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(my understanding is that’s mandatory for General Discussion threads, now)
Anyway … This morning my wife picked up a Panasonic dmpbd30ak for 169.99. I don’t know the first thing about Blu-Ray, but I guess it was some huge sale or something so she grabbed it.
For those audo-videophiles amongst us, is this thing reasonably useful? I don’t need every feature known to man, I just need something that will look good playing both DVD and Blu-Ray discs. I’ve got separate surround sound system.
Todd,
Blue Ray is great, but you need one of those 1080P (I believe) TV’s to play them.
You also need a HDMI cable that connects it to the TV…those cost about $130 for the best one, which you need to get the best picture.
It’s expensive but if you get the right TV and Cable, you will never go the the theater again.
Will upconvert your regular DVD to an HD signal if you have a HD set.
It will upconvert to 720P if thats the sets resolution.
As far as cables go, monowire.com has some really good prices on HDMI cables. After visiting numerous A/V enthusiast forums their belief is anything over $20 for an HDMI cable is pretty much gouging. Since HDMI is a digital signal its either there or not (unlike analog). Take it as you like but some of these guys have spent about $10k on a home theater setup and use cheap HDMI cables and love the results (even after paying for the $100+ ones).
Nah. It’s not nearly that bad. I assume you have a HDTV. If so you’re good. 1080p is the best, but 720p or 1080i is just fine. You will want to use an HDMI cable. Don’t pay a lot for one. I get mine from monoprice.com for $15.
Remember…these are “digital” cables, not “analog” cables. A cheap cable is good as an expensive one. If it works it works 100%. If it doesn’t it fails 100%. Same goes for optical cables. Don’t pay much for them.
Enjoy your player! BTW, the reason you want to use an HDMI cable is that BluRay players usually “up convert” standard DVDs to HDTV resolution. They only do that when you use a HDMI cable. If you use a component cable they play them at the standard DVD resolution, 480p.
I assume you already have an HDTV? If so, yeah, you’ll definitely notice a difference between your old DVDs (which it will still play) and Blu-Ray discs that you pick up.
If you don’t have an HDTV… well… at least you now have something to work towards and use with in the future. lol. Otherwise you’re no better off than having your old dvd player.
You’ll see Blu-Ray, over the coming years, phase out DVDs… just as DVDs phased out VHS tapes. Studios are still putting their labels out on both right now, but since Blu-Ray come out on top in the media wars you can be sure that they’ll start going in that sole direction soon enough.
IMO, your wife picked up a pretty good deal… and as long as you already have an HDTV in place, or plans to by one, you’ll be good to go.
EDIT: Guess I type too slow… lol. Beaten to the answers.
There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ HDMI cable. It’s a digital cable, it transfers a digital signal, either it works or it doesn’t (and if it doesn’t you’ll see miscolored pixels). It’s not like analog audio cables.
All those jacked-up prices, gold plated HDMI cables are scams. Just get one that has the HDMI logo on it and works. It won’t make one bit of difference.
My wife works at Best Buy. It’s crazy how much they mark up accessories and cables.
Let me preface that statement, by saying her discount varies on whatever item is in question. Apple products have zero markup. She pays what everyone else does. TVs, computers, games, etc… all just depends what the discount is.
That said… those $100 cables only cost her about $4-5, after employee discount. No joke. They actually track and limit how many of them they can buy, with their discount, so they don’t turn around and make a huge profit by reselling them. lol
But if you know anyone that works at BB, the accessories (cables, cell phone accessories, etc etc) are the biggest areas of savings. Definitely worth getting them to buy them for you.
There are plenty of issues which arise in fiber optic cables that lead to degraded performance. Just because something goes in one side and out the other doesn’t mean it wasn’t changed along the way.
True. But you’ll pick up errors. It’s not like analog cables where you get a “green shift” or something and you sit there and try to compare. A bad optical cable will cause dropouts or noticeable changes in sound.
My main point is that a working $5 optical cable is every bit as good as a working $500 optical cable. No more of this “Well…the cable made of virgin hair and volcano gold really makes the highs come alive!”. 1s and 0s on this end. 1s and 0s on that end. If a 2 slips in there you’ll know.
My primary concern is whether this particular player lacks some critical feature that we’ll be sorry we don’t have six months from now, requiring us to replace. It doesn’t sound like it, so I guess I’ll install it tonight. Now we just need to buy some Blu-Ray movies.
BTW, I think it comes with an HDMI cable. If not, I have a nice expensive Monster HDMI capable that I bought to connect another player to the TV before I knew what a sucker I was.
Correct on the HDMI, necessary, however the $130 cables are a HUGE fuckin rip off. Enormous and foolish waste of money. And as mentioned, if your TV isn’t 1080p, then Blu Ray isn’t being Blu Ray. Blu Ray is a 1080p player…it only counts on a TV capable of that degree of resolution. It’ll still look good on 1080i however.
The great news is that Blu-Ray movies are really coming down in price. Two weeks ago I bought Enter the Dragon, Bullitt, The Road Warrior, From Russia With Love and the 40th Anniversary Edition of The Planet of the Apes for $15 each.
I love that descriptioon and you are 100% right. Stuff like monster cable or ‘gold plated’ cables are a scam. The signal doesn’t travel far enough (even with a 6’ or 10’ length) to degrade over plain old HDMI cables from Wally-World.
Anyways I have a 1080p TV, HDMI cable, all connected to my upconverting DVD player and to be honest I didnt even ask for a Blu-Ray player for Christmas. The picture IMO is marginally better and not worth the price of players. That’s the problem. Due to what I just described folks arent willing to pay the over inflated prices for Blu-Ray players. So long as the industry ignores demand then Blu-Ray isnt ever going to effectively penetrate the market. My personal prognostication is that Blu-Ray wont be in the market long. I think its going to shift to digital delivery methods long before Blu-Ray has a chance to reach critical mass.
Your player does lack BD-Live, which may or may be be any issue for you. If you just want to watch the movie, the BD30 is fine. There have been a bunch of promotions for Panasonic’s next gen player for around $200 but I don’t see a current sale. Are you running an audio/video receiver with a 5.1/7.1 setup? The newer player could have other advantages depending on the age of your current equipment. Get Netflix for all you Blu ray movie needs, plans for less than $10/month, great plans for less than $20.
BR players are a lot cheaper this year. I know they were going for $169 the other day when I was at HHGregg. I got a PS3 last year for my birthday and I use it 90% of the time as a BR player. Matter of fact, I’m watching Dark Knight right now on it. I haven’t bought any BR movies…just using NetFlix for that.
My friend has a Vudu box that does digital delivery of HD movies. They have a higher level quality HD now and it looks REALLY good. I’m considering trying that next, but so far I’m very happy with NetFlix. I send a movie back tomorrow and the replacement will be here on Wednesday.
