Official Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu-Ray player thread - Page 10

GoldenRedux · 11-19-2006, 01:16 PM

A little update:

Having spent some more time with this machine now, I can say I really like and it is absolutely solid.

I did some very minor tweaking to the picture settings on the unit in the form of turning down the colour saturation by one notch and the black levels by one notch using the Digital Video Essentials test patterns and the Sony BR test patterns (which really don''t help much at all for the home user like myself) to guide me. I should say that the Panasonic is the first component I've had that is actually capable of passing the below black information on the DVE black level test patterns. Since all of my other DVD players failed to do this, I'd always thought it may have been my televisions, but I guess not. It is really no wonder to me now that the blacks on the Panasonic look so deep and solid, all the while maintaining a pretty high level of shadow detail.

I have watched a couple more titles now - Good Night and Good Luck and I watched The Corpse Bride straight through finally.

I began watching Rattle & Hum, and did a brief comparison of the SD DVD played back from both the Panasonic and my Denon DVD-2200 - with the Denon over component and set to progressive 480p - versus the Blu-ray. I compared the scene where it first turns to colour for the beginning of Where the Streets Have no Name. The Blu-ray disc destroyed the Denon which looked liked a blurry mess in comparison. Played back from the Panasonic, the SD DVD looked somewhat better but there was still an obvious difference between the DVD and the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray just looked more film-like, less soft (amazing for a film so grainy to begin with) and the colours popped more, were more natural, and deeper.

As for Good Night and Good Luck and The Corpse Bride, well, they both looked stellar, IMO, but I guess that isn't difficult to accomplish with those sorts of films - the former being black and white and the latter being animated. Whatever it is, they looked brilliant nonetheless. Good Night and Good Luck, next to the BR of Legends of Jazz has to be some of the best HD Mpeg2 I've ever seen. I've heard that the VC-1 encoding on HD DVD is better, but I can't begin to imagine what could have been improved.

Anyhow, I just got word from Amazon that my copy of Reds is on its way, so stay tuned as the titles keep rolling in....

One other thing - my two free titles from Panasonic (The Great Raid and Gone in Sixty Seconds) arrived on Saturday along with my copy of Reds from Amazon. One of these days, I'll find the time to watch them all.

__________________

Dave Moritz · 11-19-2006, 06:05 PM

Next paycheck I will start saving up for the Panasonic DMP-BD10 unless a better player comes along. I curretly have 10 discs to play in the Panasonic as soon as I bring one home. So far the Panasonic seems to be the best buy of all the currently available blu-ray players. I am hoping to get the player around March so until then I will keep my eye on this thread.

actarusfleed · 11-19-2006, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenRedux

...cut..using the Digital Video Essentials test patterns and the Sony BR test patterns

Hi, my panny is arrived! It is a region B player ... I'm italian.
I've some region B Sony titles:
Hostel; Underworld E.; Exorcism of E.R.; SWAT.

But I'm not able to find this test patterns!
Can you help me?
Are them hidden?

Thank u so much,
Actarus.

Steve Blair · 11-19-2006, 06:27 PM

On the Sony titles, hit 7,6,6,9 while on the disc menu.

GoldenRedux · 11-20-2006, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Blair

On the Sony titles, hit 7,6,6,9 while on the disc menu.

This is correct, although, to be absolutely honest, I'm not really sure how to use the Sony test patterns.

Ben_Williams · 11-20-2006, 10:23 PM

It's great to see so many of you enjoying the Panny! As time wears on, I am more and more impressed with this player. Its shocking to me that this is a first gen unit! It has performed flawlessly for me - - not even the slightest hint of a glitch. Now, if only we could get that advanced audio support... these new Fox titles are driving me crazy!

Neil Joseph · 11-21-2006, 07:29 AM

Speaking of advanced audio, once the firmware upgrade is done for this player, does that mean that we will be able to play the lossless tracks int heir full glory or do we still have to upgrade receivers to hdmi 1.3? How ill you connect for audio, hdmi or analog audio, and will hdmi 1.1 play the advanced tracks if the processing is done by the blu-ray player?

GoldenRedux · 11-21-2006, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neil Joseph

Speaking of advanced audio, once the firmware upgrade is done for this player, does that mean that we will be able to play the lossless tracks int heir full glory or do we still have to upgrade receivers to hdmi 1.3? How ill you connect for audio, hdmi or analog audio, and will hdmi 1.1 play the advanced tracks if the processing is done by the blu-ray player?

I assume the player will decode the lossless codecs and pass them through the 7.1 analogue outs and through the HDMI outs as LPCM. HDMI 1.1 will suffice, but you will still need an A/V receiver capable of playing 5.1/7.1 LPCM via HDMI if you plan on using HDMI.

drbonbi · 11-21-2006, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenRedux

I assume the player will decode the lossless codecs and pass them through the 7.1 analogue outs and through the HDMI outs as LPCM. HDMI 1.1 will suffice, but you will still need an A/V receiver capable of playing 5.1/7.1 LPCM via HDMI if you plan on using HDMI.

I think you are correct. The BD10 has HDMI 1.2a. Here's the HDMI 1.3 spec:

"HDMI 1.3

"Released 22 June 2006.

" * Increases single-link bandwidth to 340 Mhz (10.2 Gbps)
" * Supports 30-bit, 36-bit, and 48-bit (RGB or YCbCr) color depths or over one billion colors, up from 24-bit in previous versions.
" * Supports xvYCC color standards.
" * Incorporates automatic audio syncing (lip sync) capability.
" * Supports output of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams for external decoding by AV receivers. TrueHD and DTS-HD are lossless audio codec formats used on HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. If the disk player can decode these streams into uncompressed audio, then HDMI 1.3 is not necessary, as all versions of HDMI can transport uncompressed audio.
" * Availability of a new mini connector for devices such as camcorders.[4]
" * PlayStation 3 is the first product available on consumer market with HDMI 1.3."

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

Note the sentence in Bold (my emphasis). HDMI 1.3 permits a player to offload Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams to a receiver for decoding. In my opinion, the significance of the Sony PlayStation 3 being the first Blu-ray disc player to have HDMI 1.3 is to avoid having the PS 3 process the