Get A Glimpse Of Panasonic DMP-BD60 and DMP-BD80
Panasonic had a stand- out 2008 on the Blu-ray front, with the Panasonic DMP-BD35 earning the first Editor’s Choice award for a standalone Blu-ray player. After mastering most of the basic Blu- ray functions, like BD- live and high resolution audio decoding, it looks like the two latest players, the Panasonic DMP-BD60 and Panasonic DMP-BD80, are mostly incremental improvements to the existing Blu- ray players.
Both types have maintained the whole thing we preferred about last year’s unit, including Profile 2. support, exceptional video quality, and onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS- HD Master Audio Key. The significant addition to the latest product is VieraCast, which is Panasonic’s proprietary online content portal that currently includes YouTube, Picasa, weather, and stock quotes, with Amazon Video On Demand coming in May. VieraCast is a nice addition, nevertheless unfortunately it’s not enough to maintain the gigantic leaps the competition has made, adding boasts like Wi- Fi connectivity, Netflix streaming, and onboard memory to its latest 2009 Blu-ray players.
The Panasonic DMP-BD60’s plus point is its rock- solid performance, but if you’re searching for the latest and greatest presents you will have got to look elsewhere.
Ultimately, it is worthy to note the key step- up feature of the Panasonic DMP- BD80 is the 7. 1 analog audio outputs.
You will also discover these players support DTS- HD Master Audio Very important, rather than standard DTS- HD Master Audio. This latest form of the DTS- HD audio codec is mostly the same, but it drops support for a few of the more advanced DVD audio formats, such as DTS 96/24, DTS ES, ES Matrix, and DTS NEO 6. However, if a DVD has one of those soundtracks, you will not be left lacking sound, as it will just go back to standard DTS audio. It also loses support for DTS- ES Matrix and NEO 6 on Blu- ray, however those soundtracks are unusual on Blu- ray movies.
Call us spoiled, on the other hand even with Viera Cast and Amazon Video On- Demand support, it is disappointing that these players do not have support for Netflix Instant Streaming, which is immediately becoming our favorite value- added highlight for Blu- ray. We also had our hopes set on Panasonic including Wi- Fi on these next- generation players as a small number folk have Ethernet connections in their living rooms.