Official Panasonic DMP-BDT 220/320/500 Owners Thread - Page 12

Thanks. Have you verified that using settings other than you list degrades the image? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious.

it did degrade the picture on the 210. it would not surprise me if it does the same on the new units.

Jacob

What do you mean by "degrades the picture?" I left my settings on default: advanced chroma, super res 1 and the picture looks fantastic.

good luck with it.
the super res 1 adds grain or something to dvds.

Jacob

"adds grain or something" lol.

Any word as to when we will see the Costco version of these??

Got the BDT320 a couple of days ago from Best Buy. I don't like the new touch pad remote. IMO is NOT convenient at all, it lacks a volume buttom and an eject button (At least I did not find them). However, I do have my trusty Harmony remote but as of last night there were no codes avalibale yet for the BDT320. I tried progarming it using last year's BDT310 and It worked to some extent. For whatever reasons, I can't get the pop up menu button to work. Everytime I press it takes me back to the main menu. Using the teaching mode does not work either as there are no keys to press on the BDT320, it just a touch pad.

Has anyone been able to figure out how the hell to get this pop up menu to work on the BDT320?

Well, you're right. It doesn't really matter to me because I have a Harmony remote that I use to control my TV, Sound bar and BD player. I'll be a lot happier once I can fully setup the BDT320 to use with my Harmony.

Is the 220 the same size as the 210?

For those who have the 320, how do you like the slot loader? I'm not a big fan, but the 320 does look slick. Just wondering if it ejects the same as the PS3 as far as how far the disc is released.

As for the slot loader, it ejects the disc past the center so you can grab it from the center and outside edge or about the same as the PS3. I must admit, I wasn't a fan of slot loading drives until after the PS3 and many Blu-ray movie discs later. The one on the 320 seems pretty much the same as the PS3's and more importantly doesn't appear to scratch discs. I still keep hitting the eject button to load a disc :-) as this is my first standalone slot loading player.

For my just installed 320, I'm still using the same Harmony setup I used for the 310 and for the most part, everything seems to control well enough for now including the screen buttons I set up. I have the original "touch" remote that came with it out but still in the plastic wrap. I want to give it a try but with Harmony remotes, it's a shame about all of these custom remotes that are out or coming out because I am so use to only using one remote. My LG HDTV as a "Wii type" remote that I don't use because of the Harmony. Also, still waiting for the 2012 Panasonic remote app.

Wesley, are you able to use the pop up menu with your BDT310 settings on your Harmony?

I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but I do. It gently grabs the disc from your hand and loads it. It's quiet.

S~

Both the 210/220 manuals say:

Pictures of normal image quality are corrected to
sharp and detailed images when output as 1080i/
1080p from HDMI AV OUT.

Though as you said, I thought that somewhere it mentioned that this was used when upconverting DVDs.

All this stuff is so subjective in a very personal way. Some dvd's are soft looking but maybe that's the way the film was made.

Read page 4 of this article. I would assume until someone tests it that the same would hold true for this years models. However there is a whole new unipier chip so who knows. As with any piece of electronics you can always play with the settings and just set it to what looks best to your eyes.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/blu-r...r.html?start=3

I had the 310 and exchanged it for the 320 (thinking it will be a long time before I buy a new 3d tv so I won't need the dual hdmi for a while). Here are my quick impressions. I like the slot loading much better than the tray because I've always felt that trays are very fragile and easy to break if you aren't careful. It looks like there is a new feature when you turn on the subtitles for a dvd, you can move them to a different position on the screen with quite a bit of an adjustment range. The detail enhancer (can't remember the exact name) has a much wider range of adjustments than on the 310. The super resolution setting has the same 0,1 or 2 settings. The picture quality seems the same to me but I haven't played with it too much yet. The remote definitely takes some getting used to. I like it for some things such as choosing an internet ap or choosing the settings for the player, but I don't love it for disc playback as I'd rather just have physical buttons. I have the Harmony One which I had already preprogrammed to duplicate the 310 when I had it and most everything works the same. I will have to program in the "Options" button on the 320 remote to my Harmony.

I've only watched a little bit of Netflix so far. I haven't notice the black flashes yet but I did notice that when I started a movie, the quality was initially at the low quality setting and it seemlessly ramped up to the best quality (which is how I set up my Netflix preferences) quickly. So it seems that instead of flashing, you may get a bit of bluriness/pixelation instead of the black flashes. Once it got to the highest quality, after a couple of seconds, it never wavered from there. The second time I went into Netflix, the quality was good from the start. Did anyone else experience the same??

Finally, I did like the 310 Netflix interface better than the new one on the 320 but at least all of the options for Dolby Digital Plus and subtitles remain. It seems on the new one, you have to scroll sideways quite a bit to find movies (like within your recently watched, new releases, etc.) instead of up and down.

I'd imagine that if you don't like the touchpad remote, than the 220 will probably do just as well for most people. I love the styling and the slot loading mechanism on the 320 so for me it's a keeper. There may be other differences between the 220 and 320 that I'm not aware of, so perhaps others can chime in.

So I was originally going to buy the 210...is the 220 the way to go now?
1) the price went up on the 210...I saw it for 124.99 and most places have it at 199. Where the 220 is 134.99.

Yes. It takes a few seconds before it gets to full quality. I've seen this on a Roku as well. It's just the way it works.

My problems with the BDT-220 so far are:
1. It thinks my 802.11n wireless network is 802.11g. At one point it thought it was 802.11b. The thing is less than 15 feet from my router -- this is not what I would consider decent wireless network performance.

2. There's an awful lot of lag when I try to navigate Netflix. I press a directional button and it takes a second before the cursor moves that direction. Anybody else having this problem?

Edit: I'm using the 1.22 firmware, which is currently the latest revision.

Caiwyn, I wonder if the 320 has a different wireless card built in than the 220. I'm not sure how the 320 is seeing my wireless network (which is a dual band D-Link G, N type router) but I don't have any lag at all and my router is probably 50 feet away and on another floor from the 320.

Only positive thing about getting the 210 would be to get the free Avatar 3D Blu Ray, if that promo is still valid.

But presumably, the chips for things like streaming are better?

What about the difference between the 220 and 320, mainly the dual HDMI thing right?

It's the same code as the "SUBMENU" button on the 2011 models.

It's called "adaptive bit rate streaming". If, for whatever reason, the player can't keep up with the current quality stream it will seamlessly switch to a lower quality and back to a higher quality when it senses that conditions have improved. Those switches should be completely seamless, like the focus of a lens softening and sharpening. The PS3 used to start with a really crappy, quick-to-buffer encoding to get something up on the screen as soon as possible, usually within 3 seconds, then ramp up to higher quality encodings as quickly as possible. It and some other players still do that, but it doesn't start as quickly as it once did.

The old interface had more than twice as many genres/subgenres and for every one it could give you up to 250 titles to browse, of which you could view 10 at a time. In the new UI you can only see 5 titles at once and except for your instant queue, it will only give you up to 75 titles to browse for any genre/subgenre. The one superior feature of the new UI is its presentation of TV series episode lists. The old UI just gave you a straight list of all available episodes, each labelled "Sx:Ey" where x and y were season and episode numbers; the new UI gives you tabs for each season and when you select one it displays a list of episodes for that season. I was hoping for more powerful processor to make the Netflix UI more responsive, but if anything it's less responsive than before.

No dual HDMI on the 320--you don't get that until the 500, whose list price if $350.

The primary difference between the 220 and 320 are enclosure style, touchpad remote, slot loading and a sensor, unique to the 320 among 2012 models, which can tell when someone is moving within a certain distance of the unit and if so switch from lowest power standby (1 Watt) to quick start standby (3 Watts).

Dang, that is a long time. I have the feeling the codes for the new Pannys won't take too long though.

Would someone please tell me if the pop up menu works on the Harmony remote using last year's 310 model programmed? Can't get it to work on my Harmony remote.

I left everything at default, escept I changed Normal to Fine and wow the picture for dvd upconversion and the BD picture are excellent. I own the 215.

I agree with you about turning everything off. Why would anyone do it?

This why I am wondering about buying the 220 or the 320, is there really a difference? I saw the 320 at Best Buy today for $199.99, a little to high for me. It is a shunken light weight machine with a slot drive.

Works for me, using my Harmony One.

You have the BDT320 correct?

I don't seem to have any lag problems during actual playback. It's the menus themselves that are slow to respond. Navigating the Netflix interface is what's laggy. It can take a full second to respond just to the directional keys.

Should I chalk this up to lack of internal memory? Is this common on other players at this price point? This is my first blu-ray player, and I bought it to obviate the need for a Roku, but I'm not super impressed with it so far.