Mar
18
Purchasing a Blu-ray Player?
Filed Under Blu-ray
This tip will have a shelf-life of about a month tops, because I’m going to examine the current state of Blu-ray player profiles and make a recommendation based on where we stand today, March 18, 2008. Ok with all the formalities out of the way let’s get to it.
By now I’m hoping everyone knows about the different Blu-ray profiles. The early players were profile 1.0 and handled basic playback only, recently we got into the profile 1.1 (also called Final Standard Profile) players which added picture-in-picture video playback and 256 MB of local memory storage.
Sometime later this year we should begin to see profile 2.0 players (also known as BD-Live) which will have mandatory ethernet connections and 1 GB of local memory storage. So unless you’re willing to wait till the fall and or settle for a PS3 as your primary Blu-ray playback device, you’re looking at a profile 1.1 capable player.
So which one do I recommend? The Panasonic DMP-BD30K can be found for as little as $430 and from all accounts is a fine player. Its features include HDMI v1.3, profile 1.1 playback, 5.1 analog outs and 24fps 1080p output. My basis for the recommendation really boils down to the fact that I’ve just gotten less negative feedback about this player than any other model we sell. As with all things Blu-ray however, what’s on top today might not be tomorrow, I’ll revisit this topic often throughout the year.
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