NEW Panasonic blu-ray BD60 & BD80 for pre-order at Crutchfield (1 Viewer)

[ace peterson]

I ordered a BD80 from Amazon yesterday for $319 and will be attaching it to a panasonic TH-50PZ85U. Will have to let you all know next week how she behaves...

 

[Brian McHale]

I’ve never even heard the fan on my BD35. I find it hard to believe that a later player would have an inherent design issue with fan noise. I would assume that the fan should run pretty quiet unless the unit thinks there is a heat issue. Do you have good ventilation for the player? If not, make sure that the unit has plenty of space around it. If your air flow is okay, then you might have a faulty heat sensor or even a bad fan.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Agreeing with Brian—I’m still waiting to hear the fan on my BD30.

 

[Edi-no-son]

So would it be safe to say the BD60 is the 'new model' to the BD35??
What more does it have if it is??

Would be looking at a BD player soon too, and it seems like the BD35 is greatly appreciated, but if the BD60 has something more, then why not lolz

 

[hojuguy]

Edmond, the Panasoic BD60 is not available yet in Australia, it's a replacement for BD-55 which we don't have at all... typical Australia missing out on the good stuff.

I suggest you wait to purchase your receiver & Blu-ray player until your home theatre is complete, this way you can get the latest and greatest within your budget.

You may need to decide on the projector because depending on the model chosen this will determine where you are going to have to mount it. Different models have different distances they should be mounted at to project the right size on your screen. Of course the distance is adjustable to a degree. A good shop can advise you on this once you give them your room dimensions.

One tip is try as much as possible to get it behind your seating position so you cannot hear the fan noise as much, you'll be surprised how this can bug you during quiet scenes in a movie if it's above your head.

If you want the best effect then see if you can design the projector to fit inside an enclosure like a soffit at the back of the room. Use optical clear glass (suggest NT43-974 from Edmunds Optical in the USA TECHSPEC High Efficiency Anti-Reflection Coated Windows - Edmund Optics ) as a window and allow for plenty of ventilation. If this is too much trouble look for a projector that is super quiet, there are a few available with excellent picture quality.

Cheers....

 

[Brian McHale]

I believe the BD60 is the replacement for the BD35 and the BD80 is the replacement for the BD55, if I'm not mistaken. The main difference between the lines is the 55 and 80 have 7.1 analog outputs (there are other differences, but that's the main one). If you have a recent HDMI-capable receiver, the BD60 should be fine.

I believe the main difference between the 35/55 and the 60/80 is VIERA CAST, which is apparently some kind of video on demand from Amazon.

 

[Blair G]

Wow.

Panasonic Canada is show list prices of $450 and $550 respectively. I know the Canadian dollar has dropped a bit in the last year but that price difference is crazy.
Should have bought that new 55 last week for $379CDN while I had the chance......

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

I would expect that Canada will see street pricing around $350, $299 on sale for the BD60 once past the initial roll out (Futureshop is listing $449 right now, Sears has no Blu players at all). Any higher and these will be dead in the water in this economy.

 

[Ensign Eddie]

Best Buy has the BD-60 in their ad this week ($299.99). And, according to their website, it is in stock.

Although I can't justify buying another player at this point, I may have to go by my local store and take a look at it.

 

[CRyan]

Is there anywhere that is listing bootup time comparisons between the 35/60 and 55/80? I guess I just need to know if the 80 is any better than the 55 in terms of timeliness.

 

[Brett_M]

I ordered my BD-80 from Amazon -- $339.99

 

[Hank_P]

Order the BD-60 for the bedroom. Onecall - $270, free fedex shipping, no tax.

 

[Brian McHale]

The best place to find out this kind of information (in my opinion) is AVS Forum. They have owner's threads for both sets of models and they really delve into this kind of information.

Oh, and Amazon has the BD60 for $255.

 

[DaveF]

Does anyone use the BD80 with HDMI to TV and 5.1 analog audio to receiver? A NewEgg review notes this doesn't work; and it's exactly what I would buy it for. I find it hard to believe this would not be "allowed", but I've learned anything's possible in this new HDMI world.

Cons: All analog output switched off when HDMI connecter is plugged in. Spent hours with panasonic tech support on this issue, shipped to repair depot (would not issue manufactor's RMA) no resolution, no understanding of the issue.Other Thoughts: Tech support doesn't understand that if a receiver does not have any HDMI inputs or switching, you cannot connect the player's HDMI output to the receiver, for crying out loud. How difficult is that to understand?

 

[Alfonso_M]

My new BD-60's takes lots of time to get to the disc's Menu , is this behavior normal for this player?

I just had a few freeze ups playing 'Inglorious bastards' right at the beginning (during the Ratings screen), it took a couple of stop-->-play , even power down ---->-play to finally get the disc to play , but this player takes a long time to cycle back to the Menu, , first I get a "Loading" window right on the center of screen, then the Universal Logo/intro, then another 'loading', then it pauses (goes to black) then another 'loading now' at the botton right of the screen, and finally the Menu..

The same thing happens with Public Enemies", no freeze ups but very slow to get to the menu..

I suspected the "live" feature, so I disconnected my wired Network and I still get the 'loading' window ....

Any settings I'm missing to speed-up this process?

I noticed Universal is loading and displaying promotions right on the disc's menu, I'm using a standard 4gb SDHC card..

Should I be using a High Speed SDHC card instead?

 

[Matt Hough]

While the Panasonic Blu-ray players are no speed demons (I have a BD-80), the long loading times for these new films are pretty typical of BD-Java-based content Blu-ray discs. I don't think any additional cards will bring the disc menus up any quicker than they're doing now. Be sure you have installed the latest firmware upgrade (2.2). That's about all that you can do to insure the loading times are as fast as the player is capable of based on the material it's having to load from the individual discs in order to play them.

 

[TheBat]

I own the panasonic 80 player. there was an update of 2.1 that did fix the slow speed of loading up. its a bit faster now. 2.2 fixed the freeze problem.

Jacob

 

[Alfonso_M]

Originally Posted by MattH.

While the Panasonic Blu-ray players are no speed demons (I have a BD-80), the long loading times for these new films are pretty typical of BD-Java-based content Blu-ray discs. I don't think any additional cards will bring the disc menus up any quicker than they're doing now. Be sure you have installed the latest firmware upgrade (2.2). That's about all that you can do to insure the loading times are as fast as the player is capable of based on the material it's having to load from the individual discs in order to play them.

Thanks Matt and Jacob, I won't bother exchanging the SDHC card then... I just re-tested my "Inglorious Basterds" disc, and there is something wrong with it, it keeps freezing up around the 'FBI warning' or 'Opinions expressed..’ screens, only after re-starting from Stop to Play three times do I get the movie to play.... I'll be exchanging the disc asap.

The BD60 is updated to the latest version, although I can't find in the menu where to check for the current version # ..

I just timed how long it takes from Play to Menu, it is close to a 5 minute wait, I suspect all the 'loading ' activity prior to the Universal Logo is related to the Net/BD- Live feature (although disconnecting the net cable didn’t do much), the black screen right after the Universal-logo along takes like 2 minutes to load before displaying the menu...my HD-DVDs don’t take any where near this long to load, so this is why I find this extended wait kind of annoying... I was checking the BD60 ethernet speed connections, and only 10baseT seems to work, I’m wired for at least 100baseT (100mbps)but I have no idea why the panny fails to connect at this speed when both my Home PCs are connected at 100mbps. I need to look into this, but not sure if the loading time will be affected if I’m able to fix this issue.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hmmm... Are other people having trouble w/ IB on their Panny BD60s too?

I was just considering picking one up to try out from Costco since my PS3 is effectively out of commission right now. And this potential issue w/ IB (and maybe some others) along w/ the still very slow load times makes me think maybe I should not bother.

There's also the Sony alternative from Costco (their version of the S360), but a quick google doesn't sound that promising for it either in terms of load times.

_Man_

 

[Alfonso_M]

Originally Posted by Man-Fai Wong

Hmmm... Are other people having trouble w/ IB on their Panny BD60s too?

I was just considering picking one up to try out from Costco since my PS3 is effectively out of commission right now. And this potential issue w/ IB (and maybe some others) along w/ the still very slow load times makes me think maybe I should not bother.

There's also the Sony alternative from Costco (their version of the S360), but a quick google doesn't sound that promising for it either in terms of load times.

_Man_

_Man_, can you point me to other discussions about the BD60 and problems with "Inglorious basterds" ?
I'm trying to decide whether to go back to Costco to exchange this player, but not if it's just a software glitch with this title that will be addressed later by Panny with an upgrade.. I can play the title fine from the begining as long as go to the 'chapters" menu...