New Panasonic DMP-BD10a Announcement - $599 - 5 free BDs (1 Viewer)

[Paul.S]

Rich:

What exactly does the "K" designation specify? Per OP Ben Williams' comments/review thread elsewhere, the BD-10A is identical to the BD-10 and I speculate that the BD-10AK is as well.

The odds are strongly against getting DVD-A support in a Sony BD player. Pio did a couple first gen/early BD players that also supported DVD-A, including the pricey BDP-94HD and Elite BDP-HD1.

Unfortunately, the high resolution music formats have largely been abandoned in newer players. Major DVD-A backer Toshiba never even supported the format in nearly a dozen HD DVD players. We're of course generally into third gen BD players now. Going "back" and getting one of those early machines would gain you DVD-A and/or SACD playback, but you'd be losing everything third gen Profile 1.1 and 2.0 BD players offer that first gen 1.0 machines didn't/don't (e.g., "Bonus View" and BD Live). My hope in this regard is that in the next year Oppo will do a BD player that also supports DVD-A and SACD. The royalties situation doesn't look good for anyone else to step up to that plate. Denon's Jeff Talmadge has expressed interest in doing it but they just take too damn long to bring very pricey decks to market IMO.

Ken A. and Paul P.:

I/we look forward to any responsive replies re the analog audio and 7.1 outputs questions in my post 77, respectively.

 

[Patrick Sun]

It used to be that "K" just stood for "black" color exterior of the unit, now, who knows?

 

[Paul Padilla]

When you put it that way, I suppose not. I tend to get stuck on a particular concept or feature when researching equipment. 7.1 analong inputs on my Denon 3805...7.1 analog outputs on the BD10A...7.1 speakers wired in my HT..seemd like a waste to have only 5 channels in use even if the available media to take advantage of channels 6 and 7 is meager. Future proofing, though it would leave DST-MA out of the equasion.

I'm having a hard time justifying the finances for a Blu-Ray player period at the moment but maybe I'll expand my thinking a bit.

Thanks for all the info.

 

[RichP]

I bought the BD10AK. SHould be here in 2 days. I really needed the DVD-Audio support and the multi-channel analog outputs as my Sony ES receiver does not have support for the HD audio formats.

I can live with the profile and the lack of BD live for the time being. If I need to upgrade in a year or so, I'll revisit it then. For now, this was exactly the player I was looking for to replace the warhorse RP-91.

 

[Paul.S]

Thank you for the "thanks"/acknowledgement.

Maybe you should wait until at least the BD50's price is announced, or even until the fall when other new players will street?

Let us know when that blue and white box arrives, Rich!

 

[RichP]

Got the unit this morning, just finished hooking it all up and going through all my disc types!

So far everything is great except for one fairly big flaw...

I'm using component cables, I have the BD10A set to 16:9 and 1080i.

All 4:3 material is stretched out the full width of the screen and not pillar boxed like it's supposed to be. That is very disappointing because it means I can't watch any of my TV on DVD (non HD) on this unit.

How could Panasonic overlook something as simple as this? Is this a component only issue? Does anyone else have this problem? Are there any solutions?

Other than that, the player is great, I'm really enjoying it.

Thanks

 

[RichP]

I called Panasonic technical support and the rep came right out and stated that yes the player is flawed and they have no plans to fix it.

So, very disappointing, especially given the fact that the RP-91 which was manufactured SEVEN YEARS ago, did not have this problem and handled 4:3 material perfectly.

 

[Paul.S]

A not uncommon issue with first gen machines. My HD-D1 had it, too. I'll have to doublecheck when home, but I don't think switching the rez to 480i/p is a workaround. And it's definitely not just a component vid issue.

Re the RP-91 comparison: although hardly an excuse and I know you're probably aware, bear in mind that SD DVD players were made to play either native 4x3 content or content anamorphically squeezed within a 4x3 aspect yet stretched upon playback by a 16x9 set's raster. I just think engineers/designers--in their focus on 720 ED and 1080 HD content designed for display on 16x9 aspect monitors--forgot that HDM players would still also be used to play back 4x3 SD content on SD DVDs (where the upconversion gravy comes in).

 

[Paul Padilla]

Yikes!!

That just made the decision for me. Northern Exposure, Looney Toons Golden collection (found all 5 at Costco just last week), The Electric Company...no way in hell I'm watching those stretched. Maybe I'll just have to do a little economic stimulating when my check comes in.

 

[RichP]

I connected the player via HDMI with an HDMI->DVI adapter and the issue is resolved.

The BD10A now properly formats all discs and even does the same thing that the RP-91 used to do which is present all 4:3 discs within an anamorphic 16:9 frame with black pillar boxes.

So, if connected via HDMI, this is a non-issue. Sorry for raising any alarms.

 

[David Norman]

I just got through testing my 10A and was confused by the above posts since I'd always had my player hooked up via HDMI. All my 4:3 discs played properly inside the pillar box. Even some of my old non anamorph letterboxed DVD played with the 2.35 picture inside the 4:3 box. Luckily my TV lets me go to zoom mode which extends the DVD out to the full width (now properly letterboxed instead of Window-boxed) though the detail suffered a bit as you would expect, but overall not too bad. Apparently some TV don't allow this manipulation for HDMI.

EDIT: Now I'm back to being confused. Went back and hooked everything up by components, and my 4:3 discs still display correctly pillared though as expected only at 480p. TV set to normal (other choices Zoom, Wide, Wide Zoom) for component input, 10A menu set to display 16:9 (other choices 480 P/S, 480 Letterbox, and 16:9 Full) at Component Resolution 720p or 1080i. Could it be an individual TV component problem rather than an overall design issue? I'm running the last firmware 2.4.

 

[Cees Alons]

It's definitely a TV set issue. The HDMI solves the case by communicating the resolution between player and TV. But when you use component, the TV will have to resolve the display matter: most have to be set by hand on your remote or otherwise ("wide", "zoom", "full", "4x3", "16x9", etc.).

If it's not an HDMI signal, the TV set cannot possibly "know" that the signal it receives is not a 16x8 picture, but only has 4x3 significant content (especially if it's "anamorphic"). Some higher quality projectors try to determine black-window content to effect a sort of "auto" switching (after several seconds), but I've seen that go wrong as well in "difficult" cases.


Cees

 

[Paul.S]

And I'm sorry for contributing to those alarms by posting before I got home to triple check. I stand corrected. I was visiting the 4x3 stretch sins of my first gen Toshiba on the BD10.

Having said that, I wonder whether the Panasonic rep you spoke with really understood what you were describing, Rich. Apparently not. What was he talking about?