At CES 2012 in Las Vegas earlier this month, Panasonic showed off its upcoming Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D players including a CEA Innovations Award winner and their smallest ever wall-mountable home Blu-ray player. But size and awards aside, we were interested in what has been improved from the current slate of players. In a nutshell, the new players are faster, lighter, more energy-efficient, with more streaming apps and networking features and offer a new touchpad-based remote control. Also, enhancements to Panasonic's proprietary UniPhier video processor allow for further improvements to picture quality, not only for DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, but also for streaming sources.
From the current stable of four players, Panasonic will offer six players in 2012, two of which are 2D only and four of which support 3D output. The 3D players include the DMP-BBT01, DMP-BDT500, DMP-BDT320, DMP-BDT220. All four Blu-ray 3D players include Panasonic's recently enhanced VIERA Connect app and streaming suite. The 2D Blu-ray players -- DMP-BD87 and the DMP-BD77-- offer IP VOD, a smaller subset of streaming services, including Netflix, Vudu, CinemaNow and YouTube.