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Official Panasonic DMP-BD35/55 Owners Thread - Page 2

post #31 of 14895
10/14/08 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb53 View Post

I just got my BD55 today and watched Ironman. I have a Panasonic 50" plasma PZ700U. Before the Blu-ray player I was using an Onkyo 405 DVD player, which does upconvert. Everything is hooked up with HDMI cables and goes thru a Onkyo 605 receiver. While watching Ironman I commented to all in the room "does this player, playback this movie stunningly better than what the Onkyo 405 did with other movies we have watched". The answer from all in the room..........NO. Now don't get me wrong, it's a very good picture and the receiver informed us that it was receiving in 5.1 audio and the TV was receiving the 1080P signal. But unless I don't have it hooked up correctly, it dosen't seem to be worth the $400.

What Robert George said. Was the Iron Man disc a Blu-ray disc Mikeb53?
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post #32 of 14895
10/14/08 at 10:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by word302 View Post

can any of you new owners tell me if there is a native setting for SD DVD's? I would like to have the option to let the Reon processor in my Onkyo do the upconversion.

Kent

Anyone???
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post #33 of 14895
10/14/08 at 11:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by word302 View Post

Anyone???

Does the manual say if it outputs 480i over HDMI?
None of the other Panasonic BD players do.

Panasonic does DVD de-interlacing just fine.
I set my BD30 to send 480p to my Reon in my Onkyo Pro 885 pre/pro and allow the Reon to scale to 1080p.
Looks just fine.
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post #34 of 14895
10/14/08 at 11:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb53 View Post

I just got my BD55 today and watched Ironman. I have a Panasonic 50" plasma PZ700U. Before the Blu-ray player I was using an Onkyo 405 DVD player, which does upconvert. Everything is hooked up with HDMI cables and goes thru a Onkyo 605 receiver. While watching Ironman I commented to all in the room "does this player, playback this movie stunningly better than what the Onkyo 405 did with other movies we have watched". The answer from all in the room..........NO. Now don't get me wrong, it's a very good picture and the receiver informed us that it was receiving in 5.1 audio and the TV was receiving the 1080P signal. But unless I don't have it hooked up correctly, it dosen't seem to be worth the $400.

How far away from the TV was everyone sitting?
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post #35 of 14895
10/15/08 at 1:17am
At least we have the new models listed on our UK website, but no manuals as yet.

To those with the 55, an extract of the analogue audio, setup and bass management would be most appreciated.
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post #36 of 14895
10/15/08 at 2:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert George View Post

You were watching Iron man on Blu-ray, or DVD (not the player, the disc)?


Blu-Ray
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post #37 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb53 View Post

Blu-Ray

then it would still look the same as on other bluray players, expecially if your avr is doing something to the videol signal. most bluray players look the same when playing bluray, very different when playing dvd(the thing most users are looking at). sadly i have to wait untill the 29th for my player since i orderd from amazon.com but when you have the option to get something for free(giftcard) its well worth the wait.
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post #38 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:11am
Let me explain simpler. I was watching Ironman in Blu-Ray and comparing it to any other movie I had perviously watched on my old DVD player which was not Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray did not seem $400 better. My old DVD player seemed to upconvert the signal to the TV almost as good as the Blu-Ray could send its regular signal. I'm not comparing the Blu-Ray player to other Blu-Ray players. I'm comparing the Blu-Ray player to an upconverting DVD player. Also I'm sitting the same distance from the TV with DVD or Blu-ray, 11 feet.
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post #39 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb53 View Post

I just got my BD55 today and watched Ironman. I have a Panasonic 50" plasma PZ700U. Before the Blu-ray player I was using an Onkyo 405 DVD player, which does upconvert. Everything is hooked up with HDMI cables and goes thru a Onkyo 605 receiver. While watching Ironman I commented to all in the room "does this player, playback this movie stunningly better than what the Onkyo 405 did with other movies we have watched". The answer from all in the room..........NO. Now don't get me wrong, it's a very good picture and the receiver informed us that it was receiving in 5.1 audio and the TV was receiving the 1080P signal. But unless I don't have it hooked up correctly, it dosen't seem to be worth the $400.

Quite honestly, a 50" screen is rather small for noticing the difference between Blu Ray and upconverted DVD. The difference becomes quite noticeable when you get to 100+ inches. Also, if you really wanted to compare "apples to apples", you should be comparing the Iron Man Blu Ray to the Iron Man DVD, not other movies.
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post #40 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb53 View Post

I was watching Ironman in Blu-Ray and comparing it to any other movie I had perviously watched on my old DVD player which was not Blu-Ray.

I guess this says it all.
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post #41 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:34am
Quote:


Let me explain simpler. I was watching Ironman in Blu-Ray and comparing it to any other movie I had perviously watched on my old DVD player which was not Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray did not seem $400 better

I have a 100 inch projection room and a 50 inch Kuro. I have blu ray on both. There is NO comparison between upscaled DVD and Blu Ray, even on the 50 inch Kuro. Come on. Sure, the difference isn't comparable to the transition from VHS to DVD, but there is no doubt when I watch a regular DVD compared to a Blu-Ray.
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post #42 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertR View Post

Quite honestly, a 50" screen is rather small for noticing the difference between Blu Ray and upconverted DVD. The difference becomes quite noticeable when you get to 100+ inches.

On my 50" Pioneer Elite Pro FHD1 the difference between upconverted DVD and HD DVD/Blu Ray is night and day when sitting 7-8 feet back. It's night and day when as far back as 12 feet, which is much further back than I normally sit.

But I do agree that it's yet even more noticeable when projected onto a large screen.

Someone comparing different titles and different resolutions is hardly a conclusive test. It's not the first "I see almost no or little difference between upconverted DVD and BD" statement we've heard, it certainly won't bet the last.
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post #43 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb53 View Post

I was watching Ironman in Blu-Ray and comparing it to any other movie I had perviously watched on my old DVD player which was not Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray did not seem $400 better. My old DVD player seemed to upconvert the signal to the TV almost as good as the Blu-Ray could send its regular signal.

Am I correct in summarizing your statement in that you see no (or neglibile) difference between a blu-ray movie and a SD DVD movie on your old DVD player.

How about comparing the same movie in both blu-ray and SD DVD, on this panasonic machine? According to your statement, you should see little to no difference.
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post #44 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by oink View Post

Does the manual say if it outputs 480i over HDMI?
None of the other Panasonic BD players do.

Panasonic does DVD de-interlacing just fine.
I set my BD30 to send 480p to my Reon in my Onkyo Pro 885 pre/pro and allow the Reon to scale to 1080p.
Looks just fine.

I have the manual in front of me. I own the BD35, but it's the same manual for BD35 and BD55.
No 480i over HDMI.
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post #45 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:57am
Thanks for that review, Robert.

I bought the BD30, which I still own and love, based on your review of it and have not been disappointed. Now I am thinking of adding the BD35 to my system and moving the BD30 to another area in the house.

You gotta love how Panasonic supports its customers, too.
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post #46 of 14895
10/15/08 at 6:58am
Please could anyone test the playback of SD DVD PAL and NTSC titles.
I have many of both. Thanks
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post #47 of 14895
10/15/08 at 7:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bibo01 View Post

Please could anyone test the playback of SD DVD PAL and NTSC titles.
I have many of both. Thanks

It has already been posted in this thread that the DMP-BD35 will not play a PAL title.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post14867390
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post #48 of 14895
10/15/08 at 7:28am
Any owners using analog outs read this from bigpicturebigsound.com?

"A couple of odd things came up during level calibration, though. When you adjust levels on the individual channels, the adjustment is not done in real time - it sounds like your adjustments are doing nothing. However, when the test tone cycles around again to that channel, you will hear the results of the level change. This makes set-up a bit awkward, but you'll get the hang of it."

In my case, I don't hear the difference when it cycles around like the quote states. I have to "complete" the setup then get back into the speaker level menu before I can hear the changes I made. Is this what other owners have noticed to?
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post #49 of 14895
10/15/08 at 7:31am
This is my first blu-ray player so I'm not one to really listen to for a review since I don't have anything to compare it to other than a Marantz DV6600 DVD player connected via component video

I have a LG Scarlet 47LG60 and I can't get over how good the PQ on blu-ray and SD DVD looks. My SD DVDs have never looked better......truly amazing! Colors are so rich and deep with remarkable detail and texture.....I'm on cloud 9!

I'm more of a Audio guy and have been for years and this is my first experience with the new surround formats. Very nice indeed. I'm using a Marantz AV8500 connected via analog inputs, so basically my receiver is acting as a 125 watt per channel amp and volume control. TruHD and MA formats basically sound like the normal DDex and DTSes formats but bigger, clearer and with more surround information. Theres more of a difference in picture that sound IMO. Dynamics are through the roof. It makes it very difficult to watch for late night viewing if you don't use the dynamic compression settings.

It was either the Sony S550 or the Panasonic 55 and I'd probably been happy with either but the up and down roller coaster and inconsistent reports of the S550 gave me the clear winner to go with.

Brent
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post #50 of 14895
10/15/08 at 7:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by halsan40 View Post

Wow, I thought by now they would have improved upon the boot time. That is about the same as my Tosh XA-1. Sound and Vision quoted much less boot times.
I am scheduled to get my BD55 unit tomorrow. I was hoping for much faster boot times. If the PS3 can boot so fast (reports I have read) then why can't they improve on this?


Golden Compass and Iron man only took about 20 seconds or so.
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post #51 of 14895
10/15/08 at 7:49am
I compared Batman Begins Blu and SD. I noticed the difference between Blu and DVD right away.
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post #52 of 14895
10/15/08 at 7:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert George View Post

Having gone through nearly every BD player released in the past two years either as an owner or a dealer, I have to say I am mightily impressed with Panasonic's latest effort, at least as a first impression. I'm looking forward to a bit more testing, and a lot more movie enjoyment as I learn more about this player going forward. Right now, the DMP-BD35 looks like a keeper.

Robert, are you able to compare the Blu-ray video output of the BD35 to the earlier Panasonic BD30 or BD50?
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post #53 of 14895
10/15/08 at 8:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trackman View Post

It would be hard to see a great difference in resolution/detail at 11' with a 50" display, assuming excellent upscaling and a well-mastered dvd.

Agreed. He's falling into a border area:

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post #54 of 14895
10/15/08 at 9:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:


Robert, are you able to compare the Blu-ray video output of the BD35 to the earlier Panasonic BD30 or BD50?

Not directly, unfortunately. I did own the BD30 for a while, but have not used that player for a few months now. Visual memory is not very reliable, as you well know. I will say this. When I had the BD30, I recall I felt is was pretty much the same image as the PS3. I later found the Samsung 1500 to be slightly sharper and preferred the image of the LG BH200 overall, though only by a very slight margin. I also recall I found the image quality of the Sony S500 to be very slightly better than the BD30. With that as a reference, while I can't say how the BD35 compares directly to the BD30, I can say I prefer the video performance of the BD35 to all the players I liked a little better than the BD30.

How's that for being obtuse?
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post #55 of 14895
10/15/08 at 9:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by caa100 View Post

It has already been posted in this thread that the DMP-BD35 will not play a PAL title.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post14867390

Yes, I had seen that post.
I just would not mind having further confirmation by other people.
That guy, who I thank for his review, seemed that he did not spend much time on it. Perhaps there is some configuartion to do...
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post #56 of 14895
10/15/08 at 9:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ILJG View Post

Exactly. Since April of 2006 this keeps getting dredged up.

Again, if you don't see a difference that makes the price of an HD DVD or BluRay player worth it, get a refund and move along. No need to re-announce and re-justify your findings.

Well said.
If BD doesn't work for ya, there is always DVD.
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post #57 of 14895
10/15/08 at 9:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tspeer View Post

Put me down as a soon to be new owner of a bd35 (soon as Amazon starts shipping)!.

Mikeb i had the same impression what was it 3 years ago when HD-DVD first launched. I bought the hd-a1 first week of release, and an HD movie that I already had on DVD (Apollo13). My tv at the time was a few year old Crt projection based tv that could do 1080i. I went back and forth between the 2 movies and while I could see the difference, it didnt seem massive.

A year ( or was it 2) later its april 2007 and I'm thinking about it again. My old 53" tv was starting to show burnin, and I got a nice mitsubishi 57" dlp. Then in may amazon had a really good price on the xa2 and I got one for $519. I knew it had Reon and would upconvert SD the best possible, which I wanted (large sd-dvd collection). I started buying some HD-DVD's and at first, I had the same thoughts I had had previously with the hd-a1. It's better, but is it THAT much better?

But this is what happened. After watching say 3 to 5 HD-DVD's (in a row), I then popped in some SD-DVD movie, started it playing (upconverted on the reon even) and all the sudden I am noticing all the blocking and banding. I'm thinking "WTF this really does not look as good".

Point of my story? Don't let just a single movie viewing experience form the basis of your opinion. Once you get used to high def, sd can look noticably less detailed.

Things that will affect your viewing experience: quality of master. High def can still look ****** if the master was poor. And upconverted SD-dvd can look pretty good too, depending on the quality of its mastering. Remember superbit? back when they would attempt to master an SD-DVD using all 10mbit bandwidth? Now-days most sd-dvd's are mastered similiarly to superbit, and can look better than dvd's mastered years ago. Upconvert a superbit sd-dvd and it looks pretty good. So there can be situations where sd can look better than average, high def can look worse than average. and in that case the difference will seem smaller. Example: upconverted ratatouille looks great. I bought that when I still was waiting on a blu player that was 2.0 profile. For me some movies are "good enough" in sd, but my action movies I gotta have in high def So don't give up on it just yet. Try a few more movies, rent them if you don't feel like buying. After that if you still don't see it, you probably don't need it. I think in my case at first I just didn't know what I was missing.

I'm not giving up, and I know its only been one movie. I was told get Planet Earth for a good example of High-Def. I guess I was expecting something more as compared to an upconverted DVD. Like you say it depends on how the movie is made and copied to Blu-Ray.
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post #58 of 14895
10/15/08 at 9:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb53 View Post

Let me explain simpler. I was watching Ironman in Blu-Ray and comparing it to any other movie I had perviously watched on my old DVD player which was not Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray did not seem $400 better. My old DVD player seemed to upconvert the signal to the TV almost as good as the Blu-Ray could send its regular signal. I'm not comparing the Blu-Ray player to other Blu-Ray players. I'm comparing the Blu-Ray player to an upconverting DVD player. Also I'm sitting the same distance from the TV with DVD or Blu-ray, 11 feet.

And the sound was the same too. Cause this player would do the advanced Codecs internally. So it should sound better than an upconverting DVD player.
You say the image was only slightly better. Even outdoor scenes?
That's disappointing if true. Though maybe you were so hyped you were expecting it to look waaaaay better. Hard to know. Like when someone compares a $20 bottle of wine and some friend offers up a $100 bottle of wine with a lot of hype and then it only tastes slightly better which is a disappointment.
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post #59 of 14895
10/15/08 at 9:36am
Thread Starter 
(RE: PAL playback)

Quote:


That guy, who I thank for his review, seemed that he did not spend much time on it. Perhaps there is some configuartion to do...

There is no menu selection for this sort of thing. I went through every menu selection during setup to see what was adjustable and what default settings were. Beyond that, the only time required to determine PAL compatibility was the time it took to put a PAL disc in. It didn't play.

BTW, I would like to have this player output PAL signal as my projector is multi-standard and I have a "torrent" of PAL material ()
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post #60 of 14895
10/15/08 at 9:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by caa100 View Post

It has already been posted in this thread that the DMP-BD35 will not play a PAL title.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post14867390


Thanks Robert.
I may have to wait if it is true for PAL BD35/55 players as well...
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