Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features - Page 3

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

RCA will work fine, assuming you have 7.1 inputs

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Please let me try to explain this again.

It's true for certain configurations. It depends on what hi res mechanism you choose and the mechanics of the Blu-ray specifications.

In other words:

The player can send a Bitstream or it can decode a Bitstream, but it can't make a Bitstream.
The Panasonic DMP-BD55 has a "decoder" to decode (un-zip/uncompress) the hi rez codec Bitstreams of DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD into PCM. It also just uses PCM if it's recorded directly on a Blu-ray disc.

It can combine PCM audio tracks (a hi rez PCM sound track & a PCM commentary track) and send them out together as PCM to a receiver/processor.

The Panasonic DMP-BD55 can also send ALL hi rez bitstreams that are on a Blu-ray disc via HDMI 1.3, but the player does not have an "encoder", so it can't make a Bitstream (combine two PCM tracks (zip-up/compress) into a new Bitstream) and send it directly to a receiver/processor.

Hope this is clearer.

Paul

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

I have an older Onkyo 5.1 receiver with no HDMI input. Can someone please confirm that I'll be able to connect a DMP-BD35 to the optical audio input and get 5.1 DTS (non-HD audio)? My understanding is that the analog audio outputs on the DMP-BD55 are used by someone with an older 7.1 receiver without HDMI inputs, who wants HD audio. Is that correct?

Do optical audio inputs only support 5.1, or do they support 7.1 (non-HD) as well? I haven't been keeping up with the latest AV standards


Also, does anyone know the difference between the DMP-BD35K on Amazon and the regular DMP-BD35?

Thanks.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

The BD-35 can handle an optical digital audio hookup for 5.1. I'm not sure about 7.1, since I have a 5.1 receiver.

I came across the BD35K designation when I was shopping for my BD35 but as far as I can tell, there is no difference.

Rob

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Just to be clear--I don't think this is something that Panasonic once offered on one of their previous BD players yet dropped from the 55 (like DVD-A support). My DMP-BD10 doesn't have a subtitle button on the remote either and frankly I haven't missed it. I, too, often backpedal and flip on subtitles to clarify what someone said (much to the sometimes chagrin of fellow viewers). But the just as big, if not even bigger, PITA than the "huge effort" that requires is the fact that what was mumbled often isn't accurately transcribed in the subtitles. IMO the absence of a subtitle button is nettlesome but hardly a "deal killer."

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

I have an interesting question about the DMP-BD35--is it closely-related to the old Panasonic DVD-S35 DVD player in terms of a related drive mechanism?

(I have the DVD-S35 and the only downside was the fact the player when it moves between menus makes a lot of noise. )

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Here is a good practical explanation from "Boylan13" at AVS, of how to set the Panasonic DMP-BD35 or 55 to output both hi resolution audio and secondary audio continually. It has different procedures for HDMI & Analog and it recommends selecting PCM (Not Bitstream) to get ALL the audio ("menu Clicks, and secondary audio and lossless surround.") together:
Reference: Accessing the post directly from here is not allowed. The link is located at the following address:
AVS Forum-->
Blu-ray & HD DVD Areas-->
Blu-ray Players-->
Official Panasonic DMP-BD35/55 Owners Thread-->
Post #2243


Paul

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Thanks for the reply.

I just ordered a BD-35 from Amazon (they've got a pretty good deal going)and want to order the appropriate cables. My receiver (an Onkyo 5.1 HTIB unit) doesn't have HDMI inputs. It has component video and optical audio inputs.

I assume I should use an HDMI cable to connect the BD-35 directly to my tv (a 720p Panasonic plasma) and the optical audio to connect it to the receiver. Is this correct?

Would there be any major advantages to upgrading to a mid-priced 7.1 surround system (other than the additional separation)? Or would the improvement (from high-res audio) only be noticeable with high end components and speakers? Is there any advantage to having a newer receiver through which the video signal passes (via the HDMI), or does the BD-35 pretty much "do it all"?

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Lately I've been considering the purchase of the Panasonic BD55. But like Mr Sanjay Gupta, the lack of a dedicated Subtitle button on the remote & the need to "dig" for it in the menu structure is a Deal Killer for me!!
I will not consider the player any longer. I use Subtitles a lot. I MUST have a dedicated button on the remote.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

The omission of a subtitle button does seem pretty lazy, especially if discs are being programmed to play automatically (another dumb idea IMO). Have these engineers never seen a DVD player before?

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

I doubt it. I'm feeling that way about all engineers these days.

I'm going back to my 1st choice, the Sony S550. I'll use it as my pick for a BD-Live player. I won't consider the PS3, as it doesn't display time expired/remaining. That's always been a BIG ergonomic consideration for me.



My feelings about how DVDs are programmed to play is a RANT for another day & thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

A post (and a reaction to it) was removed.
This is a thread dedicated to the features of the new Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55. It's not the "oh but I like the old so-and-so much better" thread.

Posts that only seem to be posted to praise another piece/brand of equipment are considered thread crapping or spamming.
This is especially true if one or more threads about the so mentioned equipment have already been featured extensively on this forum.


Cees

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

I talked to a Panasonic Rep at BB yesterday about the DMP-BD55 remote/Subtitle button issue. He said he had no idea why this button was left off the remote. I guess it was "too much to expect" him to have any knowledge of engineering/ergonomic decision making priorities. He agreed to report to Panasnic my concerns about the issue. I will be VERY surprised if he follows thru since I asked him if anyone else had raised this concern. He said "NO".

So, consequently, I have purchased the Sony S550 - even though I probably would have purchased the DMP-BD55 should it have had the desired dedicated Subtitle button on the remote.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

I think this refers to a post that I made. Unfortunately I can't remember in detail exactly what all I wrote. But my post was most certainly not intended to 'crap on' or to 'spam' this thread. The only objective was to share my dissapointment with the BD55, having waited very patiently for a fully featured profile 2.0 BD player with analog audio outs for the purpose of Hi-Rez sound. I decided upon the BD55, after having deliberated carefully between it and the Sony S550. As pleased as I am with the sound from the analog outs of the BD55, the overall experience with the BD55 and its lack of some very basic features, has left me very dissapointed. This is specially so, considering that it is quite a task for me to even get a player from the US, having to wait months at times for a friend to visit from the US so that he/she may carry the player for me. The fact that I find myself with a product that I don't feel like using and not even having the option to return or exchange it due to obvious reasons, has made for a very frustrating experience. Since I have already been using the PS3 and have been more than satisfied with it for well over a year, I think it is but natural for me to have ended up comparing the BD55 to it. Not so much as to 'crap on' the BD55, but more so to point out it's shortcomings, to those who might be considering buying the BD55. Even then, if my post came across as 'spam' then I apologize for the same. But the fact is, that my sole purpose of posting here is to help inform others of the rather strong shortcomings of the BD55. Shortcomings such as:

No dedicated Subtitle button.
Instead it takes 'SIX' button presses on the remote to turn on the subtitles and another 'SIX' button presses, to turn off the subtitles. Now this might not be as important to all, but to myself and I am sure quite a few others, this or rather the lack of this feature is a very major issue.
What I am wondering though is, why should pointing out the fact, that this is a feature that has existed on every single DVD & BD player that I have had experience with, be considered as simply "oh but I like the old so-and-so much better", specially considering that there is no 'New' replacement feature on the BD55 to compare with.

White Bands on the sides of 4x3 encoded material.
I am sure most here would agree with me, that to have 'white' bands instead of the regular 'black' bands is not just distracting but outright stupid on Panasonic's part. I am just thankful that atleast the top and bottom bands, on material wider than 16:9, are not white.
EDIT: This can be worked around by switching the 'screen saver' feature off. Why the connection between the two? Beats me, but this workaround does work. Ofcourse you then lose the 'screen saver', but i'd rather lose that feature, than have the 'white' bands.

No Menu Button to bring up the Menu while playing a DVD. Instead it takes 'Four' button presses to simply go to the menu.

The Display button.
It does not Display anything. Rather it brings up a menu from which several player settings can be made including turning on the subtitles. But it would make more sense for most of these setting to be in the Setup menu.

Status button.
This is the button equivalent to a normal 'Display' button. But even this needs to be pressed 'twice' before it will display the Chapter, Time Elapsed & Total Time. By the way, there is no way to see the 'Remaining' time and this goes for onscreen and the LCD display on the player itself. Thus you have to do the math yourself by subtracting the Elapsed time from the Total time to get the 'Remaining Time'. I am sure all avid movie watchers will be thrilled with the idewa of having to do maths, as simple as it might be, instead of watching the film.

No display of Audio/Video bitrate.

Settings Menu - GUI.
This is so poorly designed that it takes a while to figure out where the most basic of settings are. I personally have never felt the need to ever refer to a manual for such things, but I can imagine the average persons frustrations with setting up this player.

Overall sluggish performance.
Having been used to the PS3 it is hard to overlook the fact that the BD55 is horribly slow compared to the PS3 and I am not merely referring to Power On, Power Off, Disc load times etc., but rather the painfully slow response to button presses while playing Blu-ray discs. Here I must point out, as Paul Hillenbrand has done earlier in this thread, that compared to other standalone players the BD55 is actually faster. But, since my personal experience has only been with the PS3, I can only compare the DB55 to it.

I am sure there are a few more irritants with the BD55, but I just don't feel like using the player enough to remember them. I wonder how the Sony S550 compares to this and if I might have been better off buying that.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

While I agree it shouldn't have to be, this can be worked around by turning the screen saver off according to some posts I've read on another site.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Hi,

I have just ordered the Panasonic 55, as I was not too satisfied (similar reasons given by Sanjay) with the Sony 350, after using the PS3.

Given Sanjay's comments, I was hesitant.
I too have to make similar decisions given my location in Fiji - freight, taxes, no warranty etc.

I went ahead just to compare against the Sony, and to discover for myself whether the picture is better than the Sony (as claimed by some), and simply test the Panasonic offerings with my Panasonic projector.

The Amazon $100 off promo (Panasonic players) made it an easier decision after that PS3 promo did not work, and is still not working.

It will be tested on our Yamaha Z9, to see if it makes any difference at all in sound, compared to the Toshiba A35 (which did NOT on 5.1 analog).

Hopefully it does.
Thereafter if the user interface annoys me (PS3 one also does with all the extra buttons and things on-screen), we'll sell it off and order in the Sony 550 (which someone said the picture ain't as clear as the Panasonic - the OSD and Menu is certainly soft).

We'll know next Tuesday.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Paul:


Could you either elaborate or link to that other site for more info please?

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

This is why I didn't buy this product.

But this is my need in regards to the ergonomic engineering of the DMP-BD55.
for other people, your needs may vary.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

six button presses for the subtitles? I just pull up the BD pop-up menu and head to subtitles. It's usually just a few clicks away. Naturally a dedicated subtitle button would be even better.

BTW, just bought the BD55 and am THRILLED to say that the DVD upscaling is *vastly* improved over the previous Panny BD30 and BD50 (both of which I auditioned). In fact, the DVD upscaling is so good on the new BD55 that I honestly can't tell the difference between the Panny and my PS3 when playing DVD software, and with the PannyBD30 and BD50 I found myself swapping the HDMI connection because the PS3 was so much better at upscaling and deinterlacing than both of those units.

Happy customer.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Let's look at both, BD & DVD seperately.

BD - 'ONE' Button press to get the pop-up menu. On an average atleast 'TWO' button clicks to navigate to the subtitle menu. 'ONE' click to enter the subtitle menu. Atleast 'One' click to highlight your choice, On or Off. 'One' more button click to get back to the pop-up menu and then finally 'ONE' more button click to make the pop-up menu go away. Hmm.. that actually adds up to 'SEVEN' button clicks just to turn the subtitles on and then 'SEVEN' more button clicks to turn the subtitles off.

DVD - No pop-up menu here, which means actually stopping the movie to go to the 'Menu'. Oh, but thus is the BD55, it does not even have a button for the DVD menu. You have to first click on a button called Sub-menu. Then 'Two' button clicks to navigate to & select 'Menu' and then 'ONE' more click to enter the Menu. Now depending on the layout of the menu, atleast on an average, 'TWO' clicks to navigate to and to enter the subtitle menu. 'One' click to make the choice of 'On' or 'Off'. Finally, atleast 'ONE' more click to escape from the Menu and to return to the movie. Thus this method would take at the very least 'Eight' button clicks, of atleast 'THREE' different buttons, to turn on the subtitles and then 'Eight' more to turn them off.

I can't speak for others but I certainly find it ridiculous, that for something I can do with at most 'TWO' clicks of the same 'ONE' button on almost all other players, Panasonic would require 'EIGHT' clicks of atleast 'THREE different buttons to do the same. Personally I have found myself eschewing the subtitle option more often than not, ever since I have been watching movies on the BD55. Great job Panasonic.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Thanks for the tip, I will check on it right away.

EDIT: I tried the workaround and can confirm that it works. Ofcourse you then lose the 'screen saver', but i'd rather lose that feature, than have the 'white' bands.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

While I can understand the frustration of those who frequently turn subtitles on and off this is not at all an issue for me.

I don’t turn on subtitles when watching a movie in English or Spanish.

I turn on English subtitles for movies in all other languages.

When watching movies with a mixed linguistic group, I turn on English subtitles for a Spanish language movie or Spanish subtitles for a movie in English so that everyone is comfortable. But I don’t think I bother to flip subtitles on and off repeatedly. For me this would just pull me out of the movie and be a distraction regardless of one of two clicks or six clicks.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

I can't really elaborate much further, but I can verify it now as I just received my BD55, which came with the Screen Saver Function setting set to 'Off' by default. I watched Dr. No (1.66:1) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1.37:1) and in both cases the bars on the side were black. Was this white/gray band issue a problem with both BD and DVDs, or only DVDs? I had assumed it was the later. If so, it would appear that the work-around reported is true.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Hey Paul,

trying to figure out exactly what you mean. The black bars on the sides of the 1.66:1 image are hard-coded into the 16x9 HD 1920 x 1080 picture. When you mention the "white/gray band issue..." are you talking about worrying about burn-in? That could be a problem with a letterboxed or windowboxed movie for prolonged periods of time on a phospher-based display that's being overdriven... like many TV sets out of the box. It wouldn't be a problem for LCD or DLP based displays.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

DaViD,

People have reported the white/grey bars when watching 4:3 material.
In the BD35/55, if you have the "Screen Saver" in the setup menu turned OFF, the bars are black. When the "Screen Saver" is set to ON, the bars become white/grey. Not a very logical way to select the preference.

Paul

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

thanks Paul,

I wasn't aware of those issues so appreciate the information. I guess my unit out of the box behaves as expected with the screensaver disabled and the black side-bars on 4x3 DVD material. Interesting about the gray. I guess that's what they mean by screen-saver by putting gray so it won't create burn-in as easily with side-bar matting on 4x3 material??

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

My BD55K should be waiting for me when I get home. Will give my impressions then. Lossless audio..........YUM!!!!

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Very pleased with my BD55K, the load up times are slower than my PS3 but every Blu-Ray player out there loads up slower than the PS3. Picture quality is excellent and on par if not better than the PS3. Image and sound, especially dts Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD are clean, defined and much fuller and dynamic sounding. As for the subtitle issue, not an issue for me. 4X3: Who would buy a Blu-Ray player to play 4X3 material???

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

I've been using the BD35 for a couple of weeks now. All in all, I've been impressed.

The 1080p/24 image seems very slightly better than my PS3 doing numerous A/B comparisons. The color rendition seems ever so slightly more natural and the image a hair sharper. I haven't done much SD DVD viewing yet.

However, more noticeable is the audio. I'm bitstreaming and this is clearly better than the internal audio decoding of the PS3 even with volume levels matched.

The BD35 also seems very stable. I also used to own a BD30 and this BD35 seems a bit better in this regard. The BD30 was pretty stable, but this unit seems more refined in terms of operation, maybe speed, and even PQ.

Re: Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features

Are you implying that no one should be interested in viewing 4:3 movies in high definition?