Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

This is my first Blu-ray player and I have to say it's a mixture of good and bad.

Good: The picture quality is outstanding on both BD and DVD. I previously had an upconverting DVD player and I thought the picture looked only marginally better than my standard DVD player. But this player makes DVDs look surprisingly good! Sometimes I can't tell the picture apart from a true HD image.

The SD card slot is a neat idea. If I get an SD camcorder in the future I'll definitely take advantage of it.

The player itself is attractive. I like how they hid slots and buttons behind doors; it gives the face a sleek and simple look.

The bad: No zoom function whatsoever. I bought a 47" TV because I want to see a nice, big 47" picture on it. I don't care if the sides are clipped off a little or the aspect ratio is slightly distorted. Because of this bewildering oversight I'm forced to endure these huge black bars flanking my picture. Unfortunately, my TV's zoom options are disabled for HD images for some reason, so I can't fix the problem there either.

No DivX support: DivX playback is supported on even the cheapest of DVD players nowadays, so why wouldn't they include it on a $300 Blu-ray player? Beats me, but I'm not thrilled about it.

Painfully slow tray: I timed it. The time it takes from being completely off to when the tray is open and ready for a disc is a whopping 23 seconds. I would consider about 2-5 seconds to be a reasonable amount of time.

Because of the drawbacks I almost gave this player three stars but because of the oustanding video quality I'll be generous and give it four. However, I'll most likely replace it when something more suitable comes along.

I don't know sony does it(blue ray).But now I know how they won the HD war.This player was as cheap as the sony and all aspects of it's operation and function'installation,and set up are simple and quick.Picture is amazing,even compared to 1080p satellite!

I will say I am impressed with the audio/video quality of this machine. However, it seems that the more sophisticated user interface features depend upon the disk, not the machine, so some features like stop-resume described in the manual may not (and often don't) work. Furthermore, basics like resuming playback after switching off power are missing. This is a damn nuisance - each time you switch the power on you have to go through the entire disk initialization (quite slow at 30 seconds), and then through the forced copyright warnings, and then through the chapters to find your previous position - about 1.5 minutes total. The controls also seem to have a slow response (~1 second) in many cases. This is like going back to the stone age after using a recent DVD player.

Furthermore my DVD player has a 5-disk carousel (essential if different family members watch different films), and it can remember the last played position for up to 500 movies. When are they going to make carousel players for blu-ray? It may seem that I am unjustly picking on this player if others lack these same features - but it is my first player, and I can only write as I find.

This is my first Blu-Ray player. I purchased it after updating from a 27" CRT to a 50" Plasma. I bought this around the first of September from Amazon and I was very pleased with their customer service. Fast shipping on the product and no issues with it working. I chose this player based on reviews from [...]

The menus were really easy to navigate for set-up of first time features. Remote buttons are well labeled. I am most impressed with this player due to it's short load times. After putting in a movie I am at the main menu usually within 20 seconds. Some movies take a little longer but not much. I was really concerned about this when purchasing the player because I'd read several comments about some players taking minutes to load.

Picture quality and colors are great. This is my first HD television and Blu-Ray player so I cannot compare it to others, but for a first set-up I am more than satisfied. I've seen some upconversion of SD material that was really good, and some that was mediocre at best so I think the quality of the source material has a huge impact on upconversion quality.

Recently Panasonic has released the BD-35 so these units are going obsolete. The price of them should fall pretty low soon when the stores get desperate to close them out so keep an eye out.

bought this player because it promised 'High Def' video... I have yet to see it! I wasted time and money on this junk product.

I'm going back to my VHS-C and putting on some 'Charles in Charge'.

blue ray is out dated and has horrible quality.

Does everything i wanted it for. right now it is just hooked to a tv, no surround. works great, easy to set up and use. later it will be hooked to a panasonic tv. would buy again. also compared prices and this dvd player was $[...] MORE at [...]- just fyi.

Worked perfectly right out of the box with virtually no learning curve. Very user friendly and right up to date with an unbeatable price.

Made my choice on this product over a SONY model.

First time set up is really easy -- plug in and change a few on-screen menu items, that's it! Only the audio part took another try to output Dolby 5.1.

Test the machine on BBC's Planet Earth, really crisp images and vivid colors.

The unit was easy to integrate into Home theater. The video and sound are great. What I also like is the ability to plug in my camera SD chip and see the pictures in high resolution. Great for slide show presentation of your vacation / reunion etc. and you can also have background music from a CD if you use the SD chip for the slide show. GREAT SYSTEM.

The best in the market, works after you update the Blu-ray. The images are very clear, the colors, is like you are in the movies, I am very happy that I have two of them. Panasonic is the best. I recommend.

The Panasonic blu-ray player is excellent. The store was very good and I hope to purchase more products. Thanks Ron

I've had the player for a couple of weeks now and I LOVE IT!! The price keeps dropping on this wonderful machine that can do so many things (up scale my old DVD's, incredible picture and sound with blu ray discs) and I haven't even upgraded the firmware yet from Panasonic! I also haven't used the SD card slot but will soon (to look at our digital camera pix). But so far, I'm extremely pleased by the performance, look and price of the Panasonic BD30!

I picked this BD player based on reviews here and CNET. I had become hooked on HD movies that I would buy and record on DirecTV. DirecTV changed their policies under pressure from studios so that you had to watch a recorded PPV within 24 hours. By signing up for NetFlix and buying this player I am happy again. NetFlix has greater choice and better tools for picking what I want to watch anyway.

I don't know how to rate it technically, but the recorder does what I expected, does it reasonbly quickly and the picture on my Panasonic 42 inch TV is fantastic. I have now desire for trick features anymore than I want interactive movies in a theater. All the old DVDs we've collected for grandkids play well too. (Original Shrek was exceptional)

I was considering a Play Station 3 to play BluRay movies because it would also provide games to play with grandkids. But by the time I bought the necessary remote and game equipment I would have spent an extra couple hundred dollars. And, I already have a Wii.

There were one or two cheaper players but some said they were slow to get started. Unless you are waiting for a lower price and more of the trick features, buy this one. It plays movies from NetFlix very well.

The bluray player is working okay. I am not sure if it is any better than a regular or hd dvd player because it is the only player I have used with my new panasonic plazma tv. I have had some broken up (wavy) viewing but I don't know if it is the dvd or the player itself. I will have to watch it to see if it happens with other dvd's we play. I was expecting that all of the movies that we watched using this player would come up in the FULL screen of the tv but we are still getting black borders at the top and bottom. I am not sure if there is a way to eliminate those black borders altogether. Well, anyway, I am enjoying both my new tv and my bluray player. I have some things to learn about using both.

I wanted a player for BD,DVD and other media and this one does it all. The price was quite modist. It shows off my HD tv.

A ton of options, excellent blu-ray picture, excellent dvd upscale picture and you can change how the pictures are rendered with many options (brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, 3d NR, integrated NR etc) that would be the user setting or just choose from presets (normal, cinema, soft, fine) This machine is rock solid when it comes to construction it seems extremely durable and the tray auto hides behind an auto-flip door. It has a slim semi-circle blue-green light in the front cente middle and looks great. The remote is very functional and it operates the main features of my tv and audio receiver apart from the DVD/BLU-RAY. Again extremely durable; this remote is heavy and made of thick hard plastic and you can feel the excellent durability when you use it. Go to Panasonic website for updates that are burnt to cd and applied to player. I would buy this all over again in a moment.

Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player

I was holding off buying a Blu-ray player until the new ones came out (price, features), but upon reading the many good reviews of this particular player, and seeing the rather low price, I decided to jump into Blu-ray. I'm very glad I did. This machine features excellent video and audio output (I'm running my signals via HDMI into a new Yamaha receiver and then to a Samsung 46" LCD), and has a really quick boot-up time as well. One of the things I was holding out for was fast loading, and most players seemed (at least in the reviews I was reading) to be slow-to-glacial in that department. While this one isn't instantaneous, it's quick. It also upconverts regular DVDs at least as well as my Sony upconvert DVD player was doing (doesn't have the multi-disc memory, unfortunately, but I can live without that). Setup was quick and easy, remote seems to be ok (still learning it), basically plug 'n play. I'm very happy with the player. If you are on the fence about going Blu-ray, this is a relatively inexpensive way to do so. The first time you play a good disc (there are good ones and ok ones, Google "Blu-ray reviews"), and the audio kicks in and you see an image on your screen that is incredibly clear and sharp, you'll understand.

Hi, I wanted to post that after I ordered this Panny Blu-Ray I read of nothing but issues with this player on a Samsung LCD TV, and last night when I got it hooked up I had NO issues, I had it set at 1080P and 24P and HDMI 1.3, I watched a full movie and will keep a eye on it, I don't know the firmware yet but I was very worried that I would have major issues with a Samsung LCD 81 series...

I also got a cheap HDMI cable for $5.00 and it's working great!

The great advantage of Panasonic DVD players over other brands is that with the Panasonic you can lower subtitles to the bottom of the screen and also fade the subtitles out, so they become much less noticeable. People who like foreign movies, like me, or people who are hard of hearing, appreciate the ability to make the subtitles less intrusive.

Has anyone asked whether the Panasonic Blu-Ray includes this important feature, or whether it has been discontinued?

Dear Fellow Amazonians -

So I just received my brand new Panasonic DMP-BD30 and was excited to try it out on my brand new Samsung LCD. I put in the brand new Transformers Blu-ray and what happened -- NOTHING. It started to load and then stopped abruptly. I tried some other Blu-rays which played fne.

I researched the issue on the Internet and it turns out that quite a few other people have experienced this problem as well. The on-screen error says "Cannot Read" and pretty much every Internet post has said this means the drive has failed -- get a new player.

I tried to update the firmware following Panasonic's instructions to a "T" with a burnt CD-R disk and again I got the same "Cannot Read" on-screen error.

So beware -- this player may or may not work for you, but it seems like on the whole most of them do.

Pros:
- Good value compared to competition
- Intuitive Menu
- Blu-rays look great at 1080p (when they work)

Cons:
- Slow loading; I don't have a baseline to compare this model against, but for a modern day electronic device it seems to turn on, load discs, and play movies extremely slow
- Possible defective unit at purchase or after continued use

Hope yours works better than mine!

Thank you Amazon for having such a great return and replacement policy!


*I will update when I get my replacement player from Amazon to let everyone know if it performs any better. Until then!

I've owned this player since January'08 and absolutely love it! If you are looking for a standalone player to primarily watch movies, with all of the sound processing capabilities you could ask for, and the stability to play all BD's, this one is it. This receives excellent reviews across the board. I own several hi-def and regular DVD players, and with the current price tag, you cannot go wrong. I own over 350 hi-def movies and have never had a problem. Easy updates for firmware, too. Excellent value, quality company. Do not hesitate to purchase this player.

I own three BD players, one HD-DVD player, Denon 7.1ch amp, 7.1 ch Bose speakers, and etc.
First, this player has both the most advanced logic semiconductor technology and very good software algorithm that enable lower noise but vivid graphics and high-quality sound. I tested using blu-ray test sample disks distributed from DTS and Dolby, and found that this player has the least block decoding noises, while the vividness of the color is the best of all. Its controller is not the best but very good enough.
I use this player at the main audio/video room. I highly recommend this to people who are thinking about future upgrade of AV amp that can handle DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD bit stream. You will be definitely amazed by the quality of music (particularly compared with music CD) from which you can feel the touch of string of acoustic guitar and complex harmonic overtone from saxophone and piano, as if you were listening to the live concert. You need to check the quality of the source, though. I used the reference disks, one of which has amazing high-quality performance of Chieli Minucci. Personally I am 200% sure that BD's biggest surprise for me was the huge improvement of music quality, which you cannot expect from your cable/satellite HD channels.
One downside that I have for ALL the current BD players is that it takes too long to start up the menu. It might be unavoidable as the system is now getting more closer to PC and using flash memory to shorten the time may eventually increase cost. That said, from consumers' viewpoint shorter wake-up time seems to be important. It just does not feel good.

First of all I own two Panasonic DVD recorders, one of them I've recorded over 800 DVD-R movies on without a single problem so I'm a Pana fan. I researched the reviews here on Amazon and the BD-30 looked good to me so I ordered one. Got it about a week ago with the recommended HDMI 1.3 cable and hooked it up to my 72" Toshiba DLP TV. Turned it on, put in "Full Metal Jacket" and set back and was amazed for the next two hours. I've since viewed a few Blu-Ray disks and the BD-30 has been flawless, absolutely zero problems with it. What nobody has mentioned (at least I didn't see it) is the SD card JPEG pictures it produces. I kinda expected the pictures to be grainy blown up to a 72" screen size but I have a 7 Meg camera and the pictures were stunningly clear and have beautiful color. To me this is a nice bonus feature and I'm sure if I buy a Hi-Def camcorder that records on SD cards, it will knock my socks off. Anyway, I'm glad I waited until the bugs were worked out and the prices dropped on Blu-Ray players and I'm very happy with Panasonic equipment and highly recommend this player.

Moved up to a full HD system recently including the purchase of this BD player. It is amazing how nice the picture is coming from a BD player. Can't really compare the unit to anything other than a DVD on an old tube TV; so, I don't have a lot to go on other than the picture looks incredible. The Planet Earth series has been amazing. The unit has easy connection to my Panasonic HDTV and seems to communicate with the TV, e.g. when I start playing a disk, it automatically switches the TV input to the player - nice feature. Remote seems descent enough. Construction quality seems good so far.

I purchased a reconditioned pansonic unit. I'm very satified. After reading reviews this unit seems to have the best bang for the buck.

While this product produces excellent video output, its optical out does not produce 5.1 or 7.1 Dolby Digital. To get that a HDMI receiver is necessary. Most TVs that have HDMI input (mine Toshiba Regza) also have an Optical out, but that again is a Stereo out and not 5.1 or 7.1. So plan to buy a HDMI receiver in addition to this player.

I found all this out after I had purchased both the player and TV and when hooked up, could not get DD 5.1 on my old receiver. Wish I knew before, I might have gone for a player or TV that could do DD out.

With HD-DVD gone with the wind, I purchased this player as a high definition (Blu-Ray) disc source to replace my 2nd generation Toshiba HD-DVD player. Although still not as fast as your standard DVD player, I found significant peformance improvment in starting up and reading discs compared to earlier generation high-definition players.

My player is connected via HDMI to a Sony VPL-VW50 (1080p) projector and is projected on a 100" screen. Blu-Ray picture quality is vivid with great sound effects. Setup was very easy and the player has operated flawlessly. Standard DVDs also play with very good picture quality. The player appears to have good DVD upconversion to 1080p.

I upgraded my firmware from version 1.6 to 1.8 using a CD-R by downloading the update from the Panasonic website. The CD-Rs which I created using Vista (tried various formattings) gave an error message and ejected the disc. An earlier post mentions the need to create ISO compliant disk. I used a freeware Express Burn (nch.com.au)to create the CD-R data disk which worked.

The player has good quality fit and finish. The remote is easy to read, though could use a backlight.

I noticed the player is now directly avaiable from Amazon (free shipping with Prime) at about 10% off what others are charging.

I was relying on my PS3 most of the time but now that there are more Blu-ray players out on the market, I decided to buy a stand-alone unit. AFter much research I bought the Panasonic and it works really well. Picture quality is probably even better than my PS3 can give. I can't be happier. Too bad Blu-ray movies are still too expensive.

Great quality of both picture and sound. Product now costs more than I paid because I went with Blu-Ray early. Research paid off!!

This blu ray player does everything it's suppose to. Beautiful picture. I bought it to go with my Denon 3808, which handles all the up conversions and other things a more expensive player is designed to do. I don't need ethernet. All I want to do is watch great movies with a great picture: 1080p. The Panasonic BD 30 does it well.

I am very pleased with this product!

The controller needs backlighting, and the menues are not easy to use. For example, I had to search and search for the tiny little open tray button, which is placed in the upper left corner of the remote.

It takes about 15 to 20 seconds to warm up, but then reading the drive and access is quick.

I may need to update the firmware which is easy to download from the Panasonic wed site.

Michael

JUST GOT MY PANA BD 30 PLAYER LAST MON 19/5/08 THRU AMAZON ( THEIR DELIVERY WAS VERY VERY PROMPT & A SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OF YOU PEOPLE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR RESP. REVIEWS SO I COULD CONFIDENTLY ORDER THE SAME ONLINE) & LUCKILY GOT YAMAHA 1800 AMP. WITH LATEST HD FORMAT SOUNDS SAME DAY HOOKED BOTH THE BD & AMP TO EXISTING SANYO Z 5 PROJECTOR WITH 120" SCREEN & A VERY POWERFUL PARADIGM ULTRA CUBE 10 SUBWOOFER (1500WATTS) THE PICTURE & SOUND WAS UNBELIVABLE (MUCH BETTER THAN LOCAL MULTIPLEXES).I WATCHED AVP2/RESIDENT EVIL 3/ DIE HARD 4/ ETC ON BLU RAY DISC & THEY ALL WERE AMAZING WATCHING ON THESE SYSTEMS.THE PICTURE/SOUND QUALITY ON MY EARLIER DVD PIONEER 696A/YAMAHA 1400 WAS VERY GOOD BUT WITH THIS NEW PLAYER THE PICTURE/SOUND IS MUCH BETTER.
THE ONLY DRAWBACK WITH THE BD PLAYER IS THAT IT ONLY READ/PLAYS REGION 1 BDS/DVD'S WHICH IS NOT A VERY BIG ISSUE SINCE 99% OF MY COLLECTION IS REGION 1'S.
I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMEND THIS PLAYER & GIVE IT 6 ******'S IF POSSIBLE & WITH A GOOD COMBINATION OF AMP/PROJ/TV/POWERFUL SUB WITH THIS PLAYER ONE WOULDNT VENTURE TO GO TO MULTIPLEXES TO WATCH MOVIES.
UDAY BHATIA. MUMBAI (INDIA)

This Panasonic Blu-Ray player is way better than the Sony BDP-S300. I actually own two large screen high definition TVs and each one has a blu-ray disc player attached. One of the TVs is connected to a Sony BDP-S300 and the other to a Panasonic DMP-BD30K. The Sony was the first one I owned, and I eventually got used to the frustrations involved in using it. Now that I have the Panasonic, though, it has become very difficult for me to put up with the Sony any longer!

The big difference is speed and responsiveness. Let me give you some very specific examples. I timed the two machines, so you can see what I mean when I say that the Sony is frustratingly slow and the Panasonic is much more responsive.

If the Sony is powered completely off and you decide you want to load a disc in to it and use it, you have to wait an agonizing 45 seconds from the time you push the eject button until the time the machine has completely booted up and opened the disc tray for you. 45 seconds! That is a horribly long time to wait for the door to open after pushing the eject button! The Panasonic boots up and slides open the tray in less than half the time: just 20 seconds.

I did a test using "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets" on both machines... seeing how long it took from the time I inserted the disc in to the machine until there was actually a picture on the TV screen. The Panasonic was six seconds faster than the Sony. That's just to get the very first thing (movie studio logo) to come up on the screen. To actually get the movie to start playing, that's another huge wait on the Sony. On the "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets" disc, there is a series of movie previews on the disc and when you finally get through all of those, the disc player will actually load all the menus and take you to the screen where you can actually begin playing the movie. On the Sony, the time it takes to get from the last movie preview, get everything loaded, and actually put the main movie menu up on the screen... it's an unbelievable two minutes and seven seconds. The Panasonic does it in 34 seconds.

Forgetting load times, the Panasonic is just more responsive overall. For example, if you are navigating through disc menus, things actually happen immediately as you push the buttons. On the Sony, you push a button, wait, and after a short delay the machine does what you told it to do. Very frustrating! It's like using a very old, under-powered computer with too little RAM and a microprocessor that is incapable of keeping up with the demands placed on it.

I think ten years from now we will laugh at the slow load times of the Panasonic DMP-BD30K... but at this time in the history of Blu-Ray players, it's way better than the competition!

This is a great player, my only regret is that it's just for zone 1 dvd's. I have a little collection of regular dvd's and they look great on my hd tv.

I purchased the Panasonic DMP-BD30K recently after Blu-ray won the HD format war. Last summer when I purchased an HD TV I initially went with the HD format with a top of the line Toshiba HD-XA2 - an excellent player. So I have some basis for comparison.

I really found myself liking the Panasonic BD30K. Updating the firmware to the 1.8 version was relatively easy and problem-free. The picture form Blu-Ray discs is excellent. Sharp and colors especially are vivid. In comparison I would say my Toshiba XA-2 is better for upconverting DVDs than the Panasonic.

I bought my BD30K through Amazon sellers for $480 so as far as I am concerned my purchase was a value. If you wait on Amazon or shop around at different sites (Circuit City, Best Buy) you may be able to find the unit at or around this price.

Mike

I paid $470 for mine (with shipping on eBay) and it was the best purchase I have made on a blu-ray player. I think the higher price reflects the quality of this player. This is, bar none, the best player on the market.

I had both the Samsung P1400 and the Sharp HP20 and the Samsung was a piece of junk. I had problems playing 1/2 of my BDs; skipping, picture going blank with audio continuing, power failures, etc. (and yes, I had the latest firmware updates installed). The Sharp HP20 I had minor issues with but the main flaw is it's limited audio ability.

This Panasonic bitstreams DolbyTrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio in 7.1 along with lossless PCM 7.1 and all the discs play flawlessly...

Yes, $500 kinda expensive, but you can't argue with the quality. The Samsung for $400 is an outright joke.

Now, if you want profile 2.0 capabilities, the Panasonic BD50 will be coming out soon. It is basically the same player but will have DTS HD MA and DolbyTrueHD decoders built into the machine (and will also bitstream them to a capable receiver) along with the Ethernet port for BDLive...

Either one you get, you cannot go wrong with the Panasonic!!!

For what it does, I give it a definite thumbs up! Was reading the reviews about the Sony and Samsung Blu-Ray players, didn't want to wait 3-5 min for a disc to play, so I got the Panasonic. No waiting at all, just load the disc and your on your way.
Very easy to operate, and downloading the firmware upgrade was a snap.
I can't fully appreciate the capabilities of this player yet, I have a 1080i LCD. But when you see a movie in 1080p, you'll be blown away.
Gonna get the Bravia XBR series, just waiting for a price reduction.
Although this is a great unit, I can't understand the price, come on, $500 is steep.

This player is super fast as compared to my SONY BDP-S300, new disney and FOX movies used to take more than 3 minutes to load on my SONY, i thought all BD players will be slow, this player is fast BD player, it decodes all advanced audio codecs. PQ is very good, i did see the flicker issue with my SAMSUNG LCD Tv, with firmware 1.6 upgrade problem was solved.

I would recommend this player, the price has to come down though. for some reason Bluray player prices went up after Toshiba dropped HD DVD, it is hard to find players at stores too.

Wow! What a great player. I just bought this with my tax refund, and I'm glad I did. I'm running it on my 50" 720p/1080i plasma, and it's crystal clear. No need for a 1080p. I'm not rich enough to spend the extra money for a 1080p. I had bought my Plasma on a clearance sale for $800, along with my clearance sale surround sound at a store closeout. Anyways, this player is great for surround sound, running it 7.1 on my pioneer elite sound system and Klipsch speaker set. Just to clarify on updating the firmware, I downloaded the 1.6 firmware from the website onto my computer, then burned it to a CD-R. I had problems the first time around because I did not finalize the CD-R after burning it. If you do not finalize the CD-R, the player will begin to read the disc but then eject it with a message saying LFVU. So finalize your CD-R when you burn the firmware to a CD-R. The 1.6 firmware improves the output level of Low Frequency Effects Channel and HDMI compatibility issues with some Plasma TVs.

This Blu-Ray DVD player brings out the best and most colorful picture I've ever seen from a movie. Played on a 1080P Samsung High Def TV. The shipment from Amazon was recieved in just a couple days and in perfect condition. I highly recommend this.

I have done a lot of research into Blu-ray players and honestly most of them DO NOT WORK. They skip, they dont track right and they are worthless. Panasonic seems to be the only players that constantly work. Even the Sony's have been removed from many Costco's due to lack of returns. This player is Amazing and quick to load compared to most other players on the market. And here is the biggest plus... IT WORKS! I have no problems with this player at all. It's even hard to find this player at Fry's, Bestbuy, and other stores because they are all sold out. Why? Because it works and the word is out. The biggest plus I really love is that if you have more then one panasonic player, you can change the remote code FINALLY on this player to not enject your other Panasonic products or power them when you turn this one on. FINALLY I dont have 3 DVD players opening when I hit the eject button. Over all this product is top notch for the current time frame and a great deal. Firmware is very easy to update if you have half a brain and know how to burn a CD or DVD to update the firmware. Currently they are only Rev 1.6 for the firmware as of this date.

If you buy one Blu-Ray Player this should be the one if you want it work and deliver an amazing sound and picture.

Panasonic has done it again! Still wish HD-DVD would have won considering the picture looks a HELL OF A LOT better on HD-DVD then it does on any Blu-ray disc.. How sad :( VHS won over beta again!

Well, what can I say.
This Blu-Ray disc player is just perfect.

I have ONKYO TX805 A/V system and it can play True-HD and DTS HD.
My previous PANASONIC Blu-ray player can also play these sounds but cannot play with bitstream process.

This one can do this process and the sound seems way powerful and devides clearly to each speakers I have. (I have two Polk Audio 60 for fronts and two Polk Audio 50 for Surround L/R and two Yamaha NS-125F for Surround back left/right, Center for Yamaha NSC-225. speakers)

Now I am truely ready for 7.1 channel Blu-ray discs which I haven't experienced before.

I heard that new RAMBO will be 7.1 channel mix for the first time.

This player truely finalize my home theater system.

Thanks to Panasonic.

This Blue Ray player is fairly fast and has excellent Picture and sound.
It does an excellent job of playing home recorded DVDs and CDs.
I do find the manual not very helpful and not well writin.

With the latest firmware, the latest new standard, this is a clear winner. Only lacks USB port. Everything else, like new remote, improved Dolby, is upgraded. Excellent value too. If you have not yet experienced Blu-Ray then get set for an incredible visual high. Warning - once you go Blu-Ray you'll never ever enjoy normal again. And Vann's, where I purchased this unit, is a GREAT sellor.

This is a really great player. However it does need firmware update. I almost went insane trying to figure out why I had sparks and statics flying through my Samsung LCD 52 inch screen. I returned one TV thinking it was defective, then got a different model (also Samsung) and all happening again. Then I saw that my player had version 1.2 of the firmware. The new version 1.6 released 02.25.2008 fixes the HDMI issues with Samsung TV especially. So, if you see problems like this with your player, don't return it, just upgrade the firmware. Then make sure that when you create the firmware disk, it is ISO compliant and is burned as DAO (Disk At Once). I have created 4 coasters before figuring this one out. You can find the update link here (select North America on that site if you are in the USA!!): [...]
Good luck!

The Amazon price for this player is outrageous. However, many suppliers are out of stock. So if you just got to have it, why not spend an extra
$300+.

I have used this player on two TV's, a Westinghouse 46" and a Toshiba 37" both 1080i not 1080p. The resolution on both is great and I have had no issues with the remote or responsiveness etc. The reason I went for this player is a good price at the time and previous good experiences with Panasonic products.

the video side it's excelent, but to get a good sound you will need a good sound procesor, for loading it's very fast compare with other bd player, and so far still playing all disk with out update

Great player, but software update instructions failed to provide a download so I called Panasonic to get the free download CD-R. They said it would arrive in 5 business days. That was a month ago, and no disc.

Many great reviews already. Just want to emphasize the fast loading times - discs play within 30 to 40 seconds. I was amazed at speed. Blows higher-priced Sony models out of the water.