Component Manufacturer: Panasonic
Model Number: DMP-BD50
Type of Component: Blu-ray Disc Player
Year Purchased: 2008
Cost of Unit: $449
Extended Warranty: No
What Do You Like About This Component? Excellent image quality, great sound decoding capabilities. I sampled Enchanted, 3:10 To Yuma, Patton, Battle of the Bulge, 300, Michael Clayton, Casino Royale and they all looked very good. The feature that looked the by far best on BluRay was The Searchers which is by leaps and bounds the oldest film I've sampled so far. It was like watching the film in 3-D. Apparently, the VistaVision process benefits most from the Blu-ray upgrade.
What Don't You Like About This Component? Operational speed only fair. The upscaling feature is by far the worst I've seen on any unit ever so much so that 480p discs look infinitely better on my fourteen year old non-upscaling Pioneer Laserdisc combo player! It would appear that Panasonic has perfected the process of DOWNscaling 480p dvd's.
Why Did You Choose This Component Over Other Models? First Profile 2.0-compliant standalone player.
Would You Buy This Component Again? No - The second Blu-ray player that I purchase for my central screening room must have superb upscaling abilities; the Panasonic certainly does not. Hopefully the Sony model this Fall will correct this incredible deficiency.
Additional Panasonic DMP-BD50 Reviews: (CNET), (ZDNeT), (Ultimate AV).
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