Official Panasonic DMP-BD60/80 Owners Thread - Page 172

Pioneer SC-27 was its replacement. Reason? That's a good question. I was using the Marantz as a preamp (and was quite happy with it), and just wanted to see if I could get back to a one box solution that would please me. I'm very pleased with my new purchase. It does have some features the Marantz doesn't, but also costs significantly more, too. This hobby usually doesn't need a reason to upgrade, though. Past a certain point you're splitting hairs to find improvements unless you make a significant jump with your budget.

In the end, listening is fun, but buying new stuff is more fun.

So I don't get accused of straying too far off topic, I've been playing disc after disc of both BD's and DVD in the BD60 and have yet to trip it up with anything it won't play, or getting a freeze. I still haven't checked what firmware it has.

Nice to see there have been no reported Firmware 2.2 level freezes. This combined with the faster boot/load performance of 2.x makes the 60/80 models excellent values at the current prices. So much so that I picked up a second one to upgrade the 3rd and last HDTV to Blu-Ray. I think Blu-Ray in general has finally reached the price points for true mass adoption with top line players available for under $150, and new releases available for under $20.

Ran the 2.2 threw a handful of BD and no freezes yet either with my 60

Although the BD60 could connect directly to my 1080i TV with a HDMI-DVI connector (and show video) but would not show video if I connected it through my Onkyo SR607 receiver. If connected directly, the BD60 would change the output to 1080i. The problem of no video occurs when the BD60 was connected through my Onkyo receiver with an HDMI, then my Onkyo was connected to my 1080i TV with the HDMI-DVI connector. With that configuration, the BD60 settings for HDMI is "auto" and would think it should output at 1080p (not 1080i). The solution was to train myself the remote control clicks necessary to change the HDMI setting on the BD60 to 1080i without being able to see it on the TV. You learn the clicks by seeing the video when the BD60 is connected directly to the TV.

I hope this helps.

I'm back with a BD60. Got 1 free with my new TV. It looks like the freezes are gone.

Good point. I'll add that.

-CB

Same here,with 50" Panasonic Plasma. Black Friday special. The BD60 works and picture looks awesome with the 2.2 firmware. Mine came with version 1.7

Your Audyssey led will light up on your Denon while it's running.

I am connecting the BD60 via HDMI cable to my Panasonic SABX500 receiver and then to my Hitachi 65S700 tv via a HDMI/DVI cable. My tv is only capable of 1080I but I have had no problems with audio/video from the BD60 through the receiver to the tv. The tv of course doesn't receive audio via the DVI cable but that is no matter since I am using the receiver for that function. I am thinking your problem must be with the receiver.

Greetings Learned Forum:

I apologize if this has been answered before, but the thread has gotten extremely long...

Let us say I am having my BD60 do all the decoding and send out the signal as PCM. Is there a way I can get the player to display what it is decoding? DTS-HD? Dolby 5.1? When receiving a PCM signal, my receiver will only indicate "PCM". I would just like to verify what is being decoded and how. Much thanks.

Nick

The best you can do is hit the audio button on remote to display current audio track information.

The digital encoding is restored to digital component video for output, Rec 601 for SD, Rec 709 for HD. These specs define interoperation between 50hz ("PAL") and 60Hz ("NTSC") systems. These specs are followed by majority of modern A/V equipment. 50/60Hz videos have a lot in common, in particular 13.5 MHz luma frequency. I very much doublt that the BD60 "doesn't have that part (PAL) of functionality built in".

My BD80 plays 25p DivX files without a hitch, converting them into 60p, which means that it has no problems with "PAL" rates per se, it has no problems with converting 25 frames/s into 60p. But my BD80 does not play 50Hz-based AVCHD neither it plays 50Hz DVD-video, despite that discs themselves are region-free.

I am sure that technically it can play "PAL" DVDs, what I need is a proper hack. Panasonic locked "PAL" DVD playback, but not "PAL" DivX playback, which means that it can technically play such a content.

I think that Panasonic must be pressed to add a legit region-free option for DVDs because the box says clearly that the player can play DVDs that are labeled either "region 1" or "all regions", the box does not say anything about PAL or NTSC, only the user manual does, but to read the manual I have to open the box, and then I will have issues with returning this open box back to a store. Panasonic obviously wanted to lure consumers who want to play discs from other regions, but this feature is not implemented. I think that legally Panasonic is not in good position. People, look at the box from your player once again, I think this is a good case when we can press Panasonic to fulfill what is promised on the box.

You can read the manual from Panasonic.com.

Unfortunately, I think it was only valid for the day after black friday. It was $129 + tax with free shipping to get to the $141 price. It was a posting I found in avsforum under the "blu-ray player deals" thread.

I finally plugged in the BD80 and I'm really enjoying it. It's plugged into a my HK AVR235(non-HDMI) through the analog inputs with PCM going out. I've set up my speakers using the noise generator on the player, but then I read the article from Big Picture Big Sound talking about needing to increase the the subwoofer by 15db(L/R channels set to small) I don't see anywhere in the AVR235 manual regarding a setting for subwoofer level correction, so I guess I'll do it manually in the AVR235 calibration settings... or just change the volume knob on my subwoofer, I guess. (I have my Outlaw LFM-plus set at only 1.5 out of 10 at the moment)

Is it me or does the bd60 still load up pretty slow after the firmware update?

What do you call pretty slow? I'm happy with mine.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks and no reports of the freeze on this forum. We used to get at least one report every other day or so. It seems that Panasonic actually fixed the problem. Once again, Panasonic customer service has proven to be exemplary. Yes, it took a while to get this fix out but it was a nasty, non-repeatable bug that probably took quite a while to fix. Contrast Panasonic's support with Samsung's, for instance. How many times have we heard horror stories about bricked players due to a Samsung firmware "fix"? Is it any wonder that these two companies are perceived so differently?

My panny 60 is slower than my Sony 550 and its no speed demon lol . I still like the 60 its alot of bang for the buck thats for sure .

I certainly agree that it's good that Panasonic has apparently fixed the problem. However, I do think they could have improved their support in this issue. While I have no doubt that this was a difficult issue to to fix, it would have been nice for Panasonic to at least state that they were working it. By and large, they have been extremely quiet about this. The most that anybody was able to get from them (after a fair amount of prodding), was that Panasonic had heard reports of it. I believe that the last thing we heard was from a post by CBoylan, and that Panasonic had fixed all of the known freezing issues at the time. This comment came sometime around the 1.7 firmware. (It may have been some other firmware, though.) It's difficult to recommend something when the reports first starting being made over 6 months ago, and no indication from them about the status of the issue.

Don't take this the wrong way. I don't expect a status report every week saying "no news, but we're working on it.". But I would have liked a more formal acknowledgment of the issue, along with a statement that it was being actively investigated.

Regardless, at least the issue was fixed before the holidays, and the unit can be recommended without a "but" at the end of the recommendation.

I finally bought my first Blu-Ray player and swapped out my DVD player. Thanks for all the posts to help me make the right decision. I got the BD-60 on sale at my local BB. My store had plenty of 60's and 80's.

It came with firmware v1.5. I played a couple of BR discs with no problems. The sound and picture is awesome of course and it's nice to finally have something that uses the TV and AVR to their full potential. I set both HD audios to Bitstream and turned Secondary Audio to Off (From the manual, that seemed optimal). I haven't tried any DVDs yet (or SD or USB) but I plan to. Upscaling is important.

Then, I wanted to see if VieraCast was the same as on my Panasonic 850 plasma (and it was). Before it would let me use it though, it gave me firmware v2.2. Haven't used it much on this firmware, but I don't except any problems.

Kind of cool to see VieraLink in action. When I press the universal remote's macro to turn main components off (TV, AVR, DVR), if I left the BD-60 on it powers down and turns off as well (nice). Everything is connected to the Onkyo 607 AVR via 10ft. HDMI cables (with the amp being the central controller of the system).

I just purchased the DB60 for a friend, and I was testing it out when I ran into a couple of problems:

1) 16:9 and 16:9 Full Settings don't work. I have the player attached via HDMI to a 16:9 Panasonic HDTV. No matter how I adjust the TV Aspect settings on the Blu-ray player or the TV I can't get any DVDs to play without the black borders on the top and bottom. The 16:9 Full setting on the DMP-DB60 which is supposed to correct this has no effect at all.

Is there a way to fix this? Does this unit have a hidden zoom function anywhere. I have two other much older DVD players (Toshiba and Phillips) that have multiple layers of zoom. I just assumed all DVD players had zoom by now.

2) I Can't disable screen saver for Blu-ray discs. Even though I selected the setting to disable the screensaver, when pausing Blu-ray discs the screensaver kicks in and pressing play, or just about any other button but Status, has no effect and the movie will not resume. The screensaver is disabled for standard definition DVDs. Is this some kind of safety measure? It seems like a bug to me.

Note: I've upgraded the firmware to the latest version, 2.2. Still experiencing both problems. I'm considering resetting the unit to factory defaults and starting over, unless someone on this forum has any ideas on how to fix this.

I recently purchased a Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu Ray player with Viera Cast. I'm trying to connect it to my home network, but it seems like my network settings are not correct. Because when I go to set up the network connection on the TV it says " Failed to connect" I'm not a very network savvy person. So I'm hoping someone here can explain what I'm doing wrong in "layman's" terms.

I have a Linksys WRT54G router, connected to my broadband box, connected to my computer. I ran a new cat5 cable from my office to the living room and plugged it in to an open port on the back of the router.. When looking at the front of the router, a light will turn on over the correct port number when the Blu ray player is turned on. I've tried turning off the windows, and router firewalls, and it still would not connect. And I made sure that my network settings did have the "make network discoverable" option turned on. I've tried resetting the router, and the Blu Ray player. Nothing seems to work.

I guess I can try calling Panasonic on Sunday. But, I'd really rather not. So any suggestions would be wonderful.

I believe the 16:9 full setting will stretch out a 4:3 video to fill the screen. Page 34 in the manual.

Most movies are filmed in a wider aspect ratio than 16:9, so they appear letterboxed even on a widescreen TV. This is normal. If you want to stretch the video to fill the entire screen, check the manual for your TV, but things will look unnaturally tall.

I had a similiar situation happen with a standard dvd "tombstone" in wide screen and for some reason when I played it was square with white boarders on the side and black on top on botton and looked horrible. So I threw it in my Sony 550 to see what was going on and it was perfect shown in the correct format 16:9 wide screen from side to side filling the screen and just a black boarder on top and bottom. Very strange and my settings are the same on both players

See Screen Aspect settings on page 20 of the manual.

Your player may not have an IP address. Check the settings in your player. If it is set to DHCP, it means the router will assign an IP to your player. If it doesn't it means that you must manually assign an IP address through the player's interface. That IP address me be inside a specific range that your router will allow. My suggestion is to change the player to DHCP.

Just got the new Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and my Panasonic BD-60 Bluray player can't read the disc. I just upgraded the firmware to the latest version and it is saying the disc is incompatible. Has anyone else seen something like this before? Any idea how to correct this problem?

Thanks

Rick

Trying to figure out skipping and all. What I mean is, whether it is BluRay or DVD, I seem to not be able to skip previews/commercials. Have tried multiple buttons on the remote and what seems to work most is the "skip" which just takes me to the next preview or whatever. I know some of these things you cannot bypass, but since getting this player, it seems I have a harder time skipping things. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong here? AM I just not seeing something or another? Thanks much.

What settings should I use to pass-thru all processing to be done on my Pio plasma?