Panasonic DMP-BD65 - Page 55

I think that largely depends on the movie or tv show in question. I use DD PLII all the time when the source is not 5.1 and it does a very good job. It certainly adds a nice surround dimension to a 2-channel source, however, it does pale in comparison to a well executed 5.1 soundtrack. You can notice this even watching a hockey game.

I know the 110 is cheap (or nearly free if you sell the Avatr disc) and does NF 5.1. The 75 is a bit cheaper, but has a different NF interface which may not do 5.1 (don't know for sure). In both cases the PQ is better than the 65.

Thanks. I'll check in the BD75 thread. I don't need the 3D of the 110, so is there any reason to get the 110 over the BD75?

Newer Unipher chip for upscaling DVD( should be the same as the 85) and if you are using PCM for audio you only get two channel decoding.

Thanks. Do you guys think the 110 has better image quality with DVD upscaling than the BD65?

Yes. Like Moxie said, the 110/210/310 have the same video processing as the 85. The 65 doesn't have that. So PQ is better all around, including upconversion. However you have to change a few settings to dial it in. At the default values the sharpness is artificially high IMO. I have both a 65 and 110. I get a new player every few months to keep up with the latest features and sell my old ones, so my 65 will be gone soon. I much prefer the 110 for the great new interface and vastly better netflix interface, 5.1 and captions. It's also DLNA and can access network shares. So the streaming capabilities are much better as well.

Sounds good. Thanks.

For anyone considering this years Panasonic BD75 you might want to check out my post in the BD75 thread. I returned the 75 and kept the 65 for several reasons pointed out in the link.
The 75 was a bit faster loading BDs but I can certainly live with the 65.

Any news on Hulu Plus coming to the BD65? or will we have to get a newer player? I am going to cancel damn Netflix and I don't know what to do....Amazon Prime (free) content seems to suck...

Amazon VOD has the same as Netflix. Well most the same. Amazon has some things Netflix doesn't and Netflix has some Amazon doesn't. Seems the biggest difference is the format from which to choose/store content tho.

Why drop NF tho? I have the streaming only and think it is a bargain at 7.99/mo and have had it for about a year now.

I just went through this in order to dump Netflix. I found that Amazon had only half the titles currently in my NF queue, and half of those were not inlcuded for free with Prime. So at least in my case, Amazon isn't even close. I will probably switch to NF streaming only, and switch to the DVD plan every few months then back to streaming. It's a pain, but it's the only way I see to keep getting the content I get today for a reasonable price.

Because the NF streaming selection is terrible--few, if any, new movies. Even some TV series are not available. Streaming ONLY with NF is NOT a viable option for a movie lover.

I plan to drop the streaming option as soon as I watch the OLD movies I have in my instant watch queue, and go strictly with the DVD option. Most likely they won't care for that, as I believe their recent price changes were aimed at getting those to take DVD's to drop that option and go for the cheaper streaming option.

Two other reasons to drop Netflix streaming: The picture quality is awful, and there are no subtitles. For me, that alone is a dealbreaker.

SMK

Subtitles are an app thing. NF does have subs (from what I've read on other forums). But here, the PQ is excellent, no complaints at all.

And yes, I would like to see new(er) flicks available, hell, I'd like to see some older flicks be available, but they are consistantly adding more and more content to the list and I like that.

Amazon VOD is more of a compliment to NF as NF is a compliment to AVOD. At least in my opinion.

+1

PQ is great and so are the subtitles. If they're not, you need faster internet and a player that supports subtitles (the 65 doesn't, but the 110/210/310 do).

However there are plenty of other reasons to hate Netflix as I do: huge price increase for no added value, frequent outages, website and apps constantly being stripped of features, most streaming titles are dogs, long waits for new/popular DVDs, no email support, etc.

The manual on page 27 states "When BD-Video images other than 24p are played, images are output at 60p.

I understand some Blu-ray discs are 23.976 fps. If the unit applies the 3:2 pulldown then you get a 29.97 fps signal. If that gets converted to progressive you have 59.94 fps. Does the player actually convert that 60p? Or is the manual considering 59.94 to be the same as 60?

I believe they are just using 60p because it's just easier, kind of like how 23.976p is referred to as 24p.

When it says "when BD-Video images other than 24p are played" I'm guessing that means 29.97 content is converted to 60p, but 24p is not right?

I have FIOS with 25 down. My BD65 is wired to a switch which goes directly to my router. I have verified this is the speed I am getting at the switch. When a movie starts, there is a bunch of bars, and all of them "light up" so I suspect I'm getting the best quality. It is awful.

I'm also not the only one to think so. A few Sundays ago the NY Times had an article about the streaming quality. They said that for most movies it is not as good as the DVD and for some only barely better than VHS. That has definitely been my experience.

Subtitles are a different issue. I'm not going to buy a new BD player just for them. I'd rather have the disc.

SMK

If it's so bad, why don't you cancel the service?

We're probably going to do just that. Can't justify the cost of limited performance/quality of Netflix streaming now that they are splitting the streaming and DVD plans. We'd rather have two Blu-ray's out at a time for the same price as 1 disc + streaming.

Your nuts in my opinion. Let us know how that works out for you.

You've got plenty of bandwidth, but something else must be wrong. I don't see anything like you or the NYT is seeing unless the original source was indeed low res. Out of the thousands of titles, I'm sure many are from bad sources. Those titles probably aren't even available on DVD, much less blu-ray. HD titles are indeed 720p and look great on my player. SD titles from DVD source material usually look about the same as DVD. However, some titles can be a little deceiving. For example, the opening screen on Starz titles is always terrible, but once the movie starts, the PQ is fine. What do you see on other services like amazon and vudu? Those look great on my player as well. Certainly not BD quality, but a lot better than you're seeing.

I'm going to do the very same thing as "Vasanth B". Downgrade to 2 disk service and dump streaming. The streaming is just barely acceptable.

Somewhere I read that Netflix uses 2600 to 3800 kbs to stream in HD.
I'm sorry, but a DVD averages 7500 kbs for SD with 5.1 sound and HD content on Blu-ray averages 23000 kbs, so how can HD at even the highest Netflix streaming rate of 3800 look any good? It can't and you end up losing all the extra content from the disks too.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure the streaming services use more advanced compression than disks use. I think that reduces bandwidth requirements by about half.

+1

DVDs are MPEG2 which requires a whole lot more bits for the same PQ than modern compression schemes like MPEG4. I'm sure Netflix uses something similar. When I stream Netflix HD, it runs 5-6Mbps, about the same bitrate per transponder as my satellite service. The PS3, which streams Netflix HD in 1080p, runs around 8Mbps, resulting in excellent PQ.

A few posts earlier I indicated that I have.

The first movie I watched was "the secret in their eyes" which is from Argentina. It was awful, and I thought that maybe it was a poor quality film. I have since seen the DVD, and it is excellent.

The next was Masterpiece Theater's Downton Abbey, which was in HD on TV and looked really no better than VHS on Netflix. The last thing I tried just for picture quality was the initial episode of Lost. IMHO it is almost reference quality on disc, and again, it looked nothing like that when streaming.

So, I have canceled the streaming service. I am quite happy with my 2 disc out plan, though I may well go to BB because they have so many more BDs than Netflix at this point.

SMK

Maybe it's the panels your watching it on. NF looks good on my plasma and looks so so on my LCD. LCD sucks as far as smoothness and picture quality. My plasma is only 720p and the LCD is 1080P. Still no comparison, the plasma blows the lcd away. I also have a 34 inch wide screen CTR tv that the plasma or lcd can't touch in picture quality. With today's technology why not?

I'm watching on a 58" Panasonic S2 plasma, which is 1920x1080 native via HDMI.

I agree that plasma panels blow LCD (or the so-called LED) panels out of the water.
I also have a Toshiba 34" CRT HDTV, and in my opinion the plasma is far superior, and it's not just the size I'm referring to.

SMK

LOL...guess you love the streaming. Part of it is that we just don't watch that much streaming. My in-laws ended up using it more for Hindi movies but the quality on those was highly variable and mostly bad, similar to RoyGBiv's experience. We have a 1 yr old and barely get enough time to keep up with True Blood DVR'd episodes and a few of the other summer series we watch. In fact for now I'm sticking with the 1 disc at-a-time plan with Netflix until we get more time to watch movies. I have 24 / 3 Mbps service with AT&T U-verse but this BD65 often kicks down to a lower res stream when watching movies. I don't have this problem on my older Sammy BD-P1600.

Netflix is getting expensive enough that I just signed up for the equivalent 1 disc / unlimited plan at Blockbuster. We'll see how it goes.

How can you see the 65 is lowering the res stream? And why would it do that?