The Sony BDZ-V9 is Sony's second generation Blu-ray recorder and first generation BD-ROM player released around 2006 exclusive to Japan. It's an improvement over the BDZ-S77. A similar model, the Sony BDZ-V7 is almost identical, but without some advanced features.

Unlike its North American counter part, the BDP-S1, the BDZ-V9 is capable of recording high definition TV broadcast using BD-REs and a 250GB hard drive.

A cool feature is a telephone line port for users to connect the player to the telephone system. The port is used for connecting to broadcasting services (purchasing PPV, surveys, interactivity, etc.), communicating with the B-CAS card (Japan's DRM for authorized viewing of free TV), viewing email from broadcasting stations, and displaying Caller ID.

It is the first Blu-ray player to feature an Ethernet port for connecting to the internet. However, this is a Profile 1.0 player, meaning it cannot access BD-Live content. (Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players weren't released in the market until 2008.) The Ethernet port for this player was intended for streaming TV broadcasts over the Internet, additional interactive services from broadcast stations, viewing email, and local streaming over a home network.

It's also the first stand-alone Blu-ray player to use Sony's XMB user interface, giving it a PS3-like experience to non-gamers. It's design is similar to Sony's PSX (2003 PS2 model). It's capable of showing a BD title's metadata information including it's thumbnail and title name. It also displayS thumbnails and information of other media such as videos, music, and recorded content. It uses a Linux-based operating system.

BDZ-V9's XMB UI (Image: Lancelot さん)

Links & Sources

• BDZ-V9/V7 PDF manual from Sony
  
• Linux and other open-source code used in BDZ-V9/V7 
• Lancelot's article about the BDZ-V9 (Japanese)
  

Author(s) : Æ Firestone