Panasonic Blu-ray

[mraudit]

I missed the 35 and 55 Panasonic players by waiting to long. However, I noticed today an ad from the Nebraska Furniture Mart for a Panasonic Blu-ray player on sale for $319. There is no model number listed in the ad. It list the following items under a picture of the model; -PHL Ref/chromo proc/auto standby -VIERA cast -SD car, USB slots.

Would anyone know if this is a good model, and one that I should jump on at that price?

Or is there a Blu-ray player out there that I could get that blows everyone else's out of the water. I will go up to $1000. Thanks Vegas!!

 

[teachsac]

I would hope it is the BD80 since the MSRP for the BD60 is $$299. The BD60 can be had on Amazon for $209 right now. The BD80 can be had for $270. If you don't need the analog outs, then the BD60 would be the choice. For the money, the Panasonics are pretty much the best buy out there. Nothing else really "blows" them out of the water. PQ/AQ with Blu-rays are outstanding and they upconvert very well.

S~

 

[jayn_j]

I would hope it is the BD80 since the MSRP for the BD60 is $$299. The BD60 can be had on Amazon for $209 right now. The BD80 can be had for $270. If you don't need the analog outs, then the BD60 would be the choice. For the money, the Panasonics are pretty much the best buy out there. Nothing else really "blows" them out of the water. PQ/AQ with Blu-rays are outstanding and they upconvert very well.

What teachsac said. You can pay more, but I haven't seen much that will do better at any price. The only feature missing from the Panasonics is Netflix download, although they have Vieracast which promises to link to Amazon downloads "any day now"

Most of the higher priced players will justify their price by including internal audio decoding and higher end a/d conversion as well as beefed up power supplies and heavier mechanical chassis. However, this generally isn't needed with a relatively recent receiver that can decode the advanced audio codecs. It does make some sense if you have a 4-5 year old receiver that can't decode these codecs. The sound from the new codecs is spectacular.

Anyway, if you have a reasonable receiver, there really is no reason to spend more than $200-250 on a BD player. If you don't have a good receiver, you would still be better off spending $200 on the player and the remaining $800 on a new receiver, such as the Denon 789/889/989.

 

[teachsac]

The BD60 and 80 both have internal decoding, so if your receiver has HDMI input that accepts audio (whether or not it decodes), the 60 is fine. If your receiver only has 5/7.1 analog inputs then the 80 will be what you need and it has better a/d path than many other players. I know it is way better than the Sony and Samsung.

S~

 

[jayn_j]

I found a BD60 open box with all the accessories for $199 at BB. Naturally, I jumped on it so that I can move the old Insignia to the bedroom.