in exchange for your credit card number. We'll be taking a closer look at the system in a full review in the coming weeks, so bookmark our reviews section if you're keen to see how it gets on.