Panasonic DMP-77 series.

http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/model/DMP-BD77

So this seams to be a new model and I have bought it recently and would like to share my thoughts on it and eventually I will post a more detailed review but here are the initial thoughts!

Okay so I would like to say I am VERY impressed with what this guy will play! I have MKV's with all sorts of crazy combinations of audio and video and this player is great.
Positives:

-This thing will load a Blu-ray disk, and bring it right to the movies main menu faster than my 1 year old Sony DVD players that we have in our living room and two basement rooms! Its dirty and I THINK (can't say for sure) it even skips through those annoying previews...I haven't a clue but I never get aggravated anymore over waiting....


-It plays MKV's pretty well with:
H.264, MPEG-4 Visual, MPEG2 for video

-Was able to get it to play ANY .m2ts file but with Dolby TrueHD it flat out refuses to decode it let alone bit stream it, if the TrueHD has an AC-3 core along side, it will play it but usually stutters severely. Dolby TrueHD is sort of a pain in the ass with dealing with in general even though I love the codec it just isn't as useful as DTS-HD.

-Has DTS-HD Master Audio | Essentials which waters down DTS 96/24 and DTS-ES when decoded in the player BUT Will play standard DTS, DTS-ES Discrete, and DTS 96/24 in its full 6.1/6.0 with bit stream. (I know allot of people were up in arms about DTS-HD Essentials when they read the specs but honestly I prefer my AVR to decode everything if possible)

-Will play HE-AAC, and any amount of channels in AAC-LC but waters down 6ch AAC to stereo (properly without loosing channels) I don't use multichannel AAC at all so no loss.

-It decodes OR bit streams DTS-HD High Resolution audio all the way up to 96khz/24bit @ 3018kbps and beyond that bit rate it seams to stutter with bit streaming the audio...I'm guessing its a bottleneck of my USB flash drive.

-It will play DTS-HD Master Audio in an MKV container, but you must set it to internal decoding and it WILL studder unless you have a fast drive. I have confirmed its not just decoding the core as with 7.1 DTS-MA files my receiver receives 7.1 L-PCM and with 6.1 or 5.1 DTS-MA it receives 6.1 or 5.1 L-PCM properly. The DTS-MA is sort of an issue as the variable bit rate that can get high does not play nice when combined with decently high bit rate H.264 all streaming from a flash drive...for example today it just stuttered and didn't play the video with the DTS-MA until I switched my audio track to a AAC track I had in the MKV as well...sort of weird how its not reliable but whatever. Regardless if you need the reliability convert DTS-MA or TrueHD to FLAC and the player will have no trouble which brings me to my point next...

-The thing plays FLAC audio with up to 7.1 channels of 192khz and 24bit!! Yes thats right 192khz 24bit I was shocked! Oh yeah and it features a built in 192khz/24bit Digital Analog Converter for stereo analog out! Man if that was multichannel output and not just stereo I might start using my dads old Denon with multichannel analog in! The FLAC audio can be by its self or in an MKV and NEVER stutters, it decodes the FLAC and outputs it as 192khz/24bit 6channel or 8channel Linear PCM....beautiful! I have Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon ripped from Blu-ray with the 5.1 L-PCM ripped and compressed as FLAC in an MKV...sounds amazing and I can play it all from a flash drive with ease...MAN Panasonic did me a nice favor!

Some negatives are that
-The HDMI-CEC support only works to control AV volume (but my receiver doesn't play nice with it > )
-No DVD audio support which is dumb and stupid because it supports an absurd amount of other audio features that go way past the MLP/PCM found on DVD audio
-Does not have a coaxial/optical digital output so you are reliant on HDMI to your TV then SPDIF out if you have an older receiver and not all TV's support anything other than just Dolby Digital and PCM (though some new TVs do have DTS-HD passthrough)
Edited by nateo200 - 6/27/12 at 6:48am

Is it stereo or multichannel? I believe SPDIF can handle 96khz stereo but not multichannel unless its compressed 1510kbps DTS 96/24. My guess is you'll need to use HDMI and regardless its really the safest way to ensure you get the proper quality signal from any Blu-ray disc. My player has a stereo analog out that will do up to 192/24 if yours has that as well you might want to go the analog route.

Well yeah of course the receiver has better DAC's its primary purpose! But yeah I can do 96/24 over optical in 2ch or 96/24 8ch's on my MacBook Pro just didn't think that was standard but just remembered DVD-Video allows stereo 96/24 its just not common (thus technically some DVD players would support it). As for DVD-Audio, does your player list DVD-Audio as supported? I just assumed I guess and never tried but now that I think about it my player supports allot of things not listed...I don't really have any DVD-Audio discs though unfortunately. The 77 doesn't have an optical or coaxial digital output at all though, only HDMI and the stereo analog out...sorta sucks I guess but my receiver is HDMI and the player already does so much so I figured it had to have an achilles heal somewhere. But yeah when its done playing audio in a folder on a USB device sometimes it goes back to the main menu...didnt really bother me I just thought it was weird...