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- My rating: 0 stars
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4 out of 5 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"Blu-Ray Finally Catching Up In Features"
Pros: Impressive HD video playback, onboard DTS-HD and TrueHD, the first level of fast forward plays understandable audio, upgradeable firmware, well designed remote, very light and relatively small footprint (I originally thought that the box was empty).
Cons: Standard def DVD upconversion may produce artifacts, requires purchase of additional external memory, limited onboard memory functions, screen saver does not work, Blu-Ray movies are ridiculously expensive and under featured.
Summary: Before using this, or any other, player it would be advisable to update firmware as some of the changes do affect playback and operation. As of December 1, 2008 the current firmware is version 1.5.
Found this at big box store with a short HDMI cable included for $229 before Black Friday which is a good price for Blu-Ray although still slightly overpriced as a high definition DVD player. I will not repeat what others have already said concerning the vast improvement in high definition video over standard definition but this is what I have found:
The profile 2.0 standard permits manufacturers to provide insufficient onboard memory to support BD-Live and popup functions but fails to specify minimum and maximum requirements for movies making it impossible for users to determine if they need to purchase a class 2, 4 or 6 SDHC card and of what capacity. Incorporation of BD-Live content in movies is inconsistent and to date seems to be more prevalent in horror and more violent type flicks. A user will probably have to frequently erase old files to free memory on the SDHC card.
Pressed the fast forward button during playback and learned that the first setting is more of a rapid play with audio also being speeded along.
Tested the upconversion of some standard DVD and found that standard definition DVD produced more than a few years ago suffer some artifacts whereas newer do not appear to. Specific examples were some vertical blues wavy lines against a blue sky background with a large number of planes flying in simulated combat when playing Battle of Britain and occasional choppy scene transition when going from a brightly scene immediately to another brightly lit scene in The Santa Claus 2 and these same movies did not have these artifacts when played in either a previous HD DVD player or standard definition player. I did adjust settings to verify that these artifacts were repeatedly created and not the result of my choice of settings. These artifacts did not seem to occur when playing newer or more recently produced standard definition DVD. Otherwise upconversion seemed to be adequate and close to what my HDTV already provides.
Disc formats that cannot be played include DVD-ROM, SACD, Photo CD, DVD-Audio, SVCD and WMA discs so it might be better to use Blu-Ray (or at least this player) as the primary playback device and keep an existing DVD or HD DVD player to continue to play other media formats that you may own.
Each manufacturer has to decide what features are to be included but these players have limited ability to resume play once the Stop button is pushed - resume only occurs on standard definition DVD playback. Bookmarks are lost when a disc is removed. When jumping to a scene or bookmark the lag time to resume audio is a bit excessive, not enough to be a problem but close. According to the Operating Instructions there is a screen saver after periods of inactivity but it appears that this was disabled in firmware updates but I do not yet have a response from Panasonic to determine if this was intentional or is to be corrected. However, the screen saver would be inoperable with most Blu-Ray discs as they load Java and, again, I do not know why this is.
Since I previously owned a Toshiba HD DVD player (A30) I was not overwhelmed by the high definition playback but was underwhelmed by Blu-Ray?s extremely slow development of standard player features which has resulted in continued inflation of media prices since licensing fees are so high and production lines had to be replaced whereas HD DVD would have required only modification of production equipment as HD DVD was more of DVD on steroids. Overall, the two new Panasonic players finally bring Blu-Ray up to the features that were standard in HD DVD two years ago. Admittedly I am not happy with the fact that the decision between the basically equal formats was not allowed to be resolved by consumer choice.
Updated on Dec 13, 2008Panasonic responded via email to me and stating that the screen saver works as designed. I disagree based upon what is written in the Operating Instructions but don't plan to use the screen saver anyway.
Right now Logitech does not have correct information in their database for programming their universal remotes for the DMP-D35K or DMP-D35K. Logitech responded that if enough people corrected the errors by using the learning functions of their universal remotes they will eventually update their database. Logitech errors include many commands related to multiple discs (this is a single disc player) and missing commands needed to bookmark spots, top menu, etc. They have a bookmark command but it doesn?t work, it needs to transmit the ?B? key code. Seems that Logitech should be paying us for creating the correct programming for their devices. Not a player problem since the Panasonic remote is so well designed, just keep it handy.
- 4 replies to this review
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The firmware update that shifter_95148 was kind enough to let us know about apparently has corrected the delay in audio when resuming play. On a couple of standard DVD and blu-ray resuming play was slightly paused by the player allowing audio to catch up so that the playback and audio now resume at the same time.
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The firmware is now 1.6. Also, I did some research and found that Panasonic had sent a SDHC class 6 2GB card along with their DMP-BD35 to a reviewer. Now I have ordered a Class 6 card larger than 2GB for my DMP-BD35.
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You are absolutely right about the screen saver function! It does not work except in the case when I inserted an audio CD.
Even with no disc in the drive, there is a blue screen that says, "Blu Ray", and it does NOT change to a screen saver! I turned off my television and left the Panasonic DMP-BD35 turned on with no disc in the tray. I left it on for almost an hour! I turned on the television and STILL that blue screen was sitting there! This might be a deal breaker for me unless I can get some answers from Panasonic anytime soon. I do not want to ruin my television screen!!! -
Pretty sweet review considering the sour grapes.
Where to buy
Panasonic DMP-BD35:
$169.95 - $469.99
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$469.99 | Yes |
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$169.95 | Yes |
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$199.95 | Yes |
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