Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player

Purchased this unit in January '08 when the writing was on the wall for the blu-ray / HD war. I've been wanting a high def player for some time to complement the technology of 57" 1080P DLP Mitsubishi set. The prices finally dropped. Spent $400 shipped for this unit through an Amazon affiliate.The firmware needed updating out of the box, but it was not a big deal to burn the disc, which uploaded properly into the player. The player is 1.1 compliant and upgradable through cd-rom, but it does not have an ethernet port, which I'm told will somewhat limit it's upgradability.The load and play time on this dvd player is much better than what has been reported on first generation blu-ray players, but expect it to be slower than traditional dvd players. In short, it's bearable.Picture and sound quality are excellent. There have been some tech threads discussing a loss of a couple decibels of sound via HDMI, but my sound currently runs through a digital optical cable without issue. Upconverting of non-HD films is better than the panasonic model that this player replaced. It's my opinion that the quality of the film itself really makes a big difference in how well the movie upconverts.If you are looking for so called true HD sound, which is only available on some dvd's, be forwarned that this player does not decode it, it merely sends it on to the receiver for decoding. In other words, you'll need a receiver that can decode this high level audio format if you want the very best audio. This will probably be my next investment.Overall, I'm pleased with the player. I'm sure prices will continue to drop and next generation players will offer improved performance and enhanced features, but I expect there will be some good values on this player as it is phased out. User reviews of this model are generally favorable.

We decided not to wait for the HD wars to settle and jumped for BluRay. I figure that I can buy a player for each format for less than a combo player.This Panasonic player seemed to be in the top-three for performance at a ressonable price. It is a new design. Since we were going with a Panasonic display (58" Plasma), I opted for the Panasonic player. This was a good decision. Panasonic has integrated the control between the DVD and the monitor to provide one-button simplicity. Press play, the TV powers up, the proper HDMI is selected, the movie starts. Simple.More important than simplicity is the picture. We had just updated from a Samsung 42" LCD on Dish Satellite with an upconverting DVD player. We thought that was good. When we converted to Plasma and DirecTV, we got a much better picture along with many more HDTV channels. The picture went to beautiful.I didn't think I could see an improvement over DirecTv. But with this player, the system is simply awesome. The picture is vivid and fast. The sound, processed by an Onkyo 805 7.1 Receiver is far better than sound from DirecTV.The player came with about $150 worth of action videos. (Pirates, Fanatic 4, etc.) That was enought to get me to buy a few more. Mainly we use NetFlix, but I want to have some owned content to showoff the system.Don't wait on high def DVDs - jump it - the technology is great.

... some might call it lying.I called Panasonic after hours spent on my Yamaha AV receiver (RX-V863) and the BD10AK menus. The problem: I couldn't get my receiver to push Dolby True HD audio, only PCM or regular Dolby Digital through my 7.1 speakers. Although there are Dolby True HD stickers on the unit itself, the manual actually states that if the media has Dolby True HD or DTS-HD as its soundtrack, the BD-10AK will ONLY playback in Dolby Digital.So which is true?The result of the phone call: the BD-10AK does NOT push Dolby True HD, nor DTS-HD. This was straight from technician Curtis at Panasonic. So my Yamaha receiver will take the audio signal and try to push it as best as it can - hopefully converting it to True HD on the way out.I had already loaded the firmware upgrade from the Panny website (pretty easy). Load times are OK (this is my first blu-ray player). The video is GORGEOUS from blu-ray discs - tested Iron man and the 1st Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Upconverted (up to 1080i) DVD playback is great - tested Ratatouille. Outside of some artifacts, I thought it looked better than playing it through my Yamaha DVD player.One major reason I bought this 2-year old (since introduced to the general public) Panasonic BD player is its DVD-Audio playback; I have a small collection. It plays back in 5.1, and the newer models do NOT play DVD-A's.Until I upgrade to a PS3 (or whatever Sony is pushing years from now), the BD10AK will do.Upgrade to 4 stars due to its ability to play my Chinese DVDs.