Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Blu-Ray Players - What's the fav this holiday seas

As a follow-up to Alan's comments and JC's experience, a couple of weeks a go I purchased the Panasonic BD-55($399.00) and I couldn't be happier. I can't comment on the comparison to the PS3, but it is interesting to note, I went in to the store with my heart kind of set on buying the Pioneer Elite 05FD ($899.00!!). This was before I read the less than spectacular dual reviews on this unit which made me feel that much better about my purchase. When I compared them both in the store, the Pioneer was, of course, a terrific looking and rather LARGE unit, but I chose to look past that and decided to strictly compare performance.

The 05FD was considerably slower loading than the BD-55 and it had problems connecting to the television(handshake) via the receiver. This has been a problem which has not gone unnoticed in the reviews. The Panasonic has all the latest internal decoding, 7.1 outputs and it has a unique option of directing the back channels to convert to front left/right analog channels and use 5.1,only, if you wish that option. It has been stated in reviews of the BD-55 that, compared to previous BD players to date, it has the best scaling and playback of standard DVD's and I couldn't agree more. The Panny has the latest 2.0 profile which allows you to access all the BD Live features(if you want that), whereas the 05FD is only 1.1! I was surprised and somewhat disappointed, to see a unit, especially at the Pioneer's price point, that does not contain all the latest features. (As a side note, if you don't need the 7.1 outputs and analog option, you can get the BD-35 for about 100 bucks less).

The newer generations of units with all the mainstream companies are coming fast and furious onto the market with lower and lower price points, however, The BD-55/35, at least at this point, provides all the features you will need for the foreseeable future.

Hi casey,

Thanks for your detailed and careful comparison of the Panasonic and Pioneer players.

Regards,
Alan

I don't have the one that can stream netflix (yet, anyway). I have the older model 1400 and it's a fine machine. Never had a problem with any of the discs! One or two movies required FW upgrades, but that's almost the norm for BD. Well, not so much lately, but 2-6 months ago, the FW's were required about every six weeks or so.

Hi Spiff,

Here's what JC says about the BD55 compared to his PS3:

"Reproduction of Blu-ray DVDs is better; color saturation - details. Reproduction of standard DVDs is also better even better than the Oppo 970.

PS3 has no analog outputs and the built-in decoder of the BD-55 gives out a phenomenal sound from the latest codecs. This last feature really was a "must" for my setup."

Alan

Same here. I'm a little dismayed to find that Amazon has the BD55 for $338 right now. I paid nearly $100 more (including tax) just a few weeks ago. However, I'm very happy with the player. If one has an HDMI receiver capable of decoding the sound formats, you get virtually the same performance from the Panasonic DMP-BD35 which Amazon has for $263.

Alan:

Thank you for the kind words regarding my Panasonic BD-55 review, however, I do have one question for any and all that have Blu-Ray players. One quirk that I did notice with the player which came as a surprise was that you CANNOT use the stop/resume feature on many BD discs. It just will go right back to the beginning, either re-loading OR go back in to the menu. I E-mailed Panasonic's technical department about this and they advised that this was a disc feature and not a defect with the player which I verified since it works fine on standard DVD's. I always thought this was a player function. Not so.
This is something I have never seen on any reviews or commented on in any of the forums.

Any thoughts on this?

That seems to be the case all around the Blu-Ray world. Seems like such a simple thing, but I guess not...

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the PS3 added this capability in a firmware update a few (maybe 6?) months ago. Every time I've tried it, it has worked, but it could be that I just haven't tried it on incompatible Blu-Rays.

It's a hit on miss (even on PS3) for Blu-ray discs. It doesn't work with java based discs, and it's hit and miss for others. It's pretty incredible that something so basic was not available from day one.

It is intentional (the disk has to enabled/disable that function explicitly). DVDs used to be like that, forcing you to go back to advertisement and FBI WARNING. At some point, studios stopped doing that as people were quite unhappy, especially since they were competing against VHS which wasn't rewinding automatically when pressing stop. I find that an increasing number of BD are now supporting "resume" compared to last year.

Bookmarks, when supported, can give you a bit of that function.