Thanks to the PlayStation 3, the Blu-ray Disc Association is claiming minor and major victories in the HD format conflict, but while some software is shifting in significant numbers, organising a ticker-tape parade is premature.

Certain movies may well be selling by the bucket-load on both sides of the pond, but the specifications of BD hardware remain blighted by the stigma of uncertainty - as much today as when the HD disc scuffle first kicked off back in 2006.

Consider Sony's flagship BDP-S500, for instance. Undoubtedly, this is a machine that oozes class and backs up technological boasts with grit, graft and grind where it matters.

However, beyond the firework show of whizzes, bangs and pretty colours, it's only Profile 1.0. It won't even play all of the BD Java content currently found on some discs.

By now, I thought we were meant to be over this stumbling block.

Both sides of the HD format skirmish were meant to be on an even-footing, trading punch for punch, but in the Blu-corner, the contender has still to lace up one of its gloves.

It's a shame, and somewhat surprising, that I find a lack of something so irksome - a review should be about the things a product does have, rather than those it doesn't.

However, we've been promised the conformity to Profile 1.1 for some time now, and should HCC adopt a deadline policy based on the BDA's, you can expect the next issue to arrive some time in 2009.

That specific caveat aside, though, the S500 is an object of modest beauty. Everything bar tricky BD Java-duties is handled with the care and mastery of a machine built by engineers who obviously care about video and audio.

Even the exterior design has been painstakingly laboured over, with aesthetic flourishes that justify its £600 (or thereabouts) price point.
Unlike its stablemates, the S1E and S300, the front fascia is no fingerprint-attracting flap.

It's still prone to display dabs as prominently as a police case file, but it's automated - smoothly lowering when you press the tray eject button - thus negating the need for digit-specific gropings.

Size matters

The S500 is a hefty bugger, but that's more than a design choice (or down to a surplus of S1E cases left over in Sony's Shinagawa basements).

The bigger the case, the more air flows around interior components, cooling them and allowing each to run at maximum capacity.