Panasonic DMP-BD10 - Blu-ray Disc player - upscaling
At last, Blu-ray Has Arrived! The Future is Now!
Forget about what others say about Blu-ray not having a great picture. There were some problems with the early Blu-ray titles released by Sony/Lion's Gate as they were poor transfers that used old Mpeg2 encodings. In some cases they even used dirty prints (The Fifth Element). They were simply rushed out the doors to make it to market the same time as HD DVD.It was a bad decision on the part of the BDA. Since then studios such as Disney, Paramount, and Fox have moved to encoding in Mpeg4/AVC and VC-1, the new advanced video codecs. Also, the first Blu-ray releases were on lower-capacity single-layer 25GB discs, which meant the video quality suffered. Fortunately, those days are over, and over quickly they were.<br /><br />Now the dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray discs have finally arrived, and the 'BD-50' releases are beginning to pour out. 'Click' was the first, and there are more coming or out already from Fox, Warner, Paramount, and Sony. This higher capacity (HD DVD tops out at 30GB for a dual layer disc) will allow for higher quality video encodings, and more advanced interactive features and bonus features, also helped out by the higher bandwidth allowed on Blu-ray (48Mbps) as opposed to HD DVD (~ 32Mbps).<br /><br />Now, on to the player itself:<br /><br />This Panasonic player is not only far superior in picture and sound quality than the Samsung Blu-ray player which was also rushed to market, but it suffers from far fewer bugs and glitches than any high-def player on the market, and that includes the two Toshiba first generation models, which required a whole slew of firmware updates to run properly - and they still have problems. This Panasonic when playing back Blu-ray titles that use the same encodings as the HD DVD release (speaking of the few titles that actually appear on both formats) looks identical, not almost as good. In some cases, it looks slightly better. This is most likely something to do with the hardware, and not a software issue. The blacks are black as coal, colours pop off the screen. Great Blu-ray titles look almost three-dimensional. The copy of Eight Below included in the box looks stunning!<br /><br />The standard DVD upscaling also works quite well, making the DVDs look very good - though not as good as HD.<br /><br />The sound is superb . The player can playback 192/24 uncompressed PCM audio in 7.1 channels, but it also supports new audio formats like Dolby Digital+ and, soon - as the registration card inside the box states -through a future free firmware upgrade (some say around January) the player will decode the new, lossless audio codecs Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, both up to a resolution of 192/24 at 7.1. This will allow for true high resolution sound well beyond Dolby Digital and DTS, and equal to uncompressed PCM, but utilising less space and less bandwidth than PCM, once again making more room for better video transfers and more bonus features.<br /><br />Also for the audiophiles out there, it is worth noting that the Panasonic also plays DVD-As (and CDs), and the video circuitry can be turned off for pure audio listening delight.<br /><br />This is a great player, with perfect picture quality when playing back well done Blu-ray titles. Don't blame the player for a bad title, just like you can't blame a DVD player for a bad DVD transfer. This player is well worth the price.off the screen. Great Blu-ray titles look almost three-dimensional. The copy of Eight Below included in the box looks stunning!    The standard DVD upscaling also works quite well, making the DVDs look very good - though not as good as HD.     The sound is superb . The player can playback 192/24 uncompressed PCM audio in 7.1 channels, but it also supports new audio formats like Dolby Digital+ and, soon - as the registration card inside the box states -through a future free firmware upgrade (some say around January) the player will decode the new, lossless audio codecs Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, both up to a resolution of 192/24 at 7.1. This will allow for true high resolution sound well beyond Dolby Digital and DTS, and equal to uncompressed PCM, but utilising less space and less bandwidth than PCM, once again making more room for better video transfers and more bonus features.    Also for the audiophiles out there, it is worth noting that the Panasonic also plays DVD-As (and CDs), and the video circuitry can be turned off for pure audio listening delight.    This is a great player, with perfect picture quality when playing back well done Blu-ray titles. Don't blame the player for a bad title, just like you can't blame a DVD player for a bad DVD transfer. This player is well worth the price.