Panasonic DMP-BD65 - Page 9

Just finished watching Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, SD DVD.
No sign of anomalies.
IMO SD conversion is very good indeed on my (calibrated) LG 55LH90 running 1080/P24.

Also ran the Spears&Munsil BR benchmark. Aside from the usual problems with some odd cadences (Amine stuff) the BD655 (Costco version) does better than the BD60, particularly with regards to clipping.
Will try other SD DVD, I Robot, StarWars AOTC, Startrek VI etc and report when done.

Viewed Starwars AOTC, no problems there either.
Looking at StarTrack VI now

Hey Winston - your site is great. When will we see a review of the BD85?

So what's the final verdict -- is there a flicker problem or not?

Dropped my BD80 for a BD65
First impressions of the BD65……

The good:
Faster load times
Better DVD picture quality – I haven’t experienced any of the problems others have
Navigating viera cast seems smoother (significant lag with BD80 when inputting characters)
Netflix looks better compared to my Roku (when it gets a fast enough connection)
The addition of Pandora and Skype in the future

The bad:
BD65 vs Roku
When returning to the Netflix on the BD65 it always puts you at the first selection. I have a few hundred titles in my queue and navigating back to title 200 sometimes is a pain.
I have a steady 6mbps and it keeps dropping me out of HD.
Roku keeps me in HD consistently and you can force the box to a specified speed, insuring HD quality.
No 5.1 audio on amazon HD content which suggests that when netflix adds 5.1 audio like amazon did last year, the BD65 may not support it.

I was hoping to eliminate the need for my Roku box. But for now I guess I’m keeping both. Great BD player for the price.

Anybody out there know of way to force HD content (netflix/amazon) on vieracast?



HDTV: Panasonic TH-42PX80U
BD Player: Panasonic DMP-BD65
Receiver: Denon AVR-590
ROKU

Based on watching 7 SD DVD so far there is no flicker problem.
Winston is right about SD DVD conversion. It is excellent IMO.
The flicker Winston reports may well be due to errors in authoring that particular DVD even if it plays correctly in a different player.
It will take some time to watch all my SD DVD collection but if a flicker shows up it will be reported here.

IMO the BD655 (aka BD65) is a good choice especially at Costco pricing but if someone has a huge DVD collection and wants to avoid any possible problem, there is always the OPPO 80 (at twice the price) or even the OPPO 83.

Does anyone know why the BD60 costs much more than the newer BD65?

From what I gathered the newer model is improved significantly


Edit: one major con I just found mentioned by a few people is that it is loud and gets very hot. could that be why? I was thinking about getting one of these models, now I'm just confused.

The BD60 has a fan, the BD65 does not and does run hotter, but is totally quiet.
Not a problem IMO if it is exposed to room air.

That's odd, I wonder why someone would write it was loud when it has no fan. Thanks for clearing that up.

As far as the heat, do you think it will get abnormally hot if I put it in an enclosed TV stand? I have one of those with a front glass so there isn't much airflow.

Also for upconverting DVD's (actually this is one reason I'm looking at the panasonic 60 or 65, second being price), I'm confused why people are saying it upconverts better than the 60 while there are negative comments about DVD light fluctuating or something like that with this model.

The 65 does better than the 60 at synthetic benchmarks and to many in subjective quality. There may be a flickering issue, but most of us haven't seen it.

That's a good point. If anyone has Heroes Season 1 DVD, I had light fluctuations on the un-aired pilot episode (scene at the park) on a regular DVD player, which I chalked up to the DVD itself. Does anyone have Heroes and the BD65 to look at?

How does this player not have auto resume for regular dvd's? Am I missing something? I really like the player otherwise.

I enabled the viera cast by downloading the latest fimware.

I can see amazon video, youtube. all have audio, except youtube.

Any one get youtube Audio with this setup.. if yes how to enable audio. I tried with separate RCA audio out also for youtube. no audio.

your help is appreciated..

It does, have tested it with several DVD movies.
Stop the DVD at some point, turn the player off.
When restarting do NOT press Power, press Play instead.
It will start the DVD where it left of.

Does not require Quickstart to be on.
This is how it works on my BD655.

BD605 is the equivelent of BD60, not BD65. Youtube audio works just fine. You don't have to do anything special. Make sure you upgrade the firmware to the latest version (2.3).

Auto-resume on DVD should work 100% of the time as long as you didn't double stop (press STOP twice) the movie. Note that some universal remotes like Harmony automatically issue stop command by default before power off command. So, if you press stop already on a DVD, power off from that remote will in fact clear off the resume spot. So, with that type of remote, you simply power off and next time you power on, it will auto resume where you left it off.

Hmm. I'll try it that way. Does it still resume if the disc is ejected?

1) for a 2.1 setup (all HDMI) what do most of you audiophiles set the audio settings on?

2) is there anyway to program when you are done with the bluray to automatically switch the tv input back to cable so I don't need to change the input (Vieralink)???

thanks

Rob

It has an audio button but no subtitle. Subtitle is pretty easy to adjust while watching a movie through the on screen menu.

I spoke to soon, Netflix HD seems to be working fine with my 6mbps. very pleased with the player so far.

Hello All,

Picked up a BD65 last night and must say it is a decent Blu Ray player and seems to do an above average job upscaling DVD. I bought it in an attempt to replace a BD-35/Xbox 360 combo I have in my living room. With that said, here is what I do not like.

1.) The build quality. I really prefer my BD35 in this area. I am certainly a candidate for an Oppo...as soon as they add some streaming options.

2.) Heat. The bottom of the new 65 gets mighty warm compared to my 35.

3.) Old School Netflix Interface, only your instant cue is available. After using an Xbox 360 for this duty for almost a year...this is un-acceptable.

4.) Not sure how to describe this issue but I will try. When you go to Network to use any of the streaming options, one of your selections is Settings then Display. Here you choose a screen size using a recatangular box with an oval inside it. The object of this is to choose one that fits the image on your screen without clipping it off on any side. Well...none of them work. The two that are the closest...one is slightly too big and the other is slightly too small. So to avoid clipping the image I choose the slightly smaller one but then I get an annoying gray line around either just the left and top or right and bottom. Strangely enough, it will shift around after viewing content on-line. It is flat out annoying. Basically...it is not centered (shifted to the left) and their is no way to center it.

I have tried this player on 3 seperate tvs here in the house with the same results.

I have yet to make a final decision but it is starting to look like my best option is going to be to take it back and get a PS3.

I purchased the Panny from Best Buy and would just like to take it back, pay the difference and get a PS3 but they have none in the 6 Best Buy stores within driving distance to me. It sure smells like a new PS3 is coming or an update to the current one as I can not find a 120GB PS3.


Thanks,

KippLitz

Hello all,
I've just picked up this player and wondering what size sdcard to use for
Bluray Live? The manual says 1gig or higher. Should I use a bigger one or is
1 gig enough?

Thanks

My question is in regards to getting 7.1 audio from a 5.1 signal. My receiver is a yamaha v663 which will matrix a PCM 5.1 signal into 7.1 using PLIIX, but it will not matrix a TrueHD or DTSHD bitstream 5.1 signal into 7.1. So, in order to get 7.1 using the HD audio track I've got to set the player to PCM and let the receiver do the PLIIX matrixing. But I've noticed there is a setting in the audio menu in the BD65 that converts a 5.1 signal into 7.1. So then I could bitstream from the player and have a 7.1 signal playing from the receiver. My question is does anyone know what this option in the player is doing to the audio signal?

My understanding of PLIIX is (and I could be wrong) that the front 5 channels are not touched at all (synthesized/cut/remixed/etc.). It's just simply an addition of two rear channels created from the two surround channels. Is the player doing the same thing when it creates the 7.1 from a 5.1 signal? I tried this feature a bit, but it was difficult to tell how it was doing this conversion.

I'm just wondering what the best option would be with my setup. Should I set the player to PCM and let the receiver apply PLIIX processing to get 7.1, or should I set the player to bitstream and let the player expand the signal to 7.1?

Thanks in advance!

Could someone please give me the instructions on how to set the audio to bitstream within the setup menu?

Has anyone seen the BD65 at a Sam's Club yet?

How do you change netflix accounts on this player? I can't figure out how to get the activation code after netflix has already been configured once...

You can go to your Netflix account online and delete the player from the authorized device list.

Ah, so you have to do it from the Netflix side. That would explain it.

I bought this device as an "open item" (aka a return) from best buy for a $20 discount. Unfortunately the previous owners who returned it for whatever reason left their own netflix account on there. Needless to say, I don't have access to their netflix account to remove the player.

Guess I'll have to call Pana support and/or Netflix support to sort this out then.

Ok so I did some more experimenting with getting 7.1 from a 5.1 signal. I set the player to bitstream and the 7.1 conversion to auto. I played a few discs with 5.1 dolby truehd audio and the receiver is showing its only receiving 5.1. Am I not understanding how this 5.1 to 7.1 option works in the player?

So right now it would seem the only option I have for 7.1 from a 5.1 signal is by setting the player to pcm and let the receiver use PLIIX.

I am not familiar with the BD65 and the manual does not appear to be available online. But, earlier Panasonic models only output 7.1 from 5.1 sources in one set of circumstances: when playing 5.1 DTS tracks on BD, they output 7.1 by duplicating the surrounds to the rears. This was not an option. Panasonic explains that this is a requirement and other brands with dts-HD Master Audio Essential decoders do the same thing.

If the BD65 works like the earlier models, player decoding should leave you with 7.1 output by the player with DTS sources and PLIIx application in the AVR with TrueHD and PCM sources.


If you set the player to bitstream, it will not output 7.1. Bitstream means sending the encoded track to an external processor. It's then up to the processor to do the expansion. But, you say your AVR cannot apply a DSP such as PLIIx when decoding lossless sources. So, player decoding is really your only option, it would appear.

After calling Panasonic, it turns out there are some instructions buried in the manual for resetting the unit to factory settings. They are on page 29 under General Operation. That causes the unit to generate a new Netflix code.