Panasonic DMP BD30 upscaling performance

[admin_exported]

Hi guys,

The "What Hifi (India)" did a supertest of all the available blue ray players in the Indian market in the May issue and fortunately, the cheapest one

won..the panasonic DMP-BD30..but the review didn't mention too much about SD DVD performance and upscaling performance...I will be looking to buy it, but my player has to cater to SD DVD, Blue ray and stereo...so if you guys could share some inputs about the BD-30 in stereo and upscaling of SD DVD performance it will be helpful..

Before knowing about this one I was considering the Samsung 1080P7 (dont think stereo performance is good), the cambridge DVD99, cambridge Azur 540 DVD player and the Denon 1740...while the Denon looks to be the most balanced, the cambridges have better stereo playback I think..how will the BD 30 compare with the above choices?

 

[Anonymous]

hi guys..unfortunately I will not get to test the player before buying..so your input will be really really helpful..Thanks

 

[Ketan Bharadia]

Hi,
The BD30 has good DVD replay for the money, though the similarly-priced Denon 1940 is probably slightly better. As for stereo performance, you'd be better off with the Cambridge. The Panasonic is a great value Blu-ray player but musical it is not.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry Ketan, can't agree with you about the Panasonic's audio and standard DVD performance. Firstly, amongst our players, we have Denon and Pioneer DVD players. The Panasonic is as good if not better than both of them at upscaling, although both the Denon and Pioneer are multi-region. As for CD playback, the Panasonic is very good, and probably at least equal to any sub £250 DVD/CD player. However, Cambridge do make exceptionally good CD players, so it would probably be slightly unfair to compare a multi format player to a single format player in that respect. It's grossly unfair, possibly downright insulting to suggest that the Panasonic DMP-BD30 is not musical! It is very impressive at resolving lots of musical detail in a controlled and pleasant way! I'm sure that the majority of people would totally disagree with you, if what you wrote was exactly as you intended?

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="niftynigel"]As for CD playback, the Panasonic is very good, and probably at least equal to any sub £250 DVD/CD player.[/quote]
Hmmmm.....

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="niftynigel"]It's grossly unfair, possibly downright insulting to suggest that the Panasonic DMP-BD30 is not musical! It is very impressive at resolving lots of musical detail in a controlled and pleasant way! I'm sure that the majority of people would totally disagree with you, if what you wrote was exactly as you intended?[/quote]

[quote user="Ketan Bharadia"]The Panasonic is a great value Blu-ray player but musical it is not.[/quote]

Yes, I think that's exactly what he intended!

 

[Anonymous]

As far as the upscaling goes I have found that it really depends on what movie your playing, some discs are very watchable especially anything with CGI like I Robot or the newer Star Wars films, some DVD's are quite dissapointing though.
After reading these posts I've tried some CD's for the first time on the DMP-BD30, initially the sound is not too bad, but when compared to my Marantz CD5001 it's not as good.
I think if your want to play CD's then a dedicated player is the way to go, I paid £79 for the Marantz in the Richer Sounds Sale, so you don't have to pay a fortune.
The sound on standard DVD's on the BD30 is exellent, Jarre in China is a good example and the upscaling is very good.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="koushikp"]
Hi guys,

The "What Hifi (India)" did a supertest of all the available blue ray players in the Indian market in the May issue and fortunately, the cheapest one

won..the panasonic DMP-BD30..but the review didn't mention too much about SD DVD performance and upscaling performance...I will be looking to buy it, but my player has to cater to SD DVD, Blue ray and stereo...so if you guys could share some inputs about the BD-30 in stereo and upscaling of SD DVD performance it will be helpful..

Before knowing about this one I was considering the Samsung 1080P7 (dont think stereo performance is good), the cambridge DVD99, cambridge Azur 540 DVD player and the Denon 1740...while the Denon looks to be the most balanced, the cambridges have better stereo playback I think..how will the BD 30 compare with the above choices?

[/quote]

The BD performance is excellent at this price point, no question about it.

The SD performance is VERY good. The same as my Toshiba EP35. Sometimes you have to remember that you are actually watching an up-scaled DVD.

Music is something you have to try yourself, I'm sure it will be fine if you aren't an audio geek. Buy a cheap CD player if you don't like it.

You are worrying over nothing in my opinion.