Panasonic TH 37PX70 and BD50

[admin_exported]

I've had my Panasonic plasma screen for about a year now and absolutely love it, it's a cracking box, and DVDs played through my Arcam FMJ DV139 are fantastic in their picture quality.

I'm now contemplating investing in a BD50 blu-ray player to complement it. The screen however will take HD at 720p only, rather than full 1080p unfortunately, and so I'd welcome views from anyone on how much of a difference I'd actually notice upgrading to blu-ray. Has anyone tried this already, and if so, was it a staggering improvement? Should I save and replace the screen in a couple of years with a full HD 1080p one?

Any thoughts or assistance very welcome!

Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

well harry, if you think you are going to take the plundge into bluray i will buy the bd50 and swap you for your arcam?. only kidding i have a local dealer near me where i took my hd dvd xe1 to and was able to view the picture on a infocus 83 along side the arcam 139 watching the same movies. and what do you know a tad more detail on the hd picture but no where as natural and the motion on the arcam was in a different league. i would not buy a bluray player to watch on your screen as it can not display 1080p at 24 frames per second and by being used to the picture quality of the arcam you will be disapointed. go for a new screen the bigger you go the better the arcam will look, i have seen it on a giant screen if i could afford your player i would take that over any bluray player at the mo

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks SJJ! I managed to get the model number for the arcam wrong, it's the older DV29, not the new 139. The joy of a pc at work not home! I know the 139 is a lot better, but it's an interesting comparison you did. The DV29 still has a great picture quality though, really clear and natural, so I guess I'm just wondering if the step up from DVD 576p to DVDHD 720p is really that great. Possibly not. Anyone want to loan me a bluray to do the test??

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Anonymous]

borrow one is my advice,at the moment i have a kuro which is supposed to handle bluray better than most and on my screen i have viewed the ps3, samsung bd1500 and even bought a pana bd30 and took it back after a couple of days the motion on all of them was terrible.if your sticking at 37 inch i would not even think of bluray the new player the extra price of discs does not add up to the tiny extra detail you get. if you want a good pic set your tv up well and send the picture to the screen unaltered (no upscaling).

 

[Craig M.]

sjj:......if you want a good pic set your tv up well and send the picture to the screen unaltered (no upscaling).

this might not be the best option, i have the same tv and a sony dvd/hdd/freeview player, and the scaler in it is slightly better then the one in the tv. motion is handled a little better, and skin tones are more natural. if the arcam can scale to 720p, it may be better. very easy to check anyhow.

 

[Anonymous]

good comment craig, i have a kuro and it has exelent deinterlacing and scaling, feeding the original source material to my screen always looks the best

 

[Anonymous]

The arcam outputs at 576p, so doesn't have any upscaling, unfortunately. Craig - thank you for the comments, I might have missed something with the Panny TV - does it have it's own scaler onboard so it will upscale source material from 576 to 720??

 

[Anonymous]

I think all large TV's have a scalar of some kind to ensure all the screen pixels are driven by whatever source you are feeding it. I have the same TV by the way.