Official Panasonic DMP-BDT 220/320/500 Owners Thread - Page 23

Really? No kiddin'.

I have a Sony S570 before and it is faster than my Panny 110 on bootup. However, its Netflix app is pretty basic. Can't comment on DVD PQ because I don't watch any. But from all the reviews, Panasonic's DVD upconversion is quoted to be the best (that's what the Super Video processing is for, not for BluRays). But, ultimately, there is only so much you can improve on a low res DVD picture.

BluRay PQ wise, they all are similar.

Does anyone know if Best Buy or a local retailer is going to carry the BDT220? As of yet I can't find it locally

Patience grasshopper. They're probably just trying to clear out old stock first. Everybody will carry them soon. My local Best Buy has several on the shelf already.

I have a question/questions about using a BluRay player for music.

I just recent picked up the 220 after not having a new DVD player or CD player in more than 10 years. (!!)

I was hoping to replace my old beast of a CD player with the 220 and play music off CDs and USB/LAN. However, when you play a CD, the screen that comes up is pedestrian at best, and I imagine would burn in my plasma if I left it on there the whole time the CD was on. I imagine USB/LAN is similar.

Question 1: Do other people also use their player for music, and not have a CD player?

Question 2: Is there some sort of screen saver or something on this thing? Again, what do you do when you want to play music?

Question 3: Is there a better alternative? Or should I just keep the old CD player?

I use it for music and just turn off the TV. If using Viera Link, you have to use the Sub Menu button to turn off the TV, Otherwise, just power it off.

I use my plasyers for music. There is a screen saver in the setup menu.

S~

Sure. Some of the things a like about the Sony that the Panny doesn't have are: Subtitle button, the mbps data info on the screen when your press the info buttom, I think some of the old Pannys had this, but it is not present on the new 320. When you do chapters skip, the Sony displays the chapter numbers as you skip, the Panny doesn't (unless you press the status button first and then press the skip buttom after) Also, at least on the new Panny 320, there's a about 2 seconds lag when you press the skip chapter buttom, on the Sony is instantly. Menu navigation is faster and smoother on the Sony, for example, on The Independence Day BD disc, on the Panny when you try to toggle between the options on the main menu, it feels like it is moving in slow motion, this also happens on other BD discs like, Terminator: Skynet edition. The Panny def. feels clunkier. I have a collection of over 200 BD movies, and the only movie on my collection that the Panny loads faster than the Sony is Avatar. I like some the things on the Panny 320, like slot loading, super slim design and the fact that the power cable is not fixed like in the Sony. But with the PQ/AQ being identical to my eyes, I just much preffer the Sony player performance and "little" perks.

Because it has DUAL HDMI outputs for Non-3D Compatible AVRs.

I'll sell you a 2 month old the 310 for cheap money.

That reminds me - I have a TH42PZ80U (42" Panasonic Plasma) and am trying to use Viera Link. The TV turns on when I turn on the 220, but I can't get it to turn off the TV. Any ideas? I do have the 220 set to use the quick startup mode if that makes any difference.

^^^

What if you turn off the TV, will that also turn off the player? That's how a lot of mine work.

There are also sometimes options for setting how power should behave over viera link.

Wait until the BDT500 is released, the BDT210/220/320 will go down in price. Who knows you might want the 500

Good question - haven't tried that yet, I'll do that tonight. I think you're right, though - Viera Link will turn on the TV when the player is turned on and turn off the player with the TV is turned off. Why it can't turn off the TV when the player is turned off is beyond me.

Actually, they may. Hometheaterhifi.com benchmarked both the Sony S580 and the Panny BDT210 last year. They found that the the Sony quite incorrectly output all colorspaces (both the luma and chroma components) over HDMI, and not by a small amount. The average DEs were generally over 6. On a good quality, calibrated display, this is likely noticeable, given that the most liberal standard for perceptible color difference that I recall is a DE of 4 or greater. This information alone drove me away from the Sony players.

The Panny, on the other hand, was bit perfect for all colorspaces, provided the Chroma Enhancement feature was turned off.

As mdavej wrote, if you use the TV remote to turn off, it will also turn off the player. Think about the logic:

1) Turning on the BD (with its remote), you need the TV to watch anything, so it turns the TV on automatically.

2) Turning off the BD (with its remote) you may want to continue watching cable or OTA, so it does NOT automatically turn off TV (which would initiate power off cycle, cooling down etc).

3) Turning on TV (with its remote) will also turn on whichever device currently has input (BD, cable box etc). Switching input to another device same thing.

4) Turning off TV (with its remote) will turn off other devices (BD etc) as you probably don't need them without the TV. At least will it turn off the currently active input device.

5) The exception is when you want to use the BD for music through an AVR, no TV needed. That's why the Panny has an option to turn off just the TV.

At least that's how it works between my Panny 110 and Mitsubishi TV.

Yes, I can understand that logic. I guess I just wish there was an option to set the TV to turn off when you turn off the player if you want it to. In the room I have it in, the player is the only thing we use with the TV.

This article is incorrect. Hometheaterhifi has since posted a comment on their S580 review indicating that they did not test the player correctly. The player in FACT is outputing all the colorspaces correctly when everything is set at the standard defaults. You can re-visit their review again and see it for yourself.

Turning off the TV will turn off the player. I found this out the hardway. Called panasonic and they told me to turn off "Vieralink". Once I did that no mutl. devices powering on and off. I just turn them on/off manually when using the player. Much easier

Sure, understood. I disabled VieraLink because I like to use the player for music (CD or Pandora) without ever turning on the TV. But it happens regularly that we find either the TV or the Panny still on when we get up in the morning.

Of course this is what universal remotes are for. But if you can get used to turning on/off with the TV remote, you can use the BD remote for everything else.

OR as we did for a while, use the TV remote as primary. Navigation and most of the other critical keys are send through VieraLink - even with our Mitsubishi TV.

Actually the CEC controls work perfectly for me with my Mitsubishi. When I turn on my 310 with the Panny remote, the tv also turns on and switches to its appropiate hdmi input. When I switch hdmi inputs with the tv remote the 310 turns on, and when I turn off the tv or switch inputs with the tv remote the 310 also turns off. Maybe this is because of the dual hdmi outputs with the video out going directly to an hdmi input on the tv.

No it's not because of the dual hdmi, it works perfectly with my Mitsubishi too using a 110 - as I described in my previous two posts.

I keep CEC/VieraLink disabled because I actually like to be able to turn the player on for music without the TV (and to keep it on when turning off the TV) - as also described in my posts.

I was describing the logic of how it works and providing some thoughts on how to automatically turn off the TV when the player is turned off - which I bet yours doesn't do either. It shouldn't.

Edit: I see the misunderstanding now: The reason we sometimes find the TV or BD on in the morning is because we forget to manually turn off both. Again we keep CEC/VieraLink disabled for music. Hope that clarifies.

I'm thinking about purchasing and wanted to know a couple quick things

1. Can you zoom in on an image when you are watching say...2:35 aspect ratio stuff? What are the zoom options? x1 and x2?

2. Can anyone compare the 2D-3D conversion quality to last year's Samsung bluray players?

Thanks ahead of time,

Mike

I read that comment, written by "Jay Dawn". Jay Dawn is not listed as staff or a contributor to Hometheaterhifi.com. And it seems rather odd that they would refute their rather scathing review of the player in a comment instead of revising the article. Further, the comment says nothing about measurements being performed again. It's just an out-of-hand statement of how the player was not in the correct mode, but there's no evidence that this is true. Note also that in the review of the 580, they also pulled out a 570 and tested it. They saw that the 570 itself had poor colorspace output, but not as bad as the 580.

Hmmm.... Very interesting.

Will these new Panasonics playback BDXL disc's?

Thank you Liguy and Cortiz for your answers. Mike

Ok, I haven't seen any way to jump to a specific time in a MKV/MP4 file played from usb or network. Haven't even started testing disc playback yet, so I'm not sure about this with dvd/blu-rays either. I have a few MKVs that for whatever reason will not fast forward or rewind at all with the 220, so being able to enter a time to jump to would be helpful. Is this obvious and I'm just missing it?

Also wondering if anyone can comment on their experience with using 40mhz 802.11n wifi connections on these players? I believe in the network setup menu they refer to it as "Double Speed Mode Setting (2.4GHz)". I currently have this turned off as my access point is manually set to only use 20mhz. If I would get better LAN streaming performance with 40mhz I might change it.

Sort of related question. Trying to do some fact finding prior to purchase. Will the DMP-BDT320 see the 5.0Ghz frequency?