Panasonic DMP-BD10 First User Reports - Page 3  

That link will not open. Why don't you just tell us about it?

Yeah Yeah have fun, I dont have the resources to make it but.... Im sure ill be tourched by the post here wensday night or thursday mourning :(

RobertD, try the link again.

-Robert

I got this from Microsofts website ...
Also, the top browser bar shows "WWE Event Details - In Person Event." Maybe they are expecting a no holds barred battle royal? :D

I wish I could attend... that would be an excellent event!

Is it just me or are all of you practically holding your breath in anticipation of the OP's comments?

Robert, since you got a few of these Pannys in stock, did you get a chance to check them out at all?

That's the meeting where they'll all get together and spread lies like "the Samsung BD manual says it doesn't play BD-50s". Right, Robert?

I was reading this thread to find out about the new BD player, it seems to now be about a Microsoft HD DVD event.

Can we get back OT, I would like to hear about the BD player.

Why oh why did you spam this BD player discussion with HDDVD propaganda. Why why why why why why

Thank you....

Is Stealth one of the best bluray titles in your opinion?

Must be the DH5U - it's the only one with HDMI. That was my THIRD D-Theater box :D Oh the good old days...

Thanks Andrew - let us know more as you get some more flight-time with it...

Hmm it's starting to look like the Samsung is a good deal at the lower prices I see it going at these days. When I see one for $500 I may just buy it.

It would be interesting to have a comparison of the Samsung and Panasonic on some of the questionable Sony launch titles like TFE and HOFD if you can do this.

Of course, a three-way comparison on some of the Warners titles would also be very interesting.

I look forward to your review.

get rid of the off topic BS, will this never end :(

plenty D-Theater tapes available, I just recently bought another brand new 5u, I am still living in the good old days :D

-Gary

Why aren't these posts on HD-DVD moved to the HD-DVD Forum here at AVS?

If it looks like HD-DVD, quacks like HD-DVD, then it can't be BD....

Any more to report yet, dlg?

I agree. $500 and I am in (the Ebay deal seems a bit dodgy)

I agree a bit to good to be true but then hmm. Anyone here know when the Pioneer BD player is due? I understand that's the one BD player that also plays CD's right?

whats the retail on the Pioneer though?, 1500$+, nope, not for me, 1000$ one could possibly do, but over that, no way

-Gary

Ya'll ready for this?

I found the Panasonic BD10 at a SoCal Fry's this evening and just had to see what round two might look like. Some of you might remember that I originally posted my thoughts on the Samsung when it launch and was less than impressed, especially when pitted against the HD-A1. So how does the Panasonic stack up?

Initial impressions: Pretty good. It's a solid feeling player (not quite to the bulk of the HD-A1, but much better than the Samsung). The power cord is detachable which I know is a plus to some. I also noticed that back of player and the box both list "Java Powered," so we'll have to wait and see when the discs arrive. As I opened the box, I noticed that the player included a copy of Eight Below inside. Quite a nice surprise and chalk one up to Panasonic for offering up something to smile about right as you open the box. It also came with a certificate to go online and get two more free BD titles. The sheet says, "choose from some of today's hottest films," but it doesn't actually let you choose. The titles are Gone in 60 Seconds and The Great Raid. Boo for not letting me choose, but not too big a boo as they're still free.

Turning it on: the player is easily the quickest of the three main players out right now (HD-A1, BD-P1000, and the BD10) with the player off, hitting the open button it takes 15 seconds to power on and open the tray and another 25-30 before first play. However, it does still load the disc in stages, just like the Samsung. It does not, however, give you bizarre hourglasses or colored dots. It simply opens a box on the lower right corner that says "Now Reading." But again from off to first play, about 50 seconds total.

Settings: The player gives you about as many options as you can think of and if you've ever played around with one of Panny's better DVD players, you'll know what I mean. The player has settings for brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, gamma... I didn't mess with any of these settings though and simply calibrated my input to the normal setting and viewed everything HDMI at 1080i (my 50" Toshiba's native resolution) and ran all audio out of the HDMI to my Denon 3806 receiver.

BD Playback: I wanted to re-audition a few discs I had used when evaluating the Samsung while also looking at some of the new stuff that people have been raving about. I took looks at XXX, T2, Crash, Lord of War, Eight Below, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and I viewed SWAT in its entirety.

First things first... The Panasonic is not going to make any of the really bad BDs look all that much better. XXX still has pretty much all of the same problems that I saw on the Samsung. The film still looks soft and contains a good deal of artifacting, BUT... the Panny does look slightly better with a bit less noise and a bit more dimensionality. It still isn't a great looking disc, but I found it to be far less objectionable than I originally did back in June. But when I put in SWAT, I found an image that is far more in line with what I've become accustomed to with HD-DVD. It just had great depth and wonderful detail. I noticed very, very little artifacting of any kind during my viewing. Lord of War didn't exhibit the MPEG blocking that I saw with the Samsung. Eight Below and JASBSB both looked excellent, although Eight Below was a bit soft (which I believe to be the MPEG4) and JASBSB had some really over-saturated colors in spots (which I view as a master issue). Second round I'm much more impressed with current BD than I was 4 months ago.

Audio: Audio quality was first rate. The Panny, unlike the Samsung, will output both the LPCM 5.1 and Dolby/DTS 5.1 bitstreams without changing settings. This was something that really bothered me with the Samsung. I didn't mess with any of the analog outs or the coax/optical digi-outs. There is also a setting (unlike the Toshibas) to disable the button noises on BD discs. I have, however, found a bit of a bug (as the player works in my system at least). When changing soundtracks, either in the menu system or on the fly, from DD5.1 to LPCM5.1, the player doesn't give you all the channels. You'll hear left and right front. but no center or surrounds. Pressing stop and play will output the full PCM5.1. The player does have a Dolby Digital Plus logo on it and the manual lists that as a supported format.

*One other note... The Panasonic does not stutter when playing the Lionsgate titles with their DTS tracks, so this tells me it is a problem with the Samsung and its compatibility with those discs.

DVD Playback: Here's where the player is going to come under some fire. As a standard DVD player, I didn't feel that the Panasonic was in the same league as the Toshiba, or to a certain extent the Samsung. It's very good, but I felt, to my eyes, that it was quite a bit softer and lacking in detail. So as an SD-DVD player, I'm going to be continuing to use the Toshiba. BUT... Panasonic is the first player released that contains an appropriate zoom function for non-anamorphic letterbox material. There's a 4:3 mode that can either be set to Standard or Zoom. So watching the SWAT deleted scenes on the BD, they nicely filled the screen. With the Standard setting, they were stretched to fill the screen like on the Samsung. So the Panny gets a half point, but not a full since it contains no option to windowbox 4:3 material, either on an SD or BD disc.

Ergonomics: Ergonomically, this player's a mess. There's a very nice faceplate that you can drop to reveal the player's drawer and controls. Unfortunately, there's a very nice faceplate that you HAVE TO drop to reveal the player's drawer and controls. There's no open tray button on the remote, so you have to get up, drop the drawer down, and then open the tray. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but it becomes really annoying really quickly. The Panny also has the worst remote of the big three. There's a jog-shuttle that also performs duty as left right up down control and it's really sensitive. I actually had several instances where I popped up the BD overlay menus and when I tried to move left or right, it instead fast forwarded or rewound the film by accident. This is annoying. Fortunately, you can deactivate the jog shuttle in the menu, but then you do lose the jog-shuttle. I also think the display on the player is awful, only displaying the current playing time. There's no time remaining, chapter number, resolution setting, or anything else. So as you're chaptering forward, it's a little hard to know how far you've gone at a glance. Maybe this is something that can be set up in the player, but I haven't found it yet.

Firmwares: The player comes with two notes. One directs you to Panasonic's website where you'll be able to download and burn to CD the most current FW. The other says, "To further enhance the power of your HD experience, we'd like to send you free upgrades for DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD high definition audio when they are available." You fill out the card and send it in and Panasonic will mail you a free upgrade firmware when they are ready. Unfortunately, it doesn't say when this will be, but there you go.

Bottom Line: I've yet to have any snags, hang ups, or freezes and playback seems very, very good. Great discs look to be to the level of HD-DVD and therein lies the problem. This player is $800 more than the A1 and matching the performance of a player nearly a third the price of the Panasonic is going to be a bitter pill for many to swallow. So bitter, in fact, that I predict not too many people are going to be rushing out to pick this model up (and don't even get me started on the $1500 Pioneer). The inclusion of DVD-Audio is a nice bonus over all of the other HD players out there and I think this player has the potential to look tremendous with the right material, especially given the amount of set up options offered to tweak it to perfection. I'm much more hesitant to return this player than I was the Samsung, but I'm not totally sure if I'm completely sold on it, especially considering the SD-DVD playback. It's definitely a step in the right direction, but I think for $1300, people might have the right to expect more.

Cliff

Nice review! Enjoyed reading it.

Ditto - Great review!
Overall disappointing machine. Especially at the price. Still waiting for the Sony. If it bombs - may have to wait for a G2 Blu-ray machine.

Thanks Cliff. Looking forward to picking up my Panny on Monday. Everyone's complaining about the price. Are you all actually paying MSRP for these? I know I didn't...

mod

several OT posts deleted

please limit your posts to the BD10

Thanks

thanks for the review. very nice done. great read :)

Cliff,
Great review. Makes mine pale in comparison. I only looked at movies though and did not spend time with functionality, sound, etc because the most important thing to me is picture quality. I also did not look at upscaling DVD's as this is of no importance to me. So someone else will have to comment on these areas.

I think the main thing people are looking for is price/performance (at least I am especially with competing technologies and having two buy two formats which increases initial ownership costs.)

In this case like I mentioned earlier the unit is very poor. This is not a slam against BD and a vote for HD DVD. BD is capable of displaying excellent video quality (I will never understand why people dont see that?), but for people on this forum who want BD and HD DVD the ownerships costs may play a factor.

The Panasonic plays the discs without a hitch yet (which is a positive), but to my eyes there was minimal difference in any of the discs. I happen to have SWAT to and I did not notice the difference that Cliff did. Thats not to say there isnt one, but if there it is very hard to determine.

I think this player proves a few things:
1) The player is a true first gen unit. Minimal enhancements versus the Samsung.
2) Many BD titles were poorly encoded. The hardware is not going to change this.
3) The good movies still look good (near HD DVD quality) Warner titles are HD DVD quality.
4) Price is too high. For an additional $300 list you get the ability to potentially output DTS and Dolby True-HD.

I admit I have not spent more than 24 hours using the machine, but to me the importance of any unit is how does the movie look? If you are similar to me in this regard I think you wil feel the same.

Cliff did a great job of explaining usability and ergonomics in his review above. In short I am going to use the unit for another few days, but it is going back. Too much money for not enough performance increase. I do not expect the Sony to be much different. For those waiting on BD, my opinion is to find a refurb Samsung and buy into BD at the cheapest possible price. The 2nd gen units (or PS3 although I struggle with a video game system as my main playback device) should offer much better price/performance.

I paid MSRP as I just wanted the unit ASAP. The most I would pay on any first gen HD playback device is $750. I am confident that you did not get the Panny at this price.

I was awaiting the arrival of this system. I'm thankful for your review and it helps. From reading the review I doubt that I will return my Sammy, since I only paid 499. and it's a July build with the dots, not hourglass. I will of course check it out for myself, but with the MSRP what it is, I'd rather get the G2 HD DVD. I want to have both formats.

I was awaiting the arrival of this system. I'm thankful for your review and it helps. From reading the review I doubt that I will return my Sammy, since I only paid 499. and it's a July build with the dots, not hourglass. I will of course check it out for myself, but with the MSRP what it is, I'd rather get the G2 HD DVD. I want to have both formats.