Not sure there is more to it, the marketing blurb from the Panasonic web-site is set out below. Don't get me wrong, if Sony was producing significantly better budget Blu-ray players I would go for them but having read the Feb What Hi-Fi mag the 55 and 35 edge their Sony counterparts in terms of performance I'm looking for.
VIERA Link - Bringing control of all your AV Devices to just one fingertip!
Although Panasonic's Engineers spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve the already formidable picture quality of the latest VIERA Plasma or LCD TVs, or the audio clarity of Panasonic Home Cinema Systems, they do also think about "friendly" technologies - in other words, technologies which make operating these devices easier for users. A good and innovative example of this is "VIERA Link".
So what is VIERA link? Well, before we explain what it is, lets look at how people currently have to operate their AV products. Suppose you want to watch the latest film on Blu-ray disc - to do that, first you would have to power up the Blu-ray player with your Blu-ray remote control, then turn on your TV and select the correct AV channel input using your TV remote. After that you would need to switch back to the Blu-ray player remote control and press 'Play'. Oh, wait! What if you have have a Home Cinema Surround system too? Then you need to search for the Home Cinema remote in order to to switch on your AV Amplifier too. Therefore before you can do something seemingly simple like settle back to watch a film, you are forced to use three completely different remote controls! Sounds like a lot of bother, right? Well, Viera Link allows you to do all of this with just one remote control! So is VIERA link is just a fancy name for a universal remote? No - universal remotes are really not 'universal' at all. What they do is combine a bunch of incompatible controllers into one case. Watching a film on a Blu-ray disc with a universal remote requires pushing just as many buttons as using three separate remotes. However with VIERA link, you press just one button and the TV turns on, the Blu-ray player turns on, and the home theater surround sound system turns on and automatically selects the right inputs and settings to watch the Blu-ray film. VIERA Link works by making full use of the capabilities of the emerging de-facto High Definition connection standard, HDMI. Jointly developed by Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi, Philips, Toshiba and some others, HDMI is the first and only digital interface to combine uncompressed high-definition video and multi-channel audio in a single digital cable. For end-users, the fact that just a single cable carries audio and video signals dramatically simplifies the installation of home theater systems and eliminates the cable quagmires of the past! VIERA link is now takes this convenience to the next level by enabling users to use the same HDMI cables to also transmit control signals between different devices. What that means is you get universal control of all your HDMI home theater equipment, without having to worry about trying to figure out which remote control to use. Just point the VIERA remote at your TV, and the signal will travel over the HDMI wires to the right piece of equipment, whether it be a Blu-ray or DVD player or Home Cinema Surround system. The effect? Lets take another look at the example we discussed at the begnning: watching a film on Blu-ray. Using VIERA link, you simply press 'play' on your Blu-ray player, and the TV and surround system will automatically switch-on and set themselves to the correct AV input channels. Just by pressing one single button on one remote control. Sit back and relax - your film is starting!
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