The Editors’ Choice winning Blu-ray player from Panasonic
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If I had to recommend just one Blu-ray player for 2012, it would be Panasonic’s DMP-BDT220 ($130 street price). It’s in the sweet spot of Panasonic’s Blu-ray lineup, with built-in Wi-Fi and an excellent set of streaming-media services, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, Vudu, MLB.TV, and Pandora.
And while competing players from Samsung and Sony offer just as many streaming apps, they’re hamstrung by awkward user interfaces. The DMP-BDT220 also has a few other perks, like 3D compatibility, 2D-to-3D conversion, and Skype, although the front-panel SD card slot is probably the most useful.
Granted, the DMP-BDT220 isn’t that much better than its competitors, but it also doesn’t have any major flaws. (Its inability to play back DivX and Xvid files may be its biggest drawback.) The Panasonic does cost a little more than some decent budget alternatives, like the Samsung BD-E5700, but the difference is only about $15. Altogether, the Panasonic DMP-BDT220 is the best current value, earning CNET’s Editors’ Choice Award for the Blu-ray player category.
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With CES behind us, it’s time for manufacturers to start releasing this year’s line-ups. Panasonic is the first to get us all excited, with its new range of Blu-ray players. This year, the company is launching a 3D model, a new high-end machine, and a pair of entry-level machines, with some impressive eco-friendly credentials.
There’s plenty of buzz about 3D this year. Not all of it is positive — some of it constitutes tutting and groaning from those who aren’t sold on this new craze. But, however you look at it, the new Panasonic DMP-BDD300 is likely to cause much excitement when it launches. There isn’t much information about this player yet, but it will include DLNA, and 802.11n wireless, as well as having ‘cinema quality’ video and audio support.
The DMP-BD85 (pictured) is a high-end player for those not bothered about 3D. It will have a pretty comprehensive specification, including 802.11n wireless, the ability to connect to your home PC and play media, and support for DivX HD, which suggests MKV containers might be playable too. Its 7.1-channel analogue audio output means you can connect your existing AV receiver to the player and still get Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, even if your receiver can’t decode these new HD audio formats.
At the lower end of the range, you’ll find the DMP-BD65 and DMP-BD45. These players boast some green credentials that will keep penny pinchers and polar-bear fans happy. The simplest improvement is a reduction in the player size. That may not sound like a big deal, but reducing the size means the packaging can be more petite. Diminutive boxes reduce shipping costs and carbon output.
The players are also more efficient electrically — the DMP-BD45 uses only 19W in operation and 0.2W in standby. Compare that to players from 2007, which used 45W in operation, and you can see that the company is doing an impressive job. These two players also boast a quick start time, with Panasonic claiming they ‘boot’ in 0.5 seconds. We’ll have to wait and see how that affects the overall Blu-ray load times.
Blu-ray is starting to look more mature every day. There are still some problems to be ironed out though, mainly the ludicrous load times and idiotic interactive functionality that adds little apart from frustration. 3D is likely to be a big driver for this technology, assuming people are interested in investing in a new player and TV. Movies, after all, are the primary source for 3D at the moment, and DVD can’t cut the mustard, while broadcast 3D is a considerable time away for most TV networks.
If mobile phones aren’t your bag, Panasonic wants to lighten the burden of this year’s Mobile World Congress with some AV news. First to reach us was word of its new 3D Blu-ray player, an ideal match for the company’s new 3D plasma TVs, and with some exciting new features and an interesting technological solution to pumping 3D over HDMI.
Getting Blu-ray 3D off to a flying start, the company has confirmed details of its DMP-BDT300, which we had previously been told would be called the DMP-BDD300. The player uses the UniPhier LSI chip to process Full HD movies. If you aren’t intimately familiar with Panasonic’s new chip, it’s at the core of all its Blu-ray players, and handles picture processing. What makes it unique is its close affiliation with Panasonic’s Blu-ray pressing facility, which helps ensure what you see is as close as possible to the original movie, and how the director intended.
The BDT300 also comes with VieraCast, Panasonic’s Internet system that allows you to watch YouTube videos and photos on Picasa, among other sites. The player also has the ability to stream video over wireless from your home PC — although there’s no word yet on what form this might take, and what codecs will be supported.
In order to handle 3D video as well as lossless audio from Blu-ray discs, Panasonic has had to put two HDMI sockets on its 3D Blu-ray player. One of these will send 3D video to a compatible TV and the other will just pass audio to an AV receiver. This isn’t an ideal situation, but until HDMI 1.4 actually becomes available, it’s the only practical way for the company to handle the extra HD video and audio throughput that 3D requires. If that doesn’t suit you, Panasonic also provides 7.1 analogue audio outputs too.
Panasonic is due to announce its new ranges this week at an event in Munich. Crave will be there, so expect some hands-on videos and more coverage of all these exciting new gadgets this week.
At its annual European press launch in Amsterdam, Panasonic yesterday announced that it would launch a series of new Blu-ray players, including a portable machine, the DMP-B15, and a freesat-recording model, the DMR-BS850. There were also jokes about windmills.
To our surprise, the company has decided that in the middle of a recession, what people really need is the ability to watch Blu-ray movies when they’re on the road. We love the idea of being able to easily lug a Blu-ray player around with us, but we’re stroking Sceptical Cat as to whether anyone will actually pay for it.
The DMP-B15, which had a glimpse of at CES, features an 8.9-inch, WSVGA screen and supports SDHC cards and can play AVCHD material, making it a good companion for a Panasonic camcorder. It will also, surprisingly, have access to the VieraCast system, which allows you to access online content such as YouTube and Bloomberg news.
You can also connect this player to your TV with an HDMI screen, and benefit from ‘Full HD’ quality in your lounge, or on your second TV in your bedroom. Let’s be honest here, even the best 8.9-inch LCD isn’t going to do justice to 1080p video, so it’s important to be able to use it as a standalone player too — in fact, the only benefit to the screen is that you needn’t get a separate copy of the movie on DVD.
The DMP-B15 also supports BD Live, so if you connect it to your home network, via the built-in Ethernet connection, you can access online content. Even DivX gets a look in, with support for DVDs and CDs with video encoded in the popular codec.
The company also announced that, as part of its long-running deal with freesat, it would be producing a Blu-ray recorder with built-in, dual freesat HD tuners. The DMR-BS850 will be launched this year in the UK (a similar model has previously been available in France). This is great news for HD fans — recording your favourite HD shows to Blu-ray is frankly awesome. Hopefully, such discs will play on any AVCHD capable machine, although we don’t know how the content creators will feel about such flagrant nose-thumbing at potential copyright infringement.
There are also two new standalone Blu-ray players. The first, the DMP-BD60, will replace one of our favourite players, the DMP-BD35. The high-end DMP-BD55 from last year is also being replaced by the DMP-BD80. Both players will feature BD Live too.
As with its previous range, Panasonic has bestowed analogue 7.1 audio out on the BD80, with the BD60 supporting Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, but only via HDMI. Both players have PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus, which takes Panasonic’s expertise in mastering Blu-ray movies and helps to increase the picture quality you get to see on your shiny new HD TV.
3D TV has also been mentioned, with Panasonic using Blu-ray to send Full HD 3D to a compatible TV. Before that can become a marketable product, however, both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the HDMI licensing group need to agree to adjust the relevant standards. So don’t expect to don the dorky specs anytime soon.
Everyone has times when they feel restless and unable to settle on decisions, but those good folks over at Panasonic have got it bad. It seems like only yesterday that the BD30 and BD50 players arrived and now the company has replaced them with new and exciting models.
The DMP-BD35 and BD55 seem to have been on a radical diet, looking thinner and — dare we say it — even more beautiful than before. The changes aren’t merely cosmetic. These players are both profile 2.0 compliant, which means you’ll get the very best out of interactivity. Previously, only the BD50 was ready for online content, meaning BD30 owners wouldn’t be able to access hilariously useless features like putting themselves in the action in Starship Troopers 3.
As with previous Panasonic Blu-ray players, you also get DivX support, so you can play SD content encoded in the popular Internet format on your TV. Sadly, Panasonic is showing no sign of including HD decoding for MPEG-4 or MKV container support. This is a crying shame, because these Blu-ray players all have the capability to become great media streamers — especially now they have Ethernet sockets knocking around, doing very little for most of the time.
Both of these players support Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD for lossless audio joy in your living room — indeed, both can decode internally and send via HDMI if you have an external surround-sound receiver. If you really want analogue audio out, the BD55 is happy to oblige, and this seems to be the only real difference between the two machines.
If you’re thinking of putting your hand in your pocket, you’ll be pleased to know that the BD35 costs around £300, with the BD55 sitting up at the £400 mark. At these prices, the PlayStation 3 is still much better value, but at least these players offer profile 2.0 functionality, and hopefully they’ll also be quicker than past hardware. -Ian Morris
The Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player we checked out recently was terribly exciting, but we’re even keener on the company’s DMP-BD50, which adds one important feature to the Blu-ray arsenal — BD Live. This means that the BD50 — or ‘Fiddy’ as we’ve decided to call it — is basically a profile 2.0 player, making it one of the few announced players to support what is probably the final Blu-ray profile.
BD Live is essentially the Blu-ray equivalent of the functionality found on some HD DVDs. Films such as Blood Diamond, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Transfomers all feature Web interactivity on the now defunct format. Hopefully BD Live will bring these features to Blu-ray eventually. It’s worth pointing out that there aren’t many BD Live discs at the moment — Saw IV does boast some interactivity, but we aren’t entirely sure what.
The DMP-BD50 has a few other tricks up its sleeve too, especially in the audio department. It has, of course, the ability to decode and output all of the lossless audio codecs such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. But it also features something called audio re-master, which Panasonic claims compensates for data lost in the lossy compression systems such as Dolby Digital and DTS found on DVD. Apparently this re-mastering can create a fuller, more faithful sound reproduction.
Of course Fiddy offers 1080p/24 and both Deep Colour and x.v.Colour support over HDMI 1.3. Panny claims x.v.Colour has 1.2 times more colour than regular old sRGB. So if your TV supports x.v.Colour, you’ll be in for a rare — and brilliantly coloured — treat. Like the BD30, the BD50 supports DivX, and can play files recorded in the format from both CD and DVD.
We’re also pleased to see the BD50 has analogue 7.1 audio outputs, for hooking the player up to an existing surround-sound system. We’re a fan of analogue audio outputs because of the flexibility they offer, plus they don’t require an external processor to decode the TrueHD and DTS-HD soundtracks.
There’s no word on when the Panasonic DMP-BD50 will be hitting the streets, or how much it’ll set you back. We suspect it’s some way off yet, but as soon as it’s available we’ll be testing it to the max. –Ian Morris
Unless HD DVD manages to conjure up a biblical-scale miracle, we’re all going to be buying Blu-ray players from now on for our high-definition movie pleasure. Of course, with Blu-ray having a number of profile specifications it can be a confusing process choosing one. Luckily, the Panasonic DMP-BD30, which has been available for some time in the US, is coming to the UK.
We’re excited about it because the DMP-BD30 has a number of features that make it a pretty good all-round HD player. Let’s start with the profile 1.1 aspects of the player. The BD30 has a second video and audio decoder, so you can watch picture-in-picture video, which adds some cool potential features to Blu-ray discs. There’s no requirement for 1.1 players to have Ethernet, and the BD30 doesn’t. You’ll need to fork out again for a profile 2.0 player for that. Hurrah for the Blu-ray Disc Association.
There’s also another feature on the BD30 that we welcome with open arms. It can play DivX — implying XviD support as well — which is an excellent addition to an HD player, because until now there’s been pretty much no support for downloaded formats in next-generation players, forcing people to keep their old DVD players to watch content they had in the DivX format.
Panasonic is keen to make its Blu-ray players more central in people’s media centres. It’s integrating support for playing back footage shot with its camcorders, so the BD30 can play back video stored on memory cards — handy if you’re a home video fan. The player will also happily read JPG images stored on SD memory cards too, which is useful if you want to turn your TV into a gigantic digital photo frame.
The BD30 also supports 1080/24 for more accurate movie playback, on TVs that support this format. It seems almost redundant to mention that there’s also HDMI 1.3, with support for deep colour — we’d be very surprised it this wasn’t included in every next-generation player. Panasonic is also pushing its Viera link technology, which allows you to control all of your Viera-branded stuff from one remote control.
Panasonic has also taken this opportunity to create another ridiculous technology with a stupid, badly spelt name. This time they’ve called it UniPhier, which is supposed to indicate that it unifies two technologies, one for colour reproduction and one called P4HD, which takes care of motion and video quality. We’re sure it’s very good at what it does, despite its absurd name.
The Panasonic DMP-BD30 can be pre-ordered now for around £300-£350 — Amazon expects to deliver in one to two months, which gives an idea of its release date. We’ll have a full review lickety-split. –Ian Morris
Panasonic chose the Abbey Road Studios — the spiritual home of The Beatles — as the venue for the press launch of its first Blu-ray DVD player. Crave followed in the footsteps of the Fab Four across the famous zebra crossing and into the Abbey Road Studios, where we were greeted by several Japanese execs who proudly unveiled the DMP-BD10 Blu-ray player.
Panasonic showed us several film and music clips and we were incredibly impressed by the level of detail in the images and the sound quality. The DMP-BD10 uses P4HD picture-processing technology, which Panasonic claims enables the device to take full advantage of Blu-ray’s high-capacity format by sampling more than 15 billion pixels per second.
The sound performance of the device was also impressive, due to the DMP-BD10’s integrated Dolby Digital Plus 7.1-channel surround sound. This is supported by 192kHz/24-bit audio processing for each of its eight channels.
To improve ease of use the DMP-BD10 has an HDAVI control, which lets you control your screen and surround-sound receiver at the touch of a button. However, this will only work if you have a compatible screen and receiver, such as the recently introduced SA-XR700.
The main downside of the DMP-BD10 is the price. When it’s launched in October, it is expected to cost around £1,000 — around twice the price of rival HD DVD players. Movie aficionados might think this is a reasonable price to pay for exceptional picture and sound quality, but the average consumer is likely to gulp at the price. -RA
