Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

Other products by Panasonic

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 16.9 x 2.4 inches ; 9.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 11 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000Y634SU
• Item model number: DMP-BD30K
• Batteries: 2 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,201 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

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  Electronics > Televisions & Video > Disc Players & Recorders > Blu-ray Disc Players

• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 16, 2008

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
Blu-ray means incredible full-HD images, breathtaking sound and 5x the data capacity of DVDs. Now Blu-ray means something else too: an entirely new movie-viewing experience, made possible by Final Standard Profile, which adds features never seen before, like four Picture-in-Picture modes including Enhanced Commentary (from directors and actors), Backstage Pass, Peek Behind the Animation and Audio Mixing.

Images So Real, You Feel Like You're in the Picture
Combining a PHL Reference Chroma Processor with advanced P4HD (Pixel Precision Progressive Processing) imaging technology, UniPhier — the Precise Digital Video processor — reproduces crisp, natural colors that are extremely faithful to the original movie. It does this by up-sampling the color information in decoded video signals, while the super high-speed P4HD up-converts content recorded in 480i/p, 720p or 1080i format to 1080p by correctly generating each pixel according to information drawn from up to 60 surrounding pixels. The image motion of each pixel is then categorized into one of 16 levels, from stationary to super fast. Image quality is further enhanced by Diagonal Processing, which creates smooth, sharp diagonal lines, and 3:2 Pull-Down, which optimizes the processing accordingly for film or video making the images look natural and lifelike. In addition, the DMP-BD30's HDMI output is Deep Color compatible, with 4,096 steps of gradation for even smoother, finer-quality images that meet Hollywood's stringent demands, so you can experience movies just the way they were meant to be experienced.

Incredible Sound Completes the Hi-Def Experience
With Precise Digital Audio, Blu-ray's beautiful images are complemented by exceptionally pure, accurate sound thanks to Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. UniPhier's advanced processing capability decodes these audio signals with high precision and outputs them in bitstream form with no degradation. It also brings re-mastering to Blu-ray for the first time, which compensates for data lost during the compression process creating a fuller, richer sound.

HD Networking with SD Card
The convenient SD card slot on the DMP-BD30 allows easy viewing of hi-def videos and photos on your HDTV. Videos shot with a Panasonic HD camcorder are output in their original 1920x1080 resolution, while still images taken with a Panasonic Lumix digital camera are up-converted and output in 1920x1080 resolution1.

One-Touch Control from Your TV's Remote
With EZ Sync HDAVI Control, you can control your Blu-ray Disc player — and all your home theater components — with your TV's remote2. Simply press the EZ Sync button and select "BD Player" on the menu screen; the BD player's menu will be displayed and you can begin playback.

Product Description
Blu-ray means incredible full-HD images, breathtaking sound and 5x the data capacity of DVDs. Now Blu-ray means something else too: an entirely new movie-viewing experience, made possible by Final Standard Profile, which adds features never seen before, like four Picture-in-Picture modes including Enhanced Commentary (from directors and actors), Backstage Pass, Peek Behind the Animation and Audio Mixing. Combining a PHL Reference Chroma Processor with advanced P4HD (Pixel Precision Progressive Processing) imaging technology, UniPhier(R) — the Precise Digital Video processor — reproduces crisp, natural colors that are extremely faithful to the original movie. It does this by up-sampling the color information in decoded video signals, while the super high-speed P4HD up-converts content recorded in 480i/p, 720p or 1080i format to 1080p by correctly generating each pixel according to information drawn from up to 60 surrounding pixels. The image motion of each pixel is then categorized into one of 16 levels, from stationary to super fast. Image quality is further enhanced by Diagonal Processing, which creates smooth, sharp diagonal lines, and 3:2 Pull-Down, which optimizes the processing accordingly for film or video making the images look natural and lifelike. In addition, the DMP-BD30's HDMI output is Deep Color compatible, with 4,096 steps of gradation for even smoother, finer-quality images that meet Hollywood's stringent demands, so you can experience movies just the way they were meant to be experienced. With Precise Digital Audio, Blu-ray's beautiful images are complemented by exceptionally pure, accurate sound thanks to Dolby(R) TrueHD and DTS-HD(TM). UniPhier(R)'s advanced processing capability decodes these audio signals with high precision and outputs them in bitstream form with no degradation. It also brings re-mastering to Blu-ray for the first time, which compensates for data lost during the compression process creating a fuller, richer sound.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great value for the money!, December 7, 2007

By	Irvin M. Haas "dvdirv" (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Panasonic DMP-BD30K is the newest Blu-ray player out there and has most of the latest features including being 1.1 Blu-ray compliant.

Being a previous Sony BDP-S300 owner, I found some important advantages with the Panasonic. It may not be that important overall, but the Panasonic loads in about half of the time that the Sony player does. It has a sleek look with a drop down panel that exposes the disc slot. The Panasonic plays all the current audio formats such as Dolby Digital TotalHD which many of the older player do not. Of course, you need a current receiver to play these newer formats.

On the negative side, the worst is the remote. It has the strangest layout. Logic was not employed very well in the design. There are no lighted buttons as well. If you want to quit certain functions, you must first hit the "Return" button on the remote. Most other players have a return button on the specific function built right into the software. But with the Pansonic, you have to hit the remote to get out of it.

Overall, this player displays a superb high-def picture. Panasonic has cut a few corners from its previous models to keep the price at $500. But for the money, this is the one to get. Now if they would only fix that remote!!!

268 of 292 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Credit to Camp Blue, December 2, 2007

By	Solo Goodspeed (Granada Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Being a relative novice to hi-def video, as well as format neutral, it's hard to review this type of product without dragging compared products in, but I'll try. I can say right off that Panasonic has taken the sting out of the higher price of Blu-Ray players with a good offering of features you won't find in the, um, more reasonably priced choice. Not the least of which is performance. After a bit of research, I went with Panasonic due to positive reviews and how I feel about the Panasonic name, which has been associated largely with video, unlike other manufacturers who try to spread themselves across a wider variety of products. It was a good call on my part, as things turned out. Startup is quick, around 15 seconds, and disc loading is snappy as well. Setup is quick and easy, and you have a choice for audio output of either optical or coaxial.

Other nice features of this player include variety of media: You can play not only standard music CDs (a given) but also MP3 discs. That's a lot of continuous music if you have your files burned to DVD. You can also view JPG digital photos from both disc and SD cards ... one almost frivolous feature allows you to run a slide show with music using both SD and CD functions. You can also view full resolution home HD video saved to SD; I don't have that type of camcorder yet, but it does take home video viewing to a whole new level.

One drawback that keeps this unit from being perfect, though not a biggie for me at this early stage, is no ethernet connectability for firmware upgrading. This means you have to download and burn upgrades to disc, and it's set up exclusively for Windows; being a Mac user, this kind of leaves me out in the cold. I did not encounter this problem with the other player. Though I have to say, this machine performs so smoothly right out of the box, the adage "if it works, don't fix it" is appropriate. Remember, high definition video players are more like computers, and if you insert a data file, especially one that's supposed to upgrade the machine, and it wasn't formatted properly to the disc, it could mean a trip to the service center.
For many of us with a large library of accumulated titles, upconversion is the bottom line/dealmaker. Some (not all) HD televisions have a built-in Zoom setting; my lower echelon model doesn't. Fortunately, the BD30K has its own zoom setting, which does a great job with letterboxed widescreen titles, filling the whole screen as opposed to merely stretching it horizontally, a weakness of earlier players.

Note: When I first wrote this review, the format wars were still raging away, and there was more comparison to HD-DVD players, which is now no longer relevant. I've revised the review accordingly, gotten a lot of use out of the unit since, and can honestly say I am still very satisfied with this purchase and the flexibility it offers, as well something should for the price I originally paid (about $500 retail), which has come down since. Panasonic does offer firmware upgrades you can download from their site, to stay updated with newer features available on some Blu-Ray titles. The link to updates is:
http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/support/Video/Blu-ray-Disc-Players/model.DMP-BD30K#

106 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LOOK AT WHO GAVE IT A 1 STAR REVIEW...., January 3, 2008

By	onestopnyc (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

First of all Amazon needs to go back to the old format that only allowed people who actually bought the product on Amazon to review it. I bought this product on ebay and so far I love it. The quality is amazing even for regular DVD's. I love that I can plug in the SD Card from my digital camera, the quality of the 12 megapixels pictures look terrific. The two people who wrote 1 star reviews for this product DO NOT EVEN OWN IT. Look at all their reviews, they trash anything blu-ray and give anything HD DVD 5 stars... bias. Anyway, for the price this is an amazing unit. Stay away from the other ones that might be around $300 (Sony, Samsung) because they are not using the final blu-ray format that allows for picture-in-picture (1.2) or the final one 2.0. This one is using the most up to date format, altough the 2.0 format will allow for content download from the internet, I am perfectly happy with this one (Thank you to the people who corrected my mistake with the format). The best you can do go get rid of reviews that are not "real" is to report them as "not helpful" or answer no to the question of "was this review helpful?". Oh and finally don't waste $100 on a Monster HDMI cable... mycablemart dot com has great quality cables for a fraction of what other retailers sell them for.