Panasonic DMP BDT500 - Page 10

When compared 3D from the Sony 790, I like the the 500 a little more. The PQ was smooth when watching Hugo.

Thanks. I might give it a shot.

How flexible is the bass mngt on the analog outs? and also are the crossover settings global or independent and what range?

Amazon down to $309.85 one qick question have a pioneer elite 05 ,I know very slow, but the picture and sound are great , looking to upgrade how does the panasonic 500 stack up thanks for any info

My display is the Sony 929 and the 500 works well to my liking. There are some minor playback issues that I have but can be corrected with FW.

Care to elaborate on the playback issues? I'm interested in this player as I've had good luck with Panny BD players in the past.

This is a great player. You will be happy with PQ and Audio, but BD playback last stopped is not working known blu rays that have this feature. This was also true with the Sony 790. This can be fixed with FW.

Get it from Amazon $309

Ranger,

I'm not familiar with the analog capabilities of the Panny BD85. However, the core audio (DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD) sounds quite good to some ears through coaxial or optical; maybe even yours. If within your budget go with DMP-BDT500 which supports 7.1 analog. You would come out cheaper with the new Panny in my opinion if upgrading you AVR is not an option.

Is this with enhanced video settings disabled or enabled on each player ?

You are mistaken. There are no DTS streams with Netflix.

Pink,

I would expect improvement in multi-channel analog, but how are you able to quantify a 10/20% improvement in PQ?

The enhanced video has to do with picture quality. I am talking about smoothness of the picture without a lot of flickering.

Brian,

What media and titles? If I share the same media I will give it a try to see if I can replicate it.

Inception, LOR, and few more

A/B compairson side by side..same BD feed..PQ on BDT500 has more details and vibrant,more cleaner or sharper,Color are more richer and better black level.....

Gotcha!

Anyone using J River Media Center as a DLNA server with this player? Can't get it to work with either FLAC or WAV. Get a "Cannot play." error every time I choose a track. Same setup works like a charm with the S790.

Hmm. Interesting.

Wow! I'm glad so many people as seeing such marked video improvements with the 500. I'm especially happy since I ordered one yesterday. However, in my experience in owning 10 BD players I've never seen more than minor improvements in PQ from unit to unit. Are you guys sure you are matching settings properly? Can you shut off all the video processing on both units before making a comparison? If you are hooking up the units to different inputs on your monitor can you make sure everything is matched?

Since the improvements on the 500 are supposed to be audio related I can't see how there can be so much improvement in PQ over existing BD placers. We need proof guys!

Lol even minor improvements in video quality would be a bonus, for me it's mostly about the sound quality. I do hope it lives up to all the marketing claims!

Interesting thread, I just bought a new GT 50 55" panasonic plasma and being thinking of upgrading to a new bluray player and what better than to go with the panny flagship. I've always had the PS3 and it's always being excellent to me. It always played everything I threw at it, but reading all these positive comments on picture quality and specially the way it looks, it makes me want one. Either this or the Oppo 93. Too bad amazon doesn't ship to canada. I'll keep my eye on this thread and decide soon, thanks to all the info from owners.

Sounds exactly like me except I got a 65" vt50. I however have older pioneer sc-05 am not sure if the analog outs help me at all with this unit but am sure that the dual hdmi out will help out a little by giving master audio and true hd for 3d. But I am debating just updating the receiver or the player but I do actually occasionally play games on the ps3 suppose I could do that in the bedroom but it is much sexier on the vt50 then my current old Sony LCD in the bedroom.

Have any owners of the 500 come from/done a comparison with last year's BDT310? I really like the design of the 500 but I already got an open-box 310 last year for $90. I don't need the analog outs so I'm not sure if the 500 would be worth it.

Right now I'm only using the 310 for 3D viewing but for most critical/2D/upconversion viewing I use my Sony 5000ES.

The audio improvements are likely only with the 5.1/7.1 RCA outs; I rather doubt that there's any improvement with audio via the HDMI cable.


Ha ha.

Buy one yourself from a vendor that has a great return policy?

I got mine about noon yesterday.

Unplugged my Panasonic BMP BD85 blu-ray player and pugged in the new 500. I don't use HDMI for audio, only the 5.1 RCA outs.

BTW this 500 is a quiet unit. My only gripe with it is the honky front panel that is on hinges; completely useless! Which I'll pop off after I've got confidence that the unit is past the stage of suffering from early failure due to bad shipping or early use electronic chip failure.

So my comparison (still using default settings, haven't changed a thing in setup so far) is to a DB85 and not the BDT310.

The one thing that did surprise me was the improvement to blu-ray movie video; most notably better blacks, but also slightly better color saturation and slightly better detail.

Depends of course on the specific movie. e.g. I've so far re-watched 3 of my favorite blu-ray movie discs, and liked all of them much better with this new 500 player. FWIW I've so far only bought maybe 5 or 6 blu-ray movies and all of them for the better 5.1 sound that one generally can get.

For that matter it's unique to watch a movie that you've seen before and see it as a new experience, which is the one thing that I got from re-watching "Moulin Rouge"

The most interesting "improvement" with "Moulin Rouge" (the one with Kidman in it) was the 5.1 sound improvement via the RCA outs. With the 85 player (via the RCA outs) 5.1 sound was a disappointment, but not with this new 500 player! However I have no clue if the 5.1 sound via HDMI cable is improved.

FWIW the above "Moulin Rouge" movie already came with over-saturated colors, and the 500 player turned it into extremely vivid colors. Pretty striking! But given the nature of the movie (a very modern type of musical set in Paris more than 100 years in the past) maybe that's OK. The other two movies benefited from more saturated colors, and I bet that most blu-ray movies will be OK with this 500 player.


This 500 player is no slouch for up-conversion of DVD movie.

I'm glad I got this 500 player and didn't spend more for something like an OPPO 93.

Picked up mine last night, and was too excited to get it connected that I neglected to capture an unboxing video.

Sorry

On to other matters. I have not yet evaluated much by way of audio and video, but have been concentrating on features. Love the improved Netflix interface - had video stuttering when streaming Netfix with 24fps enabled, so that's a minor issue. Other things of note will undoubtedly be addressedfuture firmware updates.

One disappointment is the remote control application for Android OS devices. The one that I've installed appears to be for Televisions, and the app for Panasonic Blu-Ray players is not yet compatible with Android OS 4.x.

I'm still trying to figure out how the 2D to 3D conversion works. Hoping tho check that out, as well as soon up some movies to evaluate how it compares to the DMP-BDT300 that it has replaced.

Looking forward to everyone's posts!

If you don't require most of the features of the Oppo, then I would lean towards the Panasonic, which would probably integrate better with your new Panasonic plasma and save you a few dollars. Not saying that the Oppo won't.

The front panel can be laid flat without removing it from the hinges. This is what I did.

Bur that panel removes the noise and make the player quite. Just get used to it mate.