Panasonic DMP BD85 Blu-ray Disc Player is ideal for watching movies via DVD or the Internet at house. The Panasonic Blu-Ray Disc Player expands your viewing experience with its Internet connectivity. By means of VIERA Cast , Panasonic gives you instant content and access to YouTube, Picasa, Netflix, Pandora and other on-line resources. Player even has a wireless LAN so it may be on-line anywhere inside your home should you have wireless Web connectivity. On top of that, Blu-Ray Disc players allow for six times much more storage than a standard DVD, making it feasible for studios to add features and resolution to movies they burn to these discs. Included in these features are frequently soundtracks to movies, outtakes, directors narration and actor interviews. Further, the added resolution is perfect for the wide selection of HDTVs on the market today offering pictures up to 1080p. Included features of the Panasonic DMP BD85 K Blu-ray Disc Player. This amazing DVD player features True-to-Cinema picture high quality, 7.1 channel audio decoder and analog output, VIERA Cast with wireless LAN, HDMI connection, a wireless LAN adapter, and digital tube sound simulator for fantastic audio. Save $70 off MSRP! Order the Panasonic Blu-ray Disc Player now and pay our fantastic Deal of the Day price! Get the most effective video from your DVDs and also the Web and save on the Panasonic Blu-ray Disc Player with the Brookstone Deal of the Day!
CUSTOMER REVIEW
There is really a lot to like about Panasonic's newest high-end Blu-ray player, the DMP-BD85: excellent video and audio performance, a rich assortment of streaming media choices (Netflix, Amazon VOD, YouTube, Pandora World wide web Radio and now VUDU via a recent firmware upgrade), along with a extremely customizable assortment of tweakable parameters for audio and video hobbyists. Also, with built in Wi-Fi via the included USB adapter, it is simpler than it used to be to reap the benefits of an internet-enabled player. However, the bland text-based menus and operational idiosyncrasies of the player make it feel a little bit behind the times.
DVD upconversion is very good to excellent, with some enhancements to Panasonic's Uniphier video processor which are only accessible within the BD85 and in the new Blu-ray 3D players, the DMP-BDT300 and DMP-BDT350. The entry-level BD45 and BD65 players include a slightly lesser quality version of the Uniphier processor, equivalent to Panasonic's 2009 players. Diagonal lines are clean and free from jaggies, 2:three film cadence is simply detected by the player, preventing the tell-tale moire distortion that will occur on lesser players, and edge detail is smooth and fairly free of aliasing and any combing or tearing artifacts.
Turning to high def Blu-ray Disc playback, advances to the player's chroma (color) upconversion processor enable outstanding color reproduction and color detail from 1080p Blu-ray Disc, superior to Blu-ray playback on some other more pricey players. To be honest, these improvements are only really visible on larger screen sizes (e.g., significant screen projection systems) but residence theater hobbyists and videophiles will appreciate the exceptional Blu-ray playback top quality of the BD85.
Audio high quality is also outstanding, with some innovative enhancements to the way digital audio is handled that can enhance the sound high quality, even over HDMI PCM and bitstream connections (specifically the "Jitter Purifier" and "High Clarity Audio" features). By providing much more accurate information for the audio clock, the BD85 minimizes jitter that may detract from the sound top quality, even when your receiver or preamp does the audio decoding. For those who have older non-HDMI receivers, the BD85's multi-channel analog outputs and on-board decoding for DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD can offer outstanding lossless audio from Blu-ray Disc (just be prepared to spend some time tweaking the player's speaker settings and your receiver to get the sound dialed in just right).
In our testing, the included 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi adapter worked well. Also with the WiFi adapter is really a 3-foot USB extension cable which allows you to place the wireless antenna module outside the audio cabinet where it can get much better WiFi reception. We were effortlessly able to stream Netflix in HD utilizing the WiFi adapter 1 floor away from our 802.11g Linksys wireless router. Access to Netflix, Amazon and YouTube was pretty dependable (though we tested YouTube and Netflix significantly much more heavily than Amazon VOD), and BD-Live features worked well on the player (as long as you give it a couple of minutes to fully connect to the network). Also, for those with the firmware 1.23 applied, as of June, 2010, Pandora is now accessible in the VIERA Cast screen on this player, and firmware 1.51 (11/2010) brought VUDU to this and other 2010 model year Panasonic players.
But Panasonic made some ergonomic choices here that are a bit questionable. They shortened the remote vs. last year's models by about an inch. And while this does make the basic functions like transport and menu navigation just a little simpler to operate (a minimum of to my thumbs), the smaller size meant removing the "Set-up" button entirely, and making the regularly employed "Display" button a lot smaller and simple to miss. And even though there is a VIERA Cast button the remote, which enables access to all of the IPTV streaming goodies, the player lacks an integrated splash screen (as seen on recent LG and Samsung players) which would give you the alternative to select between disc-based, USB-based on web-based content in an integrated and logical way.
Also, within the "Functions" menu, there is an choice called "Network" which really launches the VIERA Cast screen (why not call it "VIERA Cast" to be consistent?). Maybe most frustrating to those that watch a great deal of foreign films (or non-native English speakers), there is no subtitle button on the remote. Instead subtitle controls are buried deep within the "Display" menu, where you will also discover the nifty 24p mode switch for DVD playback. This is nothing new within the BD85, but it is a questionable choice for a fairly commonly used function.
In the area of loading speed, the BD85 carries on the tradition of earlier Panasonic players being a fairly sluggish disc loader. Certain, there's a "fast boot" option (Quick Begin), which can take you from powered off to the fundamental splash screen and "no disc" message in under 2 seconds. But after that initial boot, you'll still be waiting a although to view your discs - we clocked the disc loading times at about 20 seconds to load a standard DVD, 36 seconds to load a Blu-ray and 39 seconds to load a BD-Java Blu-ray (the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie). A BD-Live heavy title ("Inglourious Basterds") can take over two minutes to get to a visible screen, though we did discover that utilizing an SDHC card instead of a standard SD card, did speed up this load time substantially, exposing more of the BD-Live content that we did not see when we used the standard 1GB SD card. And that's 1 much more knock - why does Panasonic still require customers to buy and insert an SD card in order to use BD-Live? Why not load the unit with a minimum of 1 GB of on-board memory to ensure that clients aren't disappointed to find they require an additional purchase just to use BD-Live?
In terms of disc compatibility and dependable operations, we had been only able to discover a single disc that was problematic on the player - the initial disc inside the "Alien Quadrilogy" boxed DVD set. The default Dolby Digital track plays fine but the DTS track on the extended cut of the film emits nothing but silence. Apparently this is an improvement over earlier Panasonic players, some of which were not able to play this disc at all. We also saw the machine shut itself down a couple of times when playing Xvid-encoded AVI files from a connected USB drive. But thanks to some follow-up testing from Panasonic, confirmed by us, this turned out to be media-specific: in other words, should you use a decent high quality name brand USB flash drive (rather than the cheap promo USB drive we initially used), the player plays these AVI files fine.
All told, the operational idiosyncrasies of the player are simple enough to get employed to, and will be more annoying to hobbyists who like to get into the set-up menus to test various alternatives and settings and perhaps much less annoying to the average consumer. It is the performance that matters, and at the moment, this is 1 of the top performers obtainable for under $300. So should you do not mind several less-than-sexy menus and operational quirks, then the BD85 will make an outstanding option for a high performance, inexpensive Blu-ray Disc player.
DVD upconversion is very good to excellent, with some enhancements to Panasonic's Uniphier video processor which are only accessible within the BD85 and in the new Blu-ray 3D players, the DMP-BDT300 and DMP-BDT350. The entry-level BD45 and BD65 players include a slightly lesser quality version of the Uniphier processor, equivalent to Panasonic's 2009 players. Diagonal lines are clean and free from jaggies, 2:three film cadence is simply detected by the player, preventing the tell-tale moire distortion that will occur on lesser players, and edge detail is smooth and fairly free of aliasing and any combing or tearing artifacts.
Turning to high def Blu-ray Disc playback, advances to the player's chroma (color) upconversion processor enable outstanding color reproduction and color detail from 1080p Blu-ray Disc, superior to Blu-ray playback on some other more pricey players. To be honest, these improvements are only really visible on larger screen sizes (e.g., significant screen projection systems) but residence theater hobbyists and videophiles will appreciate the exceptional Blu-ray playback top quality of the BD85.
Audio high quality is also outstanding, with some innovative enhancements to the way digital audio is handled that can enhance the sound high quality, even over HDMI PCM and bitstream connections (specifically the "Jitter Purifier" and "High Clarity Audio" features). By providing much more accurate information for the audio clock, the BD85 minimizes jitter that may detract from the sound top quality, even when your receiver or preamp does the audio decoding. For those who have older non-HDMI receivers, the BD85's multi-channel analog outputs and on-board decoding for DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD can offer outstanding lossless audio from Blu-ray Disc (just be prepared to spend some time tweaking the player's speaker settings and your receiver to get the sound dialed in just right).
In our testing, the included 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi adapter worked well. Also with the WiFi adapter is really a 3-foot USB extension cable which allows you to place the wireless antenna module outside the audio cabinet where it can get much better WiFi reception. We were effortlessly able to stream Netflix in HD utilizing the WiFi adapter 1 floor away from our 802.11g Linksys wireless router. Access to Netflix, Amazon and YouTube was pretty dependable (though we tested YouTube and Netflix significantly much more heavily than Amazon VOD), and BD-Live features worked well on the player (as long as you give it a couple of minutes to fully connect to the network). Also, for those with the firmware 1.23 applied, as of June, 2010, Pandora is now accessible in the VIERA Cast screen on this player, and firmware 1.51 (11/2010) brought VUDU to this and other 2010 model year Panasonic players.
But Panasonic made some ergonomic choices here that are a bit questionable. They shortened the remote vs. last year's models by about an inch. And while this does make the basic functions like transport and menu navigation just a little simpler to operate (a minimum of to my thumbs), the smaller size meant removing the "Set-up" button entirely, and making the regularly employed "Display" button a lot smaller and simple to miss. And even though there is a VIERA Cast button the remote, which enables access to all of the IPTV streaming goodies, the player lacks an integrated splash screen (as seen on recent LG and Samsung players) which would give you the alternative to select between disc-based, USB-based on web-based content in an integrated and logical way.
Also, within the "Functions" menu, there is an choice called "Network" which really launches the VIERA Cast screen (why not call it "VIERA Cast" to be consistent?). Maybe most frustrating to those that watch a great deal of foreign films (or non-native English speakers), there is no subtitle button on the remote. Instead subtitle controls are buried deep within the "Display" menu, where you will also discover the nifty 24p mode switch for DVD playback. This is nothing new within the BD85, but it is a questionable choice for a fairly commonly used function.
In the area of loading speed, the BD85 carries on the tradition of earlier Panasonic players being a fairly sluggish disc loader. Certain, there's a "fast boot" option (Quick Begin), which can take you from powered off to the fundamental splash screen and "no disc" message in under 2 seconds. But after that initial boot, you'll still be waiting a although to view your discs - we clocked the disc loading times at about 20 seconds to load a standard DVD, 36 seconds to load a Blu-ray and 39 seconds to load a BD-Java Blu-ray (the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie). A BD-Live heavy title ("Inglourious Basterds") can take over two minutes to get to a visible screen, though we did discover that utilizing an SDHC card instead of a standard SD card, did speed up this load time substantially, exposing more of the BD-Live content that we did not see when we used the standard 1GB SD card. And that's 1 much more knock - why does Panasonic still require customers to buy and insert an SD card in order to use BD-Live? Why not load the unit with a minimum of 1 GB of on-board memory to ensure that clients aren't disappointed to find they require an additional purchase just to use BD-Live?
In terms of disc compatibility and dependable operations, we had been only able to discover a single disc that was problematic on the player - the initial disc inside the "Alien Quadrilogy" boxed DVD set. The default Dolby Digital track plays fine but the DTS track on the extended cut of the film emits nothing but silence. Apparently this is an improvement over earlier Panasonic players, some of which were not able to play this disc at all. We also saw the machine shut itself down a couple of times when playing Xvid-encoded AVI files from a connected USB drive. But thanks to some follow-up testing from Panasonic, confirmed by us, this turned out to be media-specific: in other words, should you use a decent high quality name brand USB flash drive (rather than the cheap promo USB drive we initially used), the player plays these AVI files fine.
All told, the operational idiosyncrasies of the player are simple enough to get employed to, and will be more annoying to hobbyists who like to get into the set-up menus to test various alternatives and settings and perhaps much less annoying to the average consumer. It is the performance that matters, and at the moment, this is 1 of the top performers obtainable for under $300. So should you do not mind several less-than-sexy menus and operational quirks, then the BD85 will make an outstanding option for a high performance, inexpensive Blu-ray Disc player.
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