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Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Features (1 Viewer)

Jeff_HR

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This is why I didn't buy this product. :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

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

DaViD Boulet

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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.
htf_images_smilies_smile.gif
 

Sanjay Gupta

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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.
 

Sanjay Gupta

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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.
 

Lew Crippen

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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.
 

Paul Arnette

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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.
 

DaViD Boulet

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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.
 

Paul Hillenbrand

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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
 

DaViD Boulet

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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??
 

tls36

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

tls36

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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???
 

Dave H

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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.
 

RobertR

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

Jeff Ulmer

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If your viewing tastes are current domestic blockbusters, then this wouldn't be an issue. If, however, you enjoy classic and/or foreign cinema or TV series then 4:3 is an issue.
 

Sanjay Gupta

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I suppose classics like 'Casablanca', 'Gone With The Wind', 'Singing In The Rain' and let's not forget 'Citizen Kane', along with hundreds of other great films, don't deserve to be in HD simply because they are all 4x3 movies.

I hope you do realize that, that HD refers to a higher resolution and has nothing to do with the aspect ratio.
 

RobertR

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Put more succinctly, the implication is that any film made before the widescreen era (about 1953) needn't be bothered with on hidef. Such an attitude is uninformed, to put it nicely.
 

Brandon Conway

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In regards to no Subtitle button being on Panasonic remotes: You can hit the Display button and then toggle any subtitle off/on and scroll through the different sub streams. Not as simple, but it is a way to do it without using the menus.
 

Lew Crippen

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Obviously my brief comment was not clear.

Sorry for the confusion, but what I was trying to write was that I am one (of very many) who would (and did) purchase a BD player with the clear knowledge that I would be watching many 4:3 movies on satellite TV (e.g. TCM) from my modest DVD collection and my (even more) modest BD collection.

As you cite some classics, you ought to post in the AFI and S&S threads and join in the general discussion. Even though we don’t all agree as to merits of any of these great films (or even that all of them are great) you might find some of the views expressed worthy of consideration.

Not the first time I’ve not written clearly, but this is probably the first time that anyone thought I was unclear as to the difference between resolution and aspect ratio (two things that really should not be in the same sentenence).
 

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