Panasonic DMP-BD85K Blu-Ray player Official Master/Owner's thread - Page 52

Mac,

Started playing around with this a little this weekend. I liked the "fine" setting a bit. I think it probably just boosts edge enhancement but does give the desired "fine" effect. I found it to be good up close but causes a bit of a "fuzzy" look on faces in far away shots. I've only really checked it out on one movie last night (Rounders) and that transfer is just okay so that's probably not a good example. Anyone else check this stuff out?

+1. Especially if you get this player which has 5.1 analog outs. No reason not to use them on your receiver....unless of course you only have 2 speakers

He may not have a 5.1 speaker setup up. I'm just using a 2 ch. stereo setup.

double post - delete

Well you've got to love this one. Just got off the phone with Panasonic. They told me that there is nothing in the sw to prevent an R rated movie from playing even if you enter the age of 10 year old in their "Parental Controls" set up. The setting seems to do nothing so why have it? I think my next move will be a call to the FCC for lack of V Chip controls.

Is a V Chip control required by the FCC on Blu-ray player?

I don't think so...the law applies to televisions, doesn't it?

Few people seem to use V Chip anyway...or so it seems...

Don't worry about screening things for your kids. They are going to learn about it somewhere else anyway. Better in the privacy of your own home.

I'm not clear why you would let a 10 year old anywhere near your equipment.

+1. Or anyone.

If that type of thing is important to you, why not just put the PG-13, R, and above content in a locked media cabinet and have only the G and PG stuff easily accessible?

BTW, dpn is right. I just checked the FCC's website, and the V-chips are only required for TVs 13" and above, not for any other CE device.

I trust you were joking FuzzyReets - letting Hollywood "teach" my kids anything - let alone about the weightier stuff usually found in R-rated movies (or PG-13 for that matter) - is a scary proposition (all puns intended ).

At any rate, while Family Guy is hilarious at times for example, it sneaks under the ratings radar with a PG due to its comics format and sneaky vocabulary. There's no technology that will beat a parent/guardian in the room.

As to the 85 itself - there are some controls in Viera-cast that allow for parental safe-guarding. And, my 85 hasn't hiccuped since I got it near release time. Love the quality and reliability...

Regarding the V-chip, looks like its use in the US is mandated for TV sets, set top boxes, and PC tuner cards:

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/vchip.html

So it doesn't look like blu-ray players are included. Perhaps any vestiges of parental controls on the BD85 (however ineffective) are related to some other country's mandated controls (e.g. UK) that have been partly stripped out of the US versions? That's just a guess.

Does anyone else notice a very, very faint high pitch noise during very quiet scenes that seems to go on and off during playback? It's almost impossible to pick out. I thought I was crazy until someone else in the BD65 thread mentioned something to this effect. Any of you notice this?

EDIT: Scratch this. There is noise is my setup somewhere. Probably in my drop ceiling wiring and all that. Did some tests and it's not the player.

Thanks to all the forum members who responded to my two questions. I appreciate the assistance.

I only have two speakers (and a sub) so I will stick with RCA outputs until I can afford to buy a couple rears and a center channel and a new pre-amp.

I just can't bring myself to get rid of my USA made Carver amp which I've had for nearly 20 years. I've grown used to it...it's my security blanket. Not sure how I would integrate it into a 5.1 set-up. Have some learning to do. Lots of great info on this forum (and it's pretty civil too!).

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Looks like FCC complaint is not warranted since it does not cover DVD playback. That said, it is advertised as having parental controls, however, they don't work for blu ray. Yes I can lock things up but Sony and others have supported parental controls for >15 years. This is just poor product design to not have this basic functionality. I agree that most never set these things up but I guess I'd rather be a responsible parent than let my kids fend for themselves. What a concept, I know.
As for letting my 10 year old near my equipment....really? You wouldn't allow your kid to push a button, insert a disk, and press play on a remote? Get over it. It's not a 200 yr old fragile antique.

Yes of course

Probably not Not my stuff. Upstairs stuff is fine. Not my home theater gear.

As for letting my 10 year old near my equipment....really? You wouldn't allow your kid to push a button, insert a disk, and press play on a remote? Get over it. It's not a 200 yr old fragile antique.

Personally, I don't give a rat's behind what your kid watches. I do have an issue with you thinking about crying to the government to blame them for your mistake.

Wow.

"Poor product design" in one person's opinion may be seen as simplicity and uncluttered design by another. I personally think this BD player is great...Ain't opinions great?

Wanting a "nanny" chip on a piece of electronics gear might be interpreted by some as being a responsible parent, I guess, but why should everyone else have to pay a higher price for a "feature" not required nor desired by most?

I guess I'd rather be a responsible parent than to turn over that job to a chip. I realize it's MY job to prevent inappropriate materials from being watched. I can accomplish this by using secure storage (fortunately our DMP-BD85 is located in a lockable dedicated home theater), our presence, and by adhering to some simple rules we have at our house. No real problems so far...even though, with no V Chip present, we DO have to fend for ourselves...

But that's just MY opinion...

DPN

I believe your beef is with the Blu-ray group and not the hardware manufacturer. If any type of control is wanted for a Blu-ray disc it has to be in the Java code on the disc, they made no provision for it - so what is a manufacturer supposed to do. Blame Blu-ray, not Panasonic.

I'm curious if you were you trying to run the BD85's parental lock function on a DVD title, blu-ray title, or both?

There are definitely blu-ray players with parental lock out there. Cnet has a list here:

http://reviews.cnet.com/blu-ray-dvd-...360_&tag=mncol

And I know the PS3 also has parental lock.

What hasn't been clear to me is whether parental lock on a blu ray player is supposed to be applicable on all disc types, or possibly only DVD discs.

Agree. V chips were developed for cable or Ota broadcasts where the parent has no control over the media.

With a disc the parent has ultimate control over the media, it's not the players responsibility.

+1.
I always thought V-chips were dumb. I managed to grow up into a responsible adult without having nanny chips in TVs many years ago.

I used TVGuardian for a while, I don't like excessive cusing in my movies but within time I gave up on tvguardian cause it didn't always work right and Just was more careful with my content. I have very few R rated movies The matrix trilogy is my main set and robocop on amazon VOD is the other. The rest are G to PG 13

We can argue about the merits of the V chip versus parental responsibility, but the bottom line is if it's an advertised feature of a device, it should actually work.

In any case, I find it so poorly implemented that it's essentially useless. Half the programming is "unrated" so if you block it, you block nearly everything. If you don't, you're wide open.

I've never tried TVGuardian, but I imagine it could make things worse, like the "unnecessary censorship" bit on the Jimmy Kimmel show.

Uhhh........ ditto!

TVGuardian wouldn't even work with today's technology Unless they've updated it. The box I had only took s-video or composite video and red and white jacks. What It would do is monitor a program's closed captioning, when foul language was detected it would mute audio and replace the words with safer words on screen. Certain studios such as universal studios don't caption their programs just so TVGuardian didn't work. so it was a good concept but limited to whether or not the program had closed captions or not. I'll add this to the conversation as my other point that i've found to be true. Some studios do NOT like content filters and will purposely design their content in ways that disable filters. I am not sure about live TV, but I know this applies to discs and when vhs was around that as well.

Just hooked mine up and all I can say is WOW! DVD's look a touch better and BD's look awesome. Great color separation, great edge detail, better blacks, and much more depth (coming form an Oppo 981). Easy to set up except for the wireless connection, could not get it to go so no Netflix streaming, which is really secondary for my use. Discs start up fairly fast. A Disney BD took 4 times to load but played fine afterwards. Harmony had the info as well so I easily set up my remote for the new player. Overall happy for 170.00. The bad part is buying BD's to replace some of my fav DVD's.