Customer Reviews

Panasonic DMP-BD35K 1080p Blu-ray Player

5 star:		(139)
4 star:		(53)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I take my home theater hobby pretty seriously, that's why when it came time to invest in a Blu-Ray player (finally the wait is over!!!), I did a ridiculously great amount of research. I was willing to spend much more money on a blu-ray player, but the prices have come down so much, you don't have to! I narrowed down my extensive search for the right player to the Panasonic DMP-BD35K and the Sony BDP-S350. **I BOUGHT THEM BOTH AND DID A "SIDE-BY-SIDE" TEST!**

I have some nice equipment, so I feel that the test was an excellent representation of the capabilities of these two players. My equipment includes a 100-inch Stewart screen with a 1080p Sony Pearl front projector, an Integra 9.8 DTC processor (with all the latest surround sound goodies), a 7-channel NAD amp, 7 Paradigm Signature speakers, and a dual M&K subwoofer (for full 7.1 surround sound).

I do understand electronics, but the Sony manual was really hard to follow. After only one call to Sony, I eventually got the player set up properly. After I set up the Panasonic, everything became much clearer. The Panasonic manual is so much better. But, who really cares about manuals? How do these two players perform side by side?

Audio for BOTH Blu-ray discs and standard DVDs: The Panasonic unquestionably has better audio. Compared to the Sony, the highs were much clearer. The 7.1 surround sound put me right in the middle of the "explosion" (my first test blu-ray disc was National Treasure I) when the Charlotte blew up. The biggest Audio difference was the bass. The bass in the Panasonic was so much better than the Sony. In fact, my old Sony standard-DVD player had better audio than the Sony BDP-S350. I'd give the Sony 3 stars with the audio. The Panasonic had outstanding treble, bass, and surround: 5-star audio!

Video for BOTH Blu-ray discs and standard DVDs: The Sony's video was good, but the Panasonic's video was fantastic! The skin tones were more realistic and the colors were more vibrant with the Panasonic. The Sony seemed to have a thin gray film over everything -- like looking through a filmy-dirty window. The Sony had 4-star video (it looked good, but not nearly as good when directly compared to the Panasonic). The Panasonic and its upscaling gets an easy 5 stars!

Both my wife and I did the "side-by-side" test by going back and forth between Blu-Ray discs and standard DVDs. We didn't discuss any of our thoughts until we each independently formed our own conclusions. After seeing and hearing both players, we were both in complete agreement that in every way the Panasonic DMP-BD35K was superior to the Sony BDP-S350.

By the way, the card slot on the Sony for BD-Live is very hard to get to. I do like Sony as a brand for some things, but not Blu-Ray players.

For those of you who are doing your research, hopefully I can save you some time to answer if you should buy the Panasonic DMP-BD35K or DMP-BD55K. I called Panasonic and asked the differences; besides the price, there are only two differences. The 55K plays DivX's. If you don't have any DivX's like me and most of the people on planet Earth, this doesn't make any difference to you. The only other difference is that the 35K can only output Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio to a receiver/processor that has an HDMI input. If your receiver doesn't have an HDMI input, you won't be able to get them out of the 35K. If your receiver does have an HDMI input and you'll be using an HDMI cable, then you have absolutely no need to buy the 55K. With the 55K, if you have an older receiver that does not have an HDMI input, you can use the 55K's analog audio outputs so that you can have Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. That's a nice feature of the 55K if you have an older receiver but want the latest surround sound formats.

Also, to save you some research time, I've already checked out all of the professional reviews including the ones on CNet.com: The Sony is considered ok, and CNet liked the Panasonic so much that it is the first Blu-Ray player EVER to receive CNet's "Editor's Choice Award."

I have to go to the store now and return the Sony player that I bought. I'm keeping the Panasonic!! :-)

Hopefully you found this review helpful!

I was very interested to see this unit perform as I had previously owned the BD30 for about a week and it was a piece of junk and I returned it. I bought this unit a week and a half ago and so far no problems at all.

Setup was a breeze as I just connected it to my Onkyo receiver via HDMI. The bootup time seems a little faster than the previous model, and the video performance with Blu-ray discs seems cleaner too. One thing I like is the fact that it will resume playback on SD-DVD and Blu-ray discs (without BD-Live). The sound quality is fantastic and it seems they fixed the issue with an attunated LFE output on the previous model. Upconversion of standard DVD seems very good. I also own a Toshiba HD-A35 and love its upconversion quality and the BD35 is every bit as good if not better. I also like the zoom feature that allows me to see DVDs that are not anamorphic being scaled and still fill the screen. With this zoom feature applied, my Star Wars original version DVD still looks very good. The ethernet port on the back will allow me to do future firmware updates without having to burn a CD. The owner's manual says if I have an internet connection connected all the time, the player will alert me when updates become available - cool!

The manual that comes with it covers the BD35 and BD55 and it looks like the only difference is the availability of analog 7.1 outputs and DviX playback on the BD55. One thing I will say is that these players do not play DVD-Audio or SACD discs. It will play DVD-Audio discs with Dolby Digital and DTS, but not the Advanced Resolution audio stream.

I haven't used the BD-live function yet, but there is a slot on the front of the player for a SD card which make using the BD-live feature possible.

So it looks like Panasonic finally got it right!

I had been looking for a blu ray player for some time, however the prices were just too high. Then I saw the Panasonic BD35K in one of my audio/video magazines. They gave it a great review and the price was $299. I went to Amazon and they had it for less than $250 so I ordered it on a Monday morning and received it on Thursday with no shipping charges. My receiver does not have an HDMI input or output so I connected the player directly to my 55 inch 1080P SONY SXRD TV using the HDMI port and I connected the digital optical audio out on the player to my receiver. The on screen setup menus were very easy to follow and the user manual explained everything. I thought I would try an action movie as the first one to see how the picture looked. I went to Blockbuster and got "The Incredible Hulk" and boy was I pleasantly surprised. The movie loaded in about 30 seconds the picture was just gorgeous and the sound coming from every speaker in my 5.1 surround sound set up was fantastic. My subwoofer definitely was given a good work out. The explosions just completely enveloped me. So far I am extremely pleased with this player and I would recommend this to anyone looking for a reasonably priced Blu Ray player.

First let me talk about the BD35 itself. This is a great Blu-ray player. Good price point, awesome picture and audio quality, reasonably fast load times, very good upconversion of standard DVDs (about comparable to my Toshiba A3 HD-DVD player, which the BD35 is replacing). If you are in the market for a Blu-ray player, this is a great choice (it didn't get a CNET Best Of award for nothing).

For those of you who own non-anamorphic standard DVDs (for example, Tombstone or Backdraft), you will be happy to know that unlike my A3, the BD35 automatically detects the non-anamorphic nature of the DVD and zooms it to fill the screen (no black bars on the sides). Sure the picture quality is less than an anamorphic standard DVD, and much less than a Blu-ray - but at least it fills the screen properly and is better than a sharp stick in the eye.

That being said, I'd like to play the part of educator, so please treat the rest of this review as a Public Service Announcement.

EDITED 12/8/08 TO ADD: avsforum members have figured out that my connectivity issue was not a HDMI Handshake issue. However, I am leaving the Handshake comments in the review as in general they are still applicable.

People getting into the world of HD need to be aware of HDMI Handshake issues. What is HDMI Handshake you ask? Well, you can use Google for a more detailed explanation, but basically HDMI incorporates a Digital Copy Protection called HDCP. Let's say you have a Blu-ray player connected to a AV receiver connected to your HDTV. Well, the Copy Protection basically requires each connection to exchange an authentication key (i.e. the Handshake). Only if all handshakes along the path are successful will video be successfully sent to the HDTV. Unfortunately, it's a complicated subject, and video failure due Handshake issues can be a matter of cable type, older components, firmware not up to date, powering up components in the wrong order, or a whole host of other items. It currently seems to be the Bane of the Home Theater World.

NOTE THAT ANY HANDSHAKE ISSUES, GENRALLY, ARE NOT THE SOLE FAULT OF THE BD35 (which is why I did not deduct any stars).

People with older HDTVs (especially with DVI inputs) seem to be more susceptible to Handshake issues. www.avsforum.com is a great resource if you want to learn more about this.

As an aside, I would like to say that the Powers That Be (whoever is in charge of HDMI) are really doing a horrible job. I personally know what 720p, DVI, HDCP, and HDMI 1.3 means. I also know that the solution to any given problem can be a matter of cabling, or firmware, or settings, or powering on components in the right order. But I can guarantee you that my Mom, or my mother-in-law, or my father-in-law, knows none of these things. I don't possibly see how the HDMI people expect people to buy a Blu-ray player when so many issues abound! It's just too complicated. There is going to be a large subset of the population who don't know about these issues, don't care about these issues, and aren't going to be willing to buy a Blu-ray player when it can be so complicated to get their Home Theater system to work properly.

I went through many headaches trying to solve this problem and learning about this - I hope this is of some use to readers and sheds some light. Best wishes to all, and enjoy the dazzling picture and audio quality on your BD35!

I bought this product due to the reviews I read on Amazon. What I looked most forward to was the fact that it "upscales" my old DVD's to look "almost HD." Almost?? This player upscales my old DVD's so well that I have found myself wondering if I need to buy the more expensive blu-ray movies at all. Even my old black and white movies on dvd look unbelievable. I was very relieved as I have an extensive collection of DVD's and was upset at the idea of having to replace them all with the new blu-ray format.

Just to be sure I immediately went out and bought several blu-ray movies to play on it. Unfortunately, I experienced what I soon learned was called "audio drop-out." During a few of the movies I purchased, and many of my old DVD's, the sound would cut out many times during playback. If I paused the movie and then continued, it would work until the next drop-out; at which point I had to go through the "pause-play" routine until I was sick of it.

I went to the Panasonic site and tried to get an firmware update as I did not have it connected to my router. No such luck. It was not yet uploaded to their site so no way to download it to a disk and then upgrade from there. I called tech-support and they told me there was indeed an upgrade that would fix the problem, but it had to be connected to the internet.

As my HD-TV is another room than my router, I purchased a 100 ft. ethernet cable and ran the firmware upgrade. It worked better than I could have possibly imagined. Not only is the audio drop-out gone (on all DVD's), the picture is even better, which is hard to believe as it was already magnificent.

I cannot possibly recommend this product any higher. It has saved me thousands of dollars that I feared I would have to spend on replacing my old DVD's. As a matter of point, the only blu-ray movies I will spend the extra money on is perhaps ones made with super special effects. There is no need to buy the blu-ray DVD's with this player for regular movies. Neither my husband, my techie son, or anyone else can tell they are not watching a HD movie with this player.

Thank you Panasonic, and Thank you Amazon reviewers who talked me into this particular player.

Update;
Time has now passed and I must say that the only problem I have had was that when we lost power in the house due to road work in our area, I had to re-download the firmware upgrade. Back to perfect.
I have found no problems with handshake issues. No problems with slow starts. I noticed the price is going up, as I got mine much cheaper here on Amazon. What's up with the price increase?

Coupled to a Panasonic TH-50PZ800U 50" 1080p plasma, this player does a fine job with blu-ray discs. I am delighted with, for example, Planet Earth or Wall-E in blu-ray.

However, if you have an extensive DVD collection and are used to viewing them on DVD-resolution EDTV, such as the 42" Panasonic TH-42PW4 plasma that I have owned for five years, be prepared to be disappointed.

This player does a very inconsistent job of upscaling DVDs to 1080p. It depends heavily on the DVD and probably on the quality of DVD encoding. DVDs of animated movies such as The Incredibles, Cars, and Wall-E upconvert outstandingly and are even improved by the process. Lord of the Rings is impressive as well. However, some scenes in some of the Harry Potter movies look uniformly TERRIBLE and nearly so does Back to the Future I, with very noticeable and harsh blocking artifacts. The third Indiana Jones movie looks quite good, but the first does not. Plus, to achieve passable results on these problem DVDs, you must choose picture setting = User, and adjust contrast to -4, sharpness to -4, 3D NR to +4, and Integrated NR to +3. On a consumer player you shouldn't have to do this to get passable results.

In testing the BD35's DVD ability I played the identical DVD in the BD35, hooked up to the HDTV, and an older DVD player hooked up to the EDTV via component video, with the playback synchronized. In the cases mentioned above, the picture looked uniformly better on the EDTV. A pleasant and somewhat creamy texture on the EDTV looked edgy and unpleasant upconverted to the HDTV.

As a result, I will be looking for another DVD player, probably one of the ones made by OPPO. I was hoping to avoid this with a matched Panasonic player & HDTV, but alas not. Apparently upconverting is not a universally well-solved problem.

The remote control has some silly deficiencies. Amazingly, there is no "DVD menu" button; when you press the "Top Menu" button you get "This is operation is currently disabled". You have to press the "S" (sub-menu) button and then select "Menu". There is no subtitle button. To adjust the subtitles, soundtrack, picture, and audio, you press the "Display" button (what!?).

Finally, the player can play MP3s from a CD and allow you to navigate within folders -- that's fine, and expected. But plug in an SD card containing MP3s -- such as that which I use with my Creative Zen player -- and the BD35 dumbly tells you that there are no pictures. What about the MP3s?! It's plain silly that a capable MP3 player can't play from its SD card slot. I hope Panasonic fixes that in a future software upgrade.

Summary: if you play nothing but blu-rays, you'll be fine. If you have a significant DVD investment, be forewarned that this player may not do justice to your collection.

By the time the format war was over, I knew I need a high def player of some kind. I started by buying a HDTV, but I wanted to wait until the final profile was available before I bought a blu-ray player. And, as long as I was waiting, I wanted the prices to drop some. As soon as I heard about this player, I was sold. I got one two weeks ago, and I am thrilled.

Before I got it, I was trying to understand what I would need for set up. Turns out I was making too much of things. All I had to do was hook up my new player via HDMI to my TV and I was good to go, although a direct connection between this and my TV and another one between this and my sound system is even better.

I have a 720p/1080i TV, but the difference was immediately evident. I've watched several movies, and they look amazing. I did some comparisons between blu-ray and DVD, and there is no comparison. Every scene I paused and compared looked so much better in blu-ray.

I also did some comparing with upconverting my DVDs. The quality of the upconverted picture really depends on the quality of the disc. Some of my older TV shows don't look that impressive. But new TV shows and old movies that have been restored look great. Not blu-ray great, but certainly better than they did.

You may have noticed that I mentioned hooking my player directly up to my TV. I know true home theater buffs are screaming in frustration. But there's a simple reason for it. My sound system is ancient. Probably 7 years old. It doesn't have an HDMI input. While initially, I ran the sound from my TV into the system, I am now using an optical digital cable to run it directly from the player into the system. The first option sounded fine, but the optical digital cable is awesome. Of course, I tweak some settings on my sound system, so I am getting far superior output from it now, too, than I was before. I may not be able to put this player through all its paces, but what I am getting is amazing.

This player is final format 2.0 compliant. That means you can hook it directly up to the internet for firmware updating and Blu-Ray Live features. I've already had one firmware update, and it was quick and painless. The SD slot is right in front of the TV, so using that for Blu-Ray live (or to show off pictures) shouldn't be a problem either.

I'd heard horror stories before I bought my machine about how long it takes to load a blu-ray movie. I haven't noticed it being that bad. True, it takes a few seconds longer then a DVD does, but it's not the slow start up and loading time I had feared. Of course, even with my DVD player, I generally set the disc in it and grab some water before I sit down to watch. This habit makes my wait time absolutely nil.

One feature I love with the remote is the fast forward. There are multiple speeds, but on the slowest, you can still hear the dialogue. People's voices and even emotion are still discernable. It's a great way to watch something a little faster if you want to move on to a favorite scene.

It's been hard waiting to get a blu-ray player, but this one was well worth the wait. I will be enjoying watching movies on it for a long time to come.

I had made a decision that I would get a blu-ray player when the price dropped below $300 for a newly released model. since the predecessor to this model had gotten good reviews, I decided buy this one when it was released. I was not disappointed.

Unlike the old model, this one can get its firmware upgrades via an ethernet connection to the Internet. I was going thru the initial setup when it notified me that a firmware upgrade was available and how to get it. The procedure was simple and straight-forward. The upgrade was downloaded and installed with no problem.

Blu-ray video output is superb. It is fun to watch a blu-ray disc of something you already have on DVD and marvel at all those details you never saw before. Upconversion of regular DVDs is subtle and without the harsh edges earlier upconverting players produced. I should point out that load time for blu-ray discs is reasonably fast.

The sound produced from blue-ray discs is outstanding. I had debated getting the BD55K with discrete Dolby 7.1 outputs, but that was a hundred bucks. Since I have a Panasonic receiver/amp that handles 7.1 encoding, all I needed to do is connect to it with an HDMI cable to get superb sound.

Now, all I have to do is decide which items in my DVD collection will be replaced with new blu-ray discs.

I recently went to Circuit City and purchased the new Panasonic DMP-BD35K Blu-Ray Player to compare it to the Sony BDP-S350 I have at home. I purchased the Sony a month before the Panasonic came out and wanted to see how it measured up. I had read a review online that stated that the Panasonic DMP-BD35K was the better player, and that it handled certain tasks better than the Sony BDP-S350, so I thought I would see for myself. As Blu-ray players the two appear to be well matched, but what I am particularly interested in is their ability to upconvert my collection of standard definition DVDs.

A couple of months ago I compared the Sony BDP-S350 with the Panasonic DMP-BD30K (review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2YF58AGU36JWQ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm). The results surprised me, and the Sony BDP-S350 was the clear winner. Since then, Panasonic has updated their Blu-ray players and have introduced the DMP-BD35K and DMP-BD55K. The players are definitely going to give Sony's new line of players a run for the money.

The start up time was very respectable for both players, although the Panasonic generally took an extra few seconds to load DVDs and Blu-ray discs. The Panasonic for some reason has to pause for approximately 5-10 seconds before the tray opens. The Sony is overall much faster to respond, making the user experience more pleasurable. The menu interfaces for both players are straight forward and relatively easy to navigate. Panasonic has opted for a standard setup menu that is accessed via the setup button on the remote, while Sony has chosen to have a media bar style menu launch at the beginning of every start up. Some people have complained about having to go through the media bar every time a new disc is inserted, but I don't find this a problem at all. After setting up both players, my first test was to compare their ability to upconvert standard definition DVDs.

The older Panasonic DMP-BD30K did a poor job of upconvertion, so I was especially interested to see if Panasonic had made improvements in this area to their new line of players. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Panasonic DMP-BD35K did a good job of upconvertion. The picture quaility was comparable to the Sony BDP-S350 (see note below). I found that the image was a little less sharp on the Panasonic, and that it's colors appeared slightly muted. The Sony's image was slightly sharper, and its colors were more saturated from the start. I made a number of picture adjustments to my home theater projector (Panasonic PT-AX200U) in the hopes of enhancing the Panasonic's color output to better match the Sony's, but no matter what adjustments I made I was unhappy. The one down side I found to the Sony's upconversion abilities is that it sharpened elements in the foreground more than in the background resulting in a uneven level of sharpness throughout the image. Generally head shots looked great, but people in the background appeared a little soft. The Panasonic did a better job of applying a more even sharpening to the entire image (both foreground and background) due to the fact that it produced a softer overall image that better matched the soft background detail. Both players do a good job of upconversion, although I prefer the image rendered by the Sony.

Note: Both players do a decent job of DVD upconvertion, but they both pale in comparison to dedicated upconverting standard definition DVD players like the OPPO DV-993H, DV-981HD, or DV-980H. If you are a true videophile you will probably want to purchase an OPPO player to watch your standard definition DVDs and use your Blu-ray player exclusively for watching Blu-ray discs.

Although I currently own the Sony BDP-S350, I was very excited that the Panasonic DMP-BD35K offered 24 frame per second (24 fps) playback for both Blu-ray AND standard definition DVDs. The Sony player only offers 24 fps playback on Blu-ray discs. As I tested the Panasonic I found that this feature contains one major flaw. You have to manually enable 24 fps playback for each DVD that is loaded into the player. The process is a simple one, but none the less, an annoying one. I don't understand why Panasonic didn't find a way to have this feature activate automatically the same way the player detects 24 fps playback on Blu-ray discs, or why Sony decided to only provide 24 fps playback for Blu-ray discs. Once activated, my projector received a 1080p24 signal (rather than a 1080p60 signal), but to be honest I couldn't see much of a difference in image quality or movement. At least not enough of a difference to convince me that I can't live without this feature.

When playing back Blu-ray discs I found both players to be more or less the same. The image and sound quality was excellent on both players. Again, the only inconsistency I found was that the Panasonic took an additional 5-10 second to eject any disc.

One feature that Panasonic has done a better job of incorporating into their new players is the use of external memory. To fully utilize Blu-ray Live 2.0 features both players require the use of external memory. Sony has opted to use USB Flash memory, while Panasonic has opted to use SD Media Cards. Sony has stupidly placed the external memory card slot on the back of the player, making access difficult or impossible for people who place it within an AV cabinet or entertainment console. The Panasonic on the other hand has located the SD slot at the front of the player, making accessibility a snap. I have little problem reaching to the rear of my Sony player, so this is a non-issue, but if you plan on using the memory slot frequently the Panasonic might be the better choice.

Another reviewer states that both the Panasonic's image and sound quality is clearly superior to the Sony's. My tests made it clear to me that both players produce an excellent image when playing Blu-ray discs, do a decent job of upconversion when playing standard definition DVDs, and produce excellent quality sound. To proclaim one player the clear winner over the other seems biased to me.

In conclusion, Panasonic has clearly stepped up to the plate and delivered a very nice Blu-ray player, but that being said, I found the overall design and DVD upconversion to be more pleasing on the Sony BDP-S350. Also, after suffering through the slow eject and load times of my now obsolete Toshiba A20 HD-DVD player, the Sony's slightly faster response time was very important to me. I had hoped that the Panasonic was going to blow the Sony out of the water and that its ability to play standard definition DVDs at 24 fps would seal the deal, but this was not the case. Considering that the Sony, in my opinion, does a slightly better job of upconversion and can cost around $40 less than the Panasonic, my decision has been made to return the Panasonic DMP-BD35K to Circuit City and keep on using my Sony BDP-S350 until both companies learn how to upconvert standard definition DVDs as well as OPPO. My suggestion to anyone considering either of these players is to weigh their strengths and weaknesses and buy the player that best suits your needs. For some, that will be the Panasonic, for others, that will be the Sony. Either way, you are going to be very happy with your new purchase.

"THE BEST Stand alone Blu Ray player in the market today"

by veridikal on December 4, 2008

Pros: Snazzy good looking. Fully loaded with all HD sound formats.

Cons: No position memory to remember positions of multiple discs.

Summary: This is Thee Best stand alone Blu Ray player on the market today. I was able to get it at Sears for $138 + tax on 11/23/08. I bought three v1.3 HDMI cables for $8 each at Monoprice.com.

This player is very sleek looking. It is connected via HDMI to my 34" widescreen CRT Panasonic TV. Even at this screen size, I am able to notice significant improvement in picture quality over a standard progressive scan dvd player.

I cannot comment on the HD sound quality because I am getting standard 5.1 Dolby Digital through my Optical Digital cable to my non-HDMI receiver.

I am disappointed that this player cannot remember multiple disc positions like my previous DVD player which had an independent Position Memory button to remember upto 5 disc positions. This player remembers only one disc (standard or Blu Ray) only if you press STOP once. If the tray is opened, the memory is erased.

The player is pretty fast. It takes less than 5 seconds for the FBI warning to appear on the screen once the tray is closed.

This player is the best. Once I upgrade my TV and receiver, I shall update this review.