Dr Gadget - Panasonic DMP-BD55K Blu-ray Disc Player

	List Price: $399.95 Our Price: $399.88 Your Save: $ 0.07 ( 0% ) Availability: Manufacturer: Panasonic
Average Customer Rating:
Batteries Included: 1 Batteries: 2 Binding: Electronics Brand: Panasonic Color: Black EAN: 0037988257171 Feature: Blu-ray Player Is Autographed: 0 Is Memorabilia: 0 Label: Panasonic Manufacturer: Panasonic Model: DMP-BD55K Publisher: Panasonic Studio: Panasonic
Features Blu-ray Player BD Live / 7.1 Lossless Decode and Analog Output VIERA Link: Operate with your VIERA Remote Control SD Card Slot
Accessories Premium HDMI v1.3 Cable (2M/6ft.)
Related Items The Dark Knight (+ Digital Copy and BD Live) [Blu-ray] Batman Begins [Blu-ray] Premium HDMI v1.3 Cable (2M/6ft.) Iron Man (Single-Disc Edition) GoodFellas [Blu-ray]
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Awesome BluRay Comment: Panasonic DMP-BD55K Blu-ray Disc Player I was looking for a BD player, considered the Elite.. too large and expensive and lacked certain functions for future use. Since my AVR is Elite, figured a match.. like my other set up. Did not know if Samsung or Sony would be a problem, I have owned their products and liked them, but I also had a few things that only Panasonic could satisfy. Size... small form factor allows more air circulation was one. Another it plays everything.... not just BD. After looking at all the sites and doing research.... I took the Panasonic. Hooked it up.. put on Wall E and immediately knew this was the one. The 7.1 sound, the color, well everything. It fit every need I had. It BTW replaced an Elite DVD player that cost me 4 times as much. 100% satisfied. Panasonic also had 5 stars on BD forums.... Denon and other high priced units use the same chipset..... Get the 55... it looks great with the Elite AVR. Since the new AVR and BD players by Panasonic are so big, tall, heavy and costly.... unless you are in a closet rack mount, you do need to calculate for air movement and heat. Superb unit by any standard. Customer Rating: Summary: Panasonic Blu-ray Comment: Very easy to set up and the disc loading time is mch faster than older blu-ray machines, getting quite acceptable. Customer Rating: Summary: Panasonic DMP-BD55K Blu Ray DVD Player Comment: We bought our daughter the Panasonic DMP-BD55K Blu ray dvd player for Christmas. I have watched a couple Blu-ray movies with her. I cannot belive how sharp/crystal clear the picture is. I would highly recommend this player. The only disappointment I had was - (I purchased the dvd player on line) I wasn't sure what cables came with the player or what cables I need to purchase separtely so I contacted Panasonic via email. There response was "look at your manual". I wrote back to explain I made the purchase on line and it was going to be a Christmas gift and wanted to purchase any additional cables I needed in order to use the dvd player Christmas day and I did not have access to the manual at that time. Panasonics response was "Please refer to your Instruction Book under accessories to see which cables and accessories you need. I can provide you with pricing information on the parts as soon as I have the information on the cables and accessories you want". I feel Panasonic has a great product but LACKS in Customer Service. Customer Rating: Summary: Good Player. The DMP-BD55K is probably good enough, though Comment: I bought the 55K because the other one (35K) was not available on Prime at the time I ordered. I got sick of my 1 year old Samsung BD 1400 player as it would not play many of the newer BDs even after firmware updates downloaded to cd from their website. You might want to save $75 bucks or so and get the 35K, though. The only tangible advantages of the 55K over the 35K are 7.1CH audio out and both optical and digital coax outputs, while the 35 K has only 2ch vs 7.1 audio out and optical output only. the 55K is $100 more list price than the 35K which would translate to probably $75 on the street. This one (55K) is slim, sleek and plays everything I can throw at it. Seems to load much faster than the Samsung, and it ejects BDs much faster than the Samsung. It's also profile 2.0, so it does BD live, which I have not sampled. I am just happy that it plays all the new disks. Finally, I connected both to the internet, and the Samsung seems to be behaving itself on another TV in the house, after the update through the Internet directly vs downloaded and burned to CD. The downloads to disk are not up to date on Samsung's site, and their technical support admitted that to me. Customer Rating: Summary: An Excelent Player for the Money! Comment: The first Blu-ray DVD I watched was The Dark Knight and I was absolutely blown away! The reason? The audio is superb! My Denon 3910 DVD player was having problems reading some regular DVDs and it seemed the right time to upgrade. I use a Yamaha LPX-510 projector that only displays up to 1080i video resolution, not 1080p. I use component video cables for the 75-foot run, not HDMI. I am projecting to a 92-inch screen, so video quality (good or bad) from a DVD or player shows up quickly. Although the Denon 3910 was $1300 when I purchased it a few years ago, the Panasonic DMP-BD55K is a much better player. Up-conversion of regular DVDs on the Panasonic is almost as good as a Blu-ray DVD (remember, my maximum video quality is 1080i). Color is richer and detail is much clearer. That means that I won't need to replace my current DVD collection with Blu-ray discs. The biggest benefit for me was the improved overall sound quality. For comparison, I played 'The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over' and 'Bee Gees - One Night Only' on both players using their DTS sound tracks. An amazing difference! Individual instruments were more distinctive and the total audio experience was measurably better, as was the video. I also compared 'The Fifth Element Superbit' DVD and got the same results. Video and sound differences comparing "Super Speedway' (filmed in IMAX format) did not show noticeable differences. Another major difference was in viewing homemade DVDs. Video is much better on the Panasonic. I went through all of the setup options twice. The manual that comes with the product is great if you are an audio engineer but leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For example, the 5.1 vs 7.1 detail is somewhat lacking. When I first connected the Panasonic to my pre-amp, I used a cheap coax wire (I couldn't find my extra fiber optic cable). The resulting sound was highly distorted. Later, I did find and connect the fiber optic cable and WOW! There is nothing mentioned in the manual about the number of audio channels supported when using fiber optics/coax instead of HDMI cables. Trust me, it works great on a 5.1 configuration. I played NCIS Season 1, disc 4 and the faces of the actors were bright pink! No help in any of the video adjustments and all of my other discs seemed to have none of this problem. I hooked the BD55K to the Internet and downloaded an update to the firmware. This took about 5 minutes for the complete update process. I went from firmware version 1.4 to 1.6 and the pink faces now displayed in normal skin tones. You won't be disappointed with the Panasonic DMP-BD55K Blue-ray Disc Player. It's a great product for the money. As a reference, here is my home theater configuration: Video: Yamaha LPX-510 projector; Screen: Sterling SNDQ092H 92-inch; Pre-amp: B&K Reference 50 Series 2; Power amp: McIntosh MC207; Speakers: M&K S-150THX (front/center), M&K SS-150THX Tripole surrounds, M&K MX-350THX powered subwoofer. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus is a high quality image-processing technology developed by Panasonic to precisely process each pixel of the Blu-ray Disc video signal in the vertical direction. It reproduces color data with twice the accuracy of conventional systems to keep colors faithful and sharp. P4HD processes more than 15 billion pixels per second and applies the optimal processing to every pixel. So that it can render progressive images superbly, expresses motion smoothly, and draws crisp diagonal lines.The DMP-BD55 can decode HD Audio (Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD) and output 7.1ch digital audio signal. The resulting audio is studio master quality sound. This signal can be connected to an HDMI compatible receiver that does not support HD Audio Codec. Besides, the 7.1-channel analog signal converted by 192kHz D/A converter is transmitted in high quality. This signal can be connected to a receiver that does not support HDMI. BD-Live lets users access to the Internet to download data such as images and subtitles, and to join in quizzes and multi-player interactive games that are linked to bonus movie content contained on Blu-ray disc.