|
| Panasonic DMP-BD55K 1080p Blu-Ray Player |
|
 Larger image
|
List Price: $399.95
Our Price: Too low to display
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Panasonic
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Batteries Included: 1
Batteries: 2
Binding: Electronics
Brand: Panasonic
Color: Black
EAN: 0037988257171
Feature: Blu-ray Player
Is Autographed: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Label: Panasonic
Manufacturer: Panasonic
Model: DMP-BD55K
Publisher: Panasonic
Studio: Panasonic
|
|
|
Features
|
Blu-ray Player
BD Live / 7.1 Lossless Decode and Analog Output
VIERA Link: Operate with your VIERA Remote Control
SD Card Slot
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
BD-Live: Enjoy Additional Content via Internet (requires optional SD card) / PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus / Also plays DVD, CD, DiVX
|
|
|
| Spotlight customer reviews: |
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Comment: The picture the BD55 player puts out along with the sound quality will blow you away. There is no downside to this player. I never knew my Sony HDTV could look so good.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Blu-ray Player and I've tried Three
Comment: Pros: Excellent Picture Quality for both Blu-ray's and Standard DVD's. Sound using analog output sounds amazing. It's 2.0 right out of the box. Can play pretty much anything. Has lot os extras in menu to work with. Slick and pretty dang cool to look at.
Cons: Not really a con but it uses SD cards rather than USB. But I guess that's actually a good thing so you can view photos and such.
Summary: I have tried three different players. I have a Samsung TV and thought that it would be a good thing to have a Samsung Blu-ray to go along with it. I had immediate problems with it. I then tried the Sony 350 which I had problems and some personal dislikes so I returned that one. After realizing I just needed to spend the money I went and picked up the Panny BD55. It is worth every penny. It surpases the picture quality and the sound quality of boththe Samsung 1500 and the Sony 350. The analogs out are great for anyone with an older receiver. The sound is fantastic. I picked up the incredible Hulk on Blu-ray and it was shaking the room. The menu is great and has tons of settings for those of us who like to tweak things. It is a beautiful looking player which you can easily find yourself staring at it. One thing that was very surprising is that the Vierra link works with My Samsung LN46A650 AnyNet function so the Blu-ray player and my tv will interact with one another. I turn the player on and the tv will turn on and change to the Blu-ray source. I turn the TV off and the player will turn off. It's pretty nifty. All in all it's a great player and probably the best that's out there right now. If you have the money go for it, it's worth it. If you don't need the analog out go for it's little brother the BD35.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Comment: Starts up fast, upconverts great, sound is amazing. Easy to use ... As soon as I got it I upgraded from ver 1.0 of the firmware to 1.5 (worth knowing its there). 1080 over component for blu ray DVDs or non HMDI tvs and 480 over component for non blu ray dvds
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Blu-ray Bang for the Buck
Comment: Many people have been waiting a long time for a Blu-ray Disc player like the DMP-BD55 to come along: one that supports native decoding and bitstreaming of *all* of the high definition audio formats (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, multi-channel PCM), with full Profile 1.1 and 2.0 support (BonusView and BD-Live), with reasonably fast loading times and good BD-Java interactivity, with outstanding Blu-ray Disc image quality and acceptable upconversion of standard DVDs. And I'm happy to say the BD55 satifies on all of these levels.
Although some say the PS3 is still the best Blu-ray Disc player, the PS3 lacks bitstreaming support for DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD (which some people want), and it does not integrate as well with a home theater system due to its lack of IR or RF remote control support. Yes I know all about the Nyko IR remote for the PS3, but that is missing some core controls like POWER so it will not get you the whole way there. Also, the BD55 (and its little brother, the equally impressive BD35) are actually less expensive than the PS3, and they've come a long way in disc loading and boot-up times such that these new BD players actually load some discs a little bit *faster* than the PS3 (details below). The PS3 still wins in overall boot-up time and in loading and interaction with BD-Java discs, but the new Panasonics are among the first to give the PS3 a run for its money in this department.
Where the BD55 wins over virtually all of the competition (including the PS3) is in its treatment of Blu-ray Discs, both from a picture performance standpoint and in the audio department. On the "big picture" front, the unit includes Panasonic's newly improved UniPhier chip which intelligently upconverts the native 4:2:0 encoding on a Blu-ray discs to 4:4:4 output. What this means from a layman's perspective is that the player restores missing color detail to each pixel in the 1920x1080 image. And while this doesn't make a big difference on smaller sized screens, it does noticeably improve color detail on the larger flat panel and projection screens which you're likely to find in a home theater system. Also, the BD55 has enhanced SD upconversion over its predecessors that makes watching DVDs a lot more enjoyable. It's not quite the equal the the best upconverting DVD players on the market, but it's not that far off either.
On the sound front, the BD55 includes 5.1 and 7.1-channel analog outputs with full decoding of multi-channel PCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. This makes it an excellent choice to add to a high-end multi-channel preamp/processor or receiver which lacks HDMI inputs. The multi-channel analog output allows you to take full advantage of the latest and greatest audio formats available on Blu-ray Disc. If you haven't heard these new formats yet, you're in for a treat as they exactly match the original studio recordings in quality and it can give your home theater system quite a work out! The BD55 is one of very few players on the market today that offers this feature (multi-channel analog out). The PS3 does not offer this. And while the Samsung BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 do offer multi-channel analog outputs, they do not currently offer native decoding of DTS-HD Master Audio (though there is some conflicting information as to whether this may be delivered in the future via a firmware upgrade).
For those with more modern surround sound equipment, the BD55 can output multi-channel Blu-ray Discs and DVDs in the native "bitstream" or it can decode the bitstream to full resolution uncompressed PCM. The choice is yours based on the capabilities of your specific home theater system.
One of the first things we measured when we got the BD55 in for review was the boot-up and disc-loading time. First and second generation BD players were painfully slow to boot up and to load discs. While the BD55 does take 24 seconds to boot up (vs. the PS3's 9 seconds), the BD55 was actually quicker to load a standard (non-Java) Blu-ray Disc than the PS3 - about 9 seconds faster, to be precise - and it was about 6 seconds faster to load a standard DVD. For a BD Java-heavy disc like "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," the BD55 loaded up the disc in about 45 seconds, which is only about 5 seconds slower than the PS3. The PS3, with its super-fast Cell processor, is still better (and quicker) in its interactivity with BD-Java-based menus and BD-Live, but the BD55 is certainly in the same ballpark. What's important here is that the delays in playback are short enough that they won't bother most people, and the huge improvement in picture and sound quality over standard DVD make Blu-ray playback on the BD55 worth the wait.
The DMP-BD55 is by no means a "perfect" player - all CE components have their quirks. SD conversion on specialized upconverting DVD players such as the higher end Oppo players or the Silicon Optix HQV-based players is definitely better than the SD upconversion on the BD55, but not so much as to bother me (and I'm pretty picky). Overall, the BD55 provides one of the stongest feature sets and performance packages available today, and it does it at a price in line with most home theater fans' budgets. So it gets my enthusiastic recommendation.
More information is available in our full review on Big Picture Big Sound.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but there's competition
Comment: This Blu-Ray player is not bad in terms of build quality but it cannot compare to the Samsung BD-P2500 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player or The Samsung BD-P2550 (P2550 is available exclusively at a certain nationwide retail chain only). The Samsung upscales standard DVDs much better due to a very good high quality HQV chip. It also does Netflix instant watching (and the p2550 adds Pandora streaming too!), all for about the same price as this Panasonic.
So while this Panasonic certainly isn't a bad player, for the money you could get better picture quality for standard DVDs and a lot more features and enjoyment with the Samsung.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
