My new Blu-Ray player

[emaidel]

Like a few zillion other Americans, my wife and I gave each other a new Blu-Ray player for Christmas: a Panasonic DMP-BD35AK. It replaced the Toshiba HD-DVD player I purchased a year ago July, with which I've been very dissatisfied.

The Toshiba unit frequenly locked up, and often refused to play HD discs. When it did work, it did so very slowly. From the moment I turned the unit on, and was actually able to load a disc, it seemed as if a week had gone by as compared to the lightning fast speed of far less costly ordinary DVD players.

The Blu-Ray unit also is a bit slow to start, but at least a series of prompts appear on the screen advising one of the fact it may actually take "from 2 to 3 minutes" for the material on the disc to download. Fortunately, no disc yet has taken that long.

So, how is the picture as compared to the HD player? The answer's simple: it's terrific, and simply blows away the HD player in every respect. Blu Ray discs look amazing, but the feature that impresses me most is the superb upconverting of older "ordinary" DVD's. While I intend to rent or purchase Blu Ray discs from here on in, I have no intention of replacing the very modest collection of DVD's I own. Fortunately, popping in a couple of very old films resulted in a much, much more detailed picture than I'd ever been able to achieve before.

I have a DVD of the George Stevens film, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (my all-time favorite Jesus movie) which had been filmed in Ultra Panavision 70, and "presented" in Cinerama on its initial release way back in 1965. Many of the stunning vistas looked wonderful on the enormous Cinerama screen, but looked pretty awful on a TV screen. The opening credits for example, were simply impossible to read - even on a 46" Sharp AQUOS set. The improvement the Panasonic unit made on this DVD was amazing, as it was on any DVD I put into it.

I don't have a surround setup any longer (I had one in the house I used to live in, and miss it). I do have a dedicated first-rate 2-channel setup though (completely separate from the system on which I listen to music), and I have to admit that the Blu Ray player sounds mightily impressive even in 2 rather than several channels. I played a DVD of Matthew Bourne's "Nutcracker" and was amazed: the sound was remarkable!

Not surprisingly, the quality of redbook CD playback is just the same as that of the Toshiba unit - lousy. Still, that's not why I purchased the player ($199.95 at Costco). I bought it to enjoy the razor sharp detail Blu Ray discs offer. So far, I'm delighted.

[Worf101]

Thanks for the information and the review. I've yet to "take the plunge" on a BluRay player as I've upgraded every other aspect of my system this year (TV, HT Receiver and DVD Player) and my wallet got a much needed rest this Christmas. Still all the information I can get from other's is welcome. I'm still leaning towards waiting for OPPO to come out with a BR disc player, until then I'm using my OPPO up-converter.

Thanks again...

Da Worfster

[Woochifer]

Congrats. That Panny is supposed to be one of the best Blu-ray players out there for DVD upconverting (most 1st and 2nd generation BD players are not good upconverters), and it's a rock solid performer with BDs.

What Blu-ray movies have you tried with it so far?

My current benchmark is probably the final cut version of Blade Runner. It looks like good film projection rather than some overly processed and cleaned up digital presentation. The Dark Knight also looks great because much of it was shot on IMAX film. But, the Blu-ray also has a lot of visible edge enhancement, presumably a byproduct of the IMAX DMR process since I read that the Blu-ray was transferred from an IMAX print.

[RoadRunner6]

Like a few zillion other Americans, my wife and I gave each other a new Blu-Ray player for Christmas: a Panasonic DMP-BD35AK. Still, that's not why I purchased the player ($199.95 at Costco).

Thanks for the feedback. You bought at the right time. They have sold a ton of them and and the prices have shot back up as many dealers are sold out. It is $280 again at Costco and very high even online.

RR6

[emaidel]

I think I did get a pretty good deal on this unit for only $199.95. Insofar as Blu-Ray discs, I've only purchased two so far: Wall-E. and Chronicles of Narnia: Price Caspian. Both discs looked terrific, though "Chronicles...." wasn't to my liking as a movie (my wife loved it, however). I still have a blu ray copy of "The Fall" to watch when I get a chance. My wife and I have already seen it and thought it was a magnificent film, so blu ray should enhance our second viewing experience.

Trying to rent new releases at Blockbuster in blu ray is becoming a real PIA. They clearly didn't anticipate the enormous popularity of blu ray players as Christmas gifts, and still get only a small handful of copies of each new release. Therefore, within only a few minutes of opening the store on the day of the new releases, they're sold out of those titles.

I guess the best thing for me to do is try to follow what's about to be released (not too easy to do) and pre-order them on netflix. That way, I'll receive the discs at home the day they're released elsewhere.

Any tips on finding out what's going to be released, and when, would be appreciated!

[Jack in Wilmington]

I think I did get a pretty good deal on this unit for only $199.95. Insofar as Blu-Ray discs, I've only purchased two so far: Wall-E. and Chronicles of Narnia: Price Caspian. Both discs looked terrific, though "Chronicles...." wasn't to my liking as a movie (my wife loved it, however). I still have a blu ray copy of "The Fall" to watch when I get a chance. My wife and I have already seen it and thought it was a magnificent film, so blu ray should enhance our second viewing experience.

Trying to rent new releases at Blockbuster in blu ray is becoming a real PIA. They clearly didn't anticipate the enormous popularity of blu ray players as Christmas gifts, and still get only a small handful of copies of each new release. Therefore, within only a few minutes of opening the store on the day of the new releases, they're sold out of those titles.

I guess the best thing for me to do is try to follow what's about to be released (not too easy to do) and pre-order them on netflix. That way, I'll receive the discs at home the day they're released elsewhere.

Any tips on finding out what's going to be released, and when, would be appreciated!

Thanks for the info on Blockbuster. I got the same player for Christmas and was wondering about renting. I did get 5 discs to go along with my player, Indiana Jones Crystal Skull, Ironman, Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix, 3:10 to Yuma and one of my all time reference discs for DTS, Twister. Like you said, you don't want to go out and replace your whole DVD collection with Blu Rays. My friend has a whole wall of book shelves in her home theater room, filled with VHS tapes. Probably $7000 to $10000 invested in something that will go by the way of the 8 track or cassette someday.

[s dog]

Like a few zillion other Americans, my wife and I gave each other a new Blu-Ray player for Christmas: a Panasonic DMP-BD35AK. It replaced the Toshiba HD-DVD player I purchased a year ago July, with which I've been very dissatisfied.

The Toshiba unit frequenly locked up, and often refused to play HD discs. When it did work, it did so very slowly. From the moment I turned the unit on, and was actually able to load a disc, it seemed as if a week had gone by as compared to the lightning fast speed of far less costly ordinary DVD players.

The Blu-Ray unit also is a bit slow to start, but at least a series of prompts appear on the screen advising one of the fact it may actually take "from 2 to 3 minutes" for the material on the disc to download. Fortunately, no disc yet has taken that long.

So, how is the picture as compared to the HD player? The answer's simple: it's terrific, and simply blows away the HD player in every respect. Blu Ray discs look amazing, but the feature that impresses me most is the superb upconverting of older "ordinary" DVD's. While I intend to rent or purchase Blu Ray discs from here on in, I have no intention of replacing the very modest collection of DVD's I own. Fortunately, popping in a couple of very old films resulted in a much, much more detailed picture than I'd ever been able to achieve before.

I have a DVD of the George Stevens film, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (my all-time favorite Jesus movie) which had been filmed in Ultra Panavision 70, and "presented" in Cinerama on its initial release way back in 1965. Many of the stunning vistas looked wonderful on the enormous Cinerama screen, but looked pretty awful on a TV screen. The opening credits for example, were simply impossible to read - even on a 46" Sharp AQUOS set. The improvement the Panasonic unit made on this DVD was amazing, as it was on any DVD I put into it.

I don't have a surround setup any longer (I had one in the house I used to live in, and miss it). I do have a dedicated first-rate 2-channel setup though (completely separate from the system on which I listen to music), and I have to admit that the Blu Ray player sounds mightily impressive even in 2 rather than several channels. I played a DVD of Matthew Bourne's "Nutcracker" and was amazed: the sound was remarkable!

Not surprisingly, the quality of redbook CD playback is just the same as that of the Toshiba unit - lousy. Still, that's not why I purchased the player ($199.95 at Costco). I bought it to enjoy the razor sharp detail Blu Ray discs offer. So far, I'm delighted.

AS soon as my wal-mart gets the price down to $225.00 that panny will be mine. thanks for the info.

[emaidel]

I noticed an ad on TV for the up-coming release on Blu Ray of "Pineapple Express," which got generally good reviews when in theatres. Rather than risk arriving at Blockbuster just after the three blu ray copies they ordered of it are gone, I ordered it for an advanced release from netflix. The release date is the 6th (I think), and it will arrive at my home on that day.

[f0rge]

i picked this unit up for my dad. terrific picture and sound.

for what it's worth i find it pretty slow in the menus and for startup

[Woochifer]

Any tips on finding out what's going to be released, and when, would be appreciated!

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html

Insofar as Blu-Ray discs, I've only purchased two so far: Wall-E. and Chronicles of Narnia: Price Caspian.

Wall-E's probably about as flawless a reference as you will find (and an excellent movie to boot). Blade Runner is my current favorite because of how "film-like" that particular transfer looks.

[emaidel]

Thanks for the tip, Wooch. Insofar as "Blade Runner" goes, I purchased a multi-disc set of the film in HD a while back. I had lots of trouble getting the disc to play (a problem with the player - not the disc itself), and really didn't care much about watching any of the other discs in the set. Now I've got a high definition version of a terrific sci-fi flick that's utterly useless. Oh well, things could certainly be a lot worse...

[Jack in Wilmington]

Hey Guys, on a similar subject. So far all of the BluRays that I've bought have been in Dolby Tru HD, except for Harry Potter which was in PCM Mult Channel. Are there any good DTS Master Audio discs? Or is there somewhere to look at a list that tells you which audio format it's recorded in?

Also I love to watch classical music on DVD. I would like to pick up some of my favorite performances on BluRay. Does anybody carry a good selection of orchestral performances?