Panasonic DMPBDT230 Wi-Fi Blu-Ray Player

• Fast Booting and Loading
• DVD/CD/JPEG playback
• Energy Star Qualified

It works very nicely, but whenever I turn it on, it displays ads for Zales, Myspace... and I am sure lots more will follow. I turned off the firmware updates because I KNOW this is how they change ads or make them more prominent. I would give this player 5 stars if they just let me use the player without invading my privacy. One day ad companies will realize the ads don't work. I won't go on Myspace or shop at Zales because they are invading my space without permission and/or warning.

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MIRACAST: I got this DVD player because I have a Google Galaxy Nexus phone and Google Nexus 10 tablet, both of which are running the latest Android software, which supports Miracast. However, the only Android device today whose hardware supports Miracast is the Google Nexus 4 phone. Ah well, that certainly wasn't what I was expecting and it took a considerable amount of web digging. The Blu-Ray player does not support Apple's AirPlay.

BACK PANEL: When I bought this there were not yet any pictures of the back panel posted, so here's what's there: Power, HDMI, wired ethernet (wifi is built in), and optical TOSLINK. That's it. Front panel has an SD Card slot and USB. Haven't tried these yet.

NETFLIX: Netflix streaming works well. Picture quality was good, though it did drop back from the best quality to just OK a few times, but this happens with all my Netflix capable devices presumably because my internet speed is borderline. I was not delighted with the time it takes to start the Netflix app, about 30 seconds. And the app itself is not as polished as you'll see on other contemporary devices. For example, scrolling through movies thumbnails on other devices animates the scrolling, but with this player, the thumbnails are in fixed positions (no animation, just updates what is in each "slot"). It appears to ask me each time I start Netflix if I want regular or the kids version -I wish it would remember. The UI seems to have the same elements (my queue, recommendations, popular, search) as I see on tablet apps and the website. Searching is by the painful cursor-keys-to-tap method. Not sure if there is a phone app that will pair, but failing that I'll manipulate my queue elsewhere and avoid searching on this player. So far things seem to be playing back only in stereo, not multi-channel. Not sure if this is Netflix or the player.

PLAYBACK: From what I've read, Blu-Ray playback quality is roughly equivalent on all players. I did compare DVD playback compared to my 6+ year old Panasonic DVD player which, at the time I bought it, had very good upsampling. This player did better than that one. In particular, diagonal lines didn't cause the attention-grabbing "crawling". I only have one AVCHD disc, the avsforum TV calibration disk I downloaded, and it appears to play fine. 24p playback seems to work.

Overall I'm happy with playback and Netflix. I wish my devices worked with Miracast, but I cannot fault this player for that.

Edit 2013-04-05:

SMARTPHONE REMOTE: I've downloaded the Android apps to control this Blu-Ray player. They didn't connect, but many others complain of the same problem. On the official Panasonic data sheet, it lists "Smartphone remote control" and shows that this player is not supported. I admit I'm surprised that this network-enabled player (Miracast, Netflix, etc.) isn't supported. Looks like you need to spend more for its big brother to get that feature.

DLNA: I already have a DLNA server in my house with music and movies. The Blu-Ray player was able to play back both music and movies. But I'll never do that because the UI is S-L-O-W. In fact, I assumed it wasn't going to play back a movie but more than a minute after I'd pressed OK it started playing.

NETFLIX: It *does* play back in multichannel audio with the right movie. And I've timed it at 25 seconds to launch the Netflix app.

I've reduced my rating to 4 stars because this player seems to be perfectly fine at playing discs and Netflix (with some Netflix UI quirks), the other features seem more like checked boxes rather than realistically usable, especially compared to the competition of Apple TVs, Roku, and Plex. In other words, I don't expect many folks will actually use the DLNA player, web browser, etc. And they shouldn't -Panasonic needs to raise it's game to the level of the competition.

Edit 2013-04-06:

Some more timings: From the menu to Blu-Ray (The Matrix) playing, 21 seconds. From the DLNA player, 2 minutes from pressing Play to when the movie starts (yes, 2 minutes!). This is over wifi; no there's no indication it's doing anything or buffering. For comparison, Plex on a tablet will start playing the same movie in 8 seconds.

I've posted an image of the DLNA browser, which shows just 5 entries per screen and takes a long time (maybe 10 seconds) between screens.

The UI has locked up twice now requiring me to pull the plug to reboot -that's what I get for being an early adopter. Also, I notice that last year's equivalent model, the 220, was controllable via a smartphone app. This year, neither the 230 or 330 are listed as having this feature. Hmm -perhaps this will change with future firmware.

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Having switched from a Samsung to this Panasonic, it wouldn't have taken much to impress me. That said, this item has exceeded my expectations. The machine will still "freeze" or lock up on occasion; however, this has been a great purchase so far.

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I purchased this player on Sunday and returned it on Monday. When it plays, video quality is excellent, however the buggy software often requires you to unplug the unit to get a response. When their is no disc in the player, it boots and works fine, however, if you have a disc in the player at boot up, it will crash while loading EVERY time. Also, when you power the unit on with the remote included with the player without a disc in, it will open the disc tray EVERY time. Maybe this is by design, but what if I want to watch Netflix?

Quite simply, this player seems like fine hardware, ruined by buggy software. I was using the latest update as of 4-13-13. While these issues may be fixed in future updates, for $130 I am not willing to take the chance they won't be fixed. I personally returned this unit for a Samsung, and am glad I did, it works great out of the box.

Save yourself the time, and skip this one. Shame, as previous Panasonic models seemed great.

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My ROKU box in the bed room was becoming obsolete along with my DVD player, so I decided to replace them. I waited for the DMPBDT 230 to come out. This player streams better then my old RoKU box, and is much faster. It doesn't have a lot of apps, but has NETFLIX and HULU PLUS, which I use. If you are looking for a combo unit, I would get this one. Do the research.