Official Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu-Ray player thread (1 Viewer)

[Grant H]

I would think they could drop as "low" as $1,000 as new units.

 

[GoldenRedux]

That sounds alright to me - $300 dollars off the current MSRP selling price. If you get it online with fee shipping and no taxes, it's a good deal, IMO, for what seems like a pretty solid and fully-featured first-gen unit.

 

[JediFonger]

i've been hearing from my tech-nerds community bulletin boards that 1080p has been outputted over component connection many a times. is this BS... or is there some truth to it?

 

[Ben_Williams]

I'm sure it is technically possible to transmit a 1080p signal over a component cable. I just don't think it is possible on any of the current generation of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players.

 

[Ron-P]

That's fine. With Sony still using mostly mpeg2 and most of the films out right now can't match that of HD-DVD I won't buy any Blu-ray films.

 

[LanceJ]

The EFF has gone to bat at the federal level many times - and won - for the citizens of this country (remember those people?) to help maintain our rights and are not some rinky-dink backwater organization.

 

[PeterTHX]

Hmmm. Got troll much?

Unless it's before August/Sep 2006....when the majority of newly released BD titles began either matching or exceeding their counterparts.

 

[mfabien]

No one can answer your question? Then I'll try:

Go to: http://panasonic.com/consumer_electr...ay/default.asp

and click: "Lifelike HD Audio"

At the bottom of the page it says: "Blu-Ray compatible receiver and 7.1 -channel speaker system required".

My understanding is that you are asked to invest in an eventual Blu-Ray receiver.

 

[GoldenRedux]

The Panasonic comes with a registration card in the box for a future firmware upgrade to support decoding Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA in the box. There will be no need to use HDMI for the lossless codecs unless you want to do further DSP processing to the signal, or use outboard DACS with a superior analogue stage. The signal will be decoded and passed, full resolution, right through the analogue outs.

 

[mfabien]

Good. Are some BR movies now released with selectable audio tracks in DD TrueHD or DTS-HD? These movies would be a good investment for the Panasonic owners.

BTW, those who like watching Legends of Jazz on PBSHD... if you go to legendsofjazz.com you can order a BR DVD with these wonderful jazz musicians. Tried to have them do it in HD DVD and the answer was no.

 

[GoldenRedux]

I have this title on order. This was a great series. I watched the whole thing on my local PBS-HD OTA channel. I especially liked the Jane Monheit

(yummy) and Dave Brubeck epsiosdes. I wonder what kind of audio they have on there?

 

[mfabien]

Ditto for Jane Monheit. Hope to get trumpeter Chris Botti. I suspect the recording will be in DD 5.1, just like the original broadcast. But if it comes in DD Plus, you will love it (your receiver will decode with the DTS decoder because of the amount of bitrate).

I've recorded all of the episodes in my DVR. I am considering buying an expansion Hard Drive to double my storage capacity so that I may keep these recordings.

 

[JediFonger]

the sadistic side of me wants the DRM rules to be so strict that it touches people's lives directly... THEN we'll have a revolt/revolution so that the rules are changed and freed up once again =). people dunno what they're missing if you take their freedom away.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Again, this section of the forum was setup for owners of Blu-ray players and those who are not, who may have questions about the Blu-ray format. I've seen too many posts from HD DVD player owners that are not asking questions, but instead are invoking their opinion that Blu-ray is an inferior format to HD DVD. Furthermore, I've notice some Blu-ray advocates posting their non-related opinion about this format without even owning such a player as of yet.

Please, respect our posting guidelines to this area as well as the HD DVD owner area. If not, further disciplinary action will take place without any further warnings.






Crawdaddy

 

[Grant H]

That's awesome. For some reason, when I first heard about that, I thought it just made the player capable of passing those signals digitally (though looking back, that may seem dumb (why wouldn't it pass them?), except that I can remember the DVD players that couldn't pass the DTS bitstream, even when the receiver was going to do the actual decoding).

It's nice that there are some 5.1 uncompressed PCM titles out there until the lossless Dobly/DTS tracks hit. I really thought the only audio benefit I'd gain was "better" DD and DTS. Nice to know I'll actually be able to take advantage of the lossless formats and uncompressed PCM without upgrading my receiver. It never got much SACD use, but those inputs have a future now!

EDIT: Looking again at the Sony Style page for their BluRay player, I saw no indication of SACD capability. Sad, them leaving their own player out in the cold. Then again, the Panny is $300 more, so maybe that's buying the high-res audio capability. The prices are high, but not astronomical I guess, when you can potentially walk away with a great HD player, a great upscaling DVD player, and a great high-res audio player all in one package. People (but not I) have been shelling out this kind of dough for high-end DVD/SACD or DVD/DVD-A players for years. There are bound to be price breaks after the technology is out for a while, especially with the holidays approaching. And though it hasn't seemed to happen yet, the very existence of HD-DVD should help drive prices down (then again, aren't some of the new HD-DVD players going up?).

 

[Ben_Williams]

If you'll take a look at some of the new Paramount flicks for Blu-Ray, they have been encoded with Mpeg-2 and are exceeding the quality of their VC-1 HD-DVD counterparts. In reality, there is nothing wrong with Mpeg-2 if the encode is done with care. D-Theater and the latest batch of Blu-Ray movies prove this.

 

[Ron-P]

That's good news Ben, thanks. I have not seen any Blu-ray titles in the last month.

I would like more details, if you can provide them, on how they are exceeding HD-DVDs PQ, I'd think it could match that of HD-DVDs PQ, but exceed it? That's awesome if true, I'd be more willing to drop the coin sooner for a player if so.

 

[Ben_Williams]

From what I've seen so-far with respect to the Paramount titles, the images have had better color depth, less noise, less grain and better fine detail. Of course, I'm using the Panny for the comparison and others have reported that with viewing on the Samsung, the image is slightly softer than the HD-DVD versions, yet still manages to offer a better image due to improved color and less visible grain and noise. My hunch is that the initial controversy regarding codecs is going to quiet down very soon as the current playing field seems to point to excellent transfers regardless of compression scheme.

Of particular note are: "Four Brothers" and "Sleepy Hollow". I found that both of these titles just "popped" more than their HD-DVD counterparts. I think the Mission Impossible discs should make for some very interesting comparisons.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Thanks for all of the info, Ben.

On your SLEEPY HOLLOW comparision: does the BD have the same grainy appearance as the HD DVD, or does it look different?

 

[Ben_Williams]

Well.. it still has some grain, but it is a very grainy film. The best way to describe the difference is that the Blu-Ray version has more depth to it and the grain seems a little smoother. These are minute differences that many people probably wouldn't notice. However, for discriminating viewer it does make a difference. Certainly, the HD-DVD presentation is also excellent... I just prefer the Blu-Ray and I think many would agree.

Anyone else had a chance to check it out?