Great midrange Blu-Ray player
Written: Apr 20 '09
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Pros: Inexpensive, full-featured, good video and audio quality, built well for price.
Cons: Resume doesn't always work. Outdated by new models.
The Bottom Line: The BD35 has performed well for us and is an excellent value. Outside of a couple nuisances, such as disc resume issues, I love it.
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| tjapkesg's Full Review: Panasonic DMP-BD35 Blu-Ray Player |
This model offers an excellent compromise between price and performance. I bought into DVD at about the same point of maturity at about the same price. That is, the start of a generation of players that have most, if not all, bugs worked out. In this case, these are players that feature Profile 2 support, BD Live, the full compliment of audio decoders, are relatively quick, reliable, and perform, while also being affordable to general consumers.
Getting thing connected
First things first. As usual, throw out the pathetic "standard issue" composite cable (RCA type with Yellow for video, Red and White for audio). While this player has a "video out" (composite) and analog stereo outputs, these connections cannot carry an HD signal and would only be useful for connecting to an older non-HD television.
Video
There is also a component video output, which can carry an HD signal, although in analog form and limited to 1080i (by Blu-Ray specifications). This might be you best option though if you have an older pre-HDMI HDTV or are using the player with a standard definition TV that happens to have component video connections. However, component video is not HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) compliant, so there is the possibility that HDCP content will either be limited to SD, or worse, not displayed at all. While I have heard that we are currently safe from HDCP being leveraged in this way, HDMI is certainly the preferred connection, since it is not only HDCP compliant but also digital. And having a digital connection from the source (the player) to your display limits chances for degradation caused by digital to analog or analog to digital conversions.
Audio Connection
HDMI can also carry 7.1 channels of high resolution audio. What improvements you see on the screen thanks to Blu-Ray, you can also hear with your ears, provided you have a sufficient audio system. Lossless (not compressed) multichannel HD audio (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD and DTS HD Master Audio) compared to Dolby Digital and DTS is much like comparing CD audio to MP3 audio. And much like that comparison, it is arguable whether your ears can here the difference.
In this case, getting high definition audio with the BD35 requires that you have an A/V receiver with an HDMI connection that accepts audio.
No HDMI or no HDMI audio on your receiver?
If your receiver doesn't accept HDMI audio, or lacks HDMI altogether, you may want to take a look at the DMP-BD55K, which has 7.1 channel analog outputs. Using the analog outputs does require that your receiver have multi-channel analog inputs. These connections are the same as the stereo RCA connections we're all familiar with from yesteryear, but more of them. And there's really nothing wrong with them. They simply have fallen out of favor for digital connections.
Option #2 is to simply use the Toslink (aka Optical) connection. While toslink lacks the bandwidth to carry multichannel high resolution audio, it is digital, it is one cable (well, one more in addition to your video connection), and you will still benefit from the improved mastering on Blu-Ray titles. Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD are converted to Dolby Digital. DTS-HD and DTS HD Master Audio are converted to DTS. While this means the audio tracks are compressed, the uncompressed track you start with on a Blu-Ray is better than what you would generally find on a DVD.
This is my current situation, as I wanted a BD55, but couldn't pass on the BD35 for $99. I love my Yamaha RX-V1300 A/V receiver, short of the lack of HDMI, so I have no immediate intentions of replacing it. Using the optical connection sounds fantastic. Better than I imagined.
Both the BD35 and BD55 sport the necessary audio codecs to decode audio on any Blu-Ray title, which is important if you don't have an HDMI compliant receiver with those codecs.
Speed
Blu-Ray players tend to be slow. This is one of the areas where the PlayStation 3 stands out. The PS3 remains to be one of the fastest loading players, but this machine does reasonably well. Powering on takes the longest, which is more noticeable since the tray does not open until it is nearly finished starting up.
While I have not timed anything, loading discs seems a little slow with some Blu-Ray discs, but not so bad with DVD. This would be due to the additional capabilities of Blu-Ray. It simply takes longer to load all the Java goodies and such for those fancy menus and features.
Navigating menus seems to be about equal to DVD players that I am familiar with. Many Blu-Ray discs are actually nicer as you don't have to navigate away from the main title menu to do things such as changing sound tracks. Instead, items like audio settings often come up as a pop up menu. And you have access to pop-up menus even during playback.
Transport functions (i.e. Fast forward, rewind, chapter skipping) are a little slow to respond.
Disappointments
No Multi-Disc Resume
This is a big one for me, but lot of DVD players don't have this either. Our old player kept tabs on up to 30 discs, so anything you watched recently could be resumed from where you left off. More importantly, that meant not having to skip through previews or wait through FBI warnings. This is a huge benefit when dealing with a toddler. I don't know why they can't take a PC-like approach and just have you "accept" the FBI warning and save a cookie that by-passes it for the future, but I suppose maybe that's a legal issue.
The fact of the matter is, resume fails to function at all a great deal of the time, and it has been difficult to pinpoint why it doesn't always resume. Originally, we thought you had to hit stop before turning it off. Nope. So we thought we should just turn it off and walk away. Nope. All that we have found is, it will always resume for some titles and never will for others, so it appears to be merely title specific.
The Seemingly Illogical
I'm not sure how to explain this, but some things about this player just irk me at times. One in particular is the fact that you have to stop whatever you are watching to get into the players setup menus. Unfortunately I don't know if this is unique to this player or something that plagues Blu-Ray players in general. I'm sure we had to stop playback to access setup on our DVD players (I really don't recall), but shouldn't things progress? It wouldn't be a big deal, but it takes time to stop the movie and even more time for it to reload and start playing again. It is simply more noticeable than it was with DVD.
Another pet-peeve would be the lack of a Menu button. With any of our DVD players, the Top Menu button never seemed to serve a useful purpose. It was disabled a great deal of the time, which includes during previews and actual movie playback. The same seems to be true with the BD35, but, with our DVD players, the Menu button would often take you straight to the Title Menu when pressed. On the BD35, you must press Sub Menu, which brings up a menu that presents a Menu option on screen. From there, it seems to behave similar to DVD players. Weird. Why no button? I have honestly pulled the original remote out its resting place several times to double check, just out of pure disbelief that it is missing.
Features
SD and SDHC Memory Card slot
Capable of reading JPEG image files and AVCHD video. AVCHD is a SD and HD video format that you might find on some tape-less video cameras.
Ethernet Connection and Automatic Firmware Upgrades
When connected to a network with Internet access, this is very useful for keeping the firmware, the software running the player, up to date. This is important as Blu-Ray has been designed to evolve. While changes may not impair your ability to watch new titles, firmware updates insure that your player is compatible with any new features that crop up. This might include some type of interactive BD-Live feature. Updates also incorporate bug fixes; remedies to well known problems that originate with a specific model player. Manually checking for updates is also possible.
VIERA Link
Built on the HDMI control standard, this allows your TV to communicate with your other HDMI devices. I have no knowledge of the compatibility with devices outside the Panasonic brand, that also have VIERA Link, but can tell you that it is a handy feature. When powered on, the BD35 automatically changes inputs on our Panasonic TH-50PZ80U Plasma. If you turn off the plasma, the BD35 automatically turns off. You can also control the player, to a somewhat limited degree, through the television.
The Movie Experience
Video Quality appears to be excellent. I unfortunately have not seen much to compare to, but, with several months under our belts, I can confidently say I am very pleased. From what I've read, you would have to get a reference quality player, such as the Pioneer 51FD, to see an appreciable increase in quality.
DVD movies also appear to up-convert nicely. Some movies certainly convert better than others, with Pixar films, for example, looking stunning whether on DVD or Blu-Ray. We recently acquired Ratatouille on BluRay, and can say that there seemed to be an improvement over the old DVD we've been watching. It's nothing you can quite put your finger on, but the colors feel richer and deeper.
Audio also seems to get a bump in quality, even though we are only using Toslink (Optical) and not getting the full benefit of Blu-Ray. How much of that is due to the quality of the player, I don't know, but my guess is that much of that is improved mastering of the soundtracks on the movies themselves. DVD sounds the same, as expected.
Read errors are few and far between. To this point, it has been limited to cracked discs from Netflix and thick smudgy (toddler) finger prints that would bring even our glorious old DVD player to its knees.
Conclusion
While there is always room for improvement, the BD35 has performed well for us and brought the wonderful world of Blu-Ray to our home without breaking the bank. Outside of a couple nuisances, such as the resume issues, I love it. It can be a little slow compared to DVD players, but it functions faithfully.
I contemplated getting a PS3, but, unlike a PS3, this can go inside a cabinet without fear of overheating. I also prefer tray loading over slot loading. The Sony remote for the PS3 is also a Bluetooth remote, thus you cannot control it with a typical universal remote. The PS3 is still a great machine, but I had no need for another gaming console and simply wanted a simple standalone video player.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
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Epinions.com ID:
tjapkesg
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Reviews written: 29
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