Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

• Final Standard Profile Blu-ray Player (BD-ROM Profile1 version 1.1)
• 1080p output: 24p/60p via HDMI v1.3 with Deep Color
• Up-conversion of standard DVDs to 1080p Playback
• Dolby True HD Decoder, DTS/DTS-HD High Resolution/Master Audio Decoder
• Pixel Precision Progressive Progressing for HD

The Panasonic DMP-BD30K is the newest Blu-ray player out there and has most of the latest features including being 1.1 Blu-ray compliant.

Being a previous Sony BDP-S300 owner, I found some important advantages with the Panasonic. It may not be that important overall, but the Panasonic loads in about half of the time that the Sony player does. It has a sleek look with a drop down panel that exposes the disc slot. The Panasonic plays all the current audio formats such as Dolby Digital TotalHD which many of the older player do not. Of course, you need a current receiver to play these newer formats.

On the negative side, the worst is the remote. It has the strangest layout. Logic was not employed very well in the design. There are no lighted buttons as well. If you want to quit certain functions, you must first hit the "Return" button on the remote. Most other players have a return button on the specific function built right into the software. But with the Pansonic, you have to hit the remote to get out of it.

Overall, this player displays a superb high-def picture. Panasonic has cut a few corners from its previous models to keep the price at $500. But for the money, this is the one to get. Now if they would only fix that remote!!!

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Being a relative novice to hi-def video, as well as format neutral, it's hard to review this type of product without dragging compared products in, but I'll try. I can say right off that Panasonic has taken the sting out of the higher price of Blu-Ray players with a good offering of features you won't find in the, um, more reasonably priced choice. Not the least of which is performance. After a bit of research, I went with Panasonic due to positive reviews and how I feel about the Panasonic name, which has been associated largely with video, unlike other manufacturers who try to spread themselves across a wider variety of products. It was a good call on my part, as things turned out. Startup is quick, around 15 seconds, and disc loading is snappy as well. Setup is quick and easy, and you have a choice for audio output of either optical or coaxial.

Other nice features of this player include variety of media: You can play not only standard music CDs (a given) but also MP3 discs. That's a lot of continuous music if you have your files burned to DVD. You can also view JPG digital photos from both disc and SD cards ... one almost frivolous feature allows you to run a slide show with music using both SD and CD functions. You can also view full resolution home HD video saved to SD; I don't have that type of camcorder yet, but it does take home video viewing to a whole new level.

One drawback that keeps this unit from being perfect, though not a biggie for me at this early stage, is no ethernet connectability for firmware upgrading. This means you have to download and burn upgrades to disc, and it's set up exclusively for Windows; being a Mac user, this kind of leaves me out in the cold. I did not encounter this problem with the other player. Though I have to say, this machine performs so smoothly right out of the box, the adage "if it works, don't fix it" is appropriate. Remember, high definition video players are more like computers, and if you insert a data file, especially one that's supposed to upgrade the machine, and it wasn't formatted properly to the disc, it could mean a trip to the service center.

For many of us with a large library of accumulated titles, upconversion is the bottom line/dealmaker. Some (not all) HD televisions have a built-in Zoom setting; my lower echelon model doesn't. Fortunately, the BD30K has its own zoom setting, which does a great job with letterboxed widescreen titles, filling the whole screen as opposed to merely stretching it horizontally, a weakness of earlier players.

Note: When I first wrote this review, the format wars were still raging away, and there was more comparison to HD-DVD players, which is now no longer relevant. I've revised the review accordingly, gotten a lot of use out of the unit since, and can honestly say I am still very satisfied with this purchase and the flexibility it offers, as well something should for the price I originally paid (about $500 retail), which has come down since. Panasonic does offer firmware upgrades you can download from their site, to stay updated with newer features available on some Blu-Ray titles. The link to updates is:

http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/support/Video/Blu-ray-Disc-Players/model.DMP-BD30K#

Read Best Reviews of Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Here

First of all Amazon needs to go back to the old format that only allowed people who actually bought the product on Amazon to review it. I bought this product on ebay and so far I love it. The quality is amazing even for regular DVD's. I love that I can plug in the SD Card from my digital camera, the quality of the 12 megapixels pictures look terrific. The two people who wrote 1 star reviews for this product DO NOT EVEN OWN IT. Look at all their reviews, they trash anything blu-ray and give anything HD DVD 5 stars... bias. Anyway, for the price this is an amazing unit. Stay away from the other ones that might be around $300 (Sony, Samsung) because they are not using the final blu-ray format that allows for picture-in-picture (1.2) or the final one 2.0. This one is using the most up to date format, altough the 2.0 format will allow for content download from the internet, I am perfectly happy with this one (Thank you to the people who corrected my mistake with the format). The best you can do go get rid of reviews that are not "real" is to report them as "not helpful" or answer no to the question of "was this review helpful?". Oh and finally don't waste $100 on a Monster HDMI cable... mycablemart dot com has great quality cables for a fraction of what other retailers sell them for.

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I had a Sony BDP-S1 which was generally reliable but will not pass TrueHD or DTS-MA which is a must if you want the full effect of having HD. The BD30 has excellent picture quality for blu-ray and almost as good upconverting of SD DVD as my Toshiba HD-XA2. There are numerous picture controls for adjusting to your particular taste. No issues playing any discs as has been a problem with people who own Samsung players. If you have a new receiver with HDMI 1.3 and DTS, TrueHD capability, this player will bitstream all the audio codecs (the player does not decode them internally). After listening to discs with DTS-MA I don't know if Dolby 5.1 will cut it for me anymore. The sound difference is amazing. A must have unit. Although it doesn't have ethernet capabilities it can still be updated by computer download and writing to cd. It is a simple procedure (there have already been 2 firmware updates, the latest today). People with Mac computers can do the same.

This player is an excellent player for Blu-ray discs, 1.1 profile, super fast loading, audio/picture are extremely good. So why the three stars? DVD upscaling is awful in this machine. For someone that has 500+ DVD library this is unacceptable especially for a 1.1 profile machine.

If you are looking for a stand alone Blu-ray player for just Blu-ray disc playback than I think this machine is the best choice right now. But if you need an excellent upscaler (like the Toshiba XA2) do not get this machine.

So, I am returning this machine and I am going to try my luck with a PS3. I want one machine to upscale DVD as well as my Toshiba XA2 and have superb Blu-ray picture/audio. Unfortunatley, the Panasonic DMP-30k only does half the job.