The news
Among the stars of Panasonic's recent trade show, one of the brightest was the DMP-BD10A Blu-ray Disc player. This replaces the first-generation DMP-BD10 and adds support for 7.1-channel surround and playback of high-def footage shot on AVCHD consumer camcorders.
Panasonic hasn't yet unveiled the suggested price but, although the discontinued first-generation model is currently selling for between £900 and £1,300, one go-getting on-line reseller - AV-Land - is advertising its replacement for £700.
It's hard to know whether this is just a come-on but we would expect the newcomer to be widely sold for considerably less than its forerunner. However, we'll know soon enough, since Panasonic is promising product availability this month.
Support for 7.1 sound is significant - assuming large numbers of movies do start arriving with suitable soundtracks - because, in Panasonic's words, "this technology draws on a huge amount of audio information in reproducing the sound" and " reaches levels of quality and realism that far surpass the 5.1-channel surround sound of ordinary DVDs".
Two competing 7.1 systems are supported - Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. And quality should be fearsomely good - Panasonic describes Dolby TrueHD as using a lossless audio Codec that, potentially, can deliver in studio-master sound quality.
We've read in some places that Panasonic is planning to offer a firmware update to allow the DMP-BD10 to read these new audio formats but others are saying this is impossible because the two players use quite different decoder chips. We've asked Panasonic the score and will let you know when we hear back.
DMP-BD10A (click for larger image)You'll be all too familiar with juggling multiple remote handsets to control different AV devices but Panasonic reckons that the DMP-BD10A and other new lines can make this a thing of the past, thanks to the inclusion of an enhanced version of VIERA Link. This allows multiple devices to be controlled from a single handset, of course, and is said to use a 'Seamless Graphic User Interface'.
A nice touch is that a single press of a button can turn on the Blu-ray player, a TV set and an AV amp - and start a movie playing. Similarly, a single button press turns them all off again.
Trouble is, all your products need to be new-generation Panasonics if you're going to completely do away with handset-clutter. That's a highly-unlikely scenario, even though the company is producing a very wide range of goodies, so the market for third-party multi-device controllers isn't going to go away any time soon.
Rather disappointingly, there's no mention of the DMP-BD10A carrying an Ethernet socket. As a result, when Blu-ray Interactive Live discs do eventually arrive, there's going to be no way that this second-generation player can access the online-content they link to.
Perhaps Panasonic knows something we don't!
So, forgetting the unknown price (and lack of full specs) for the moment, how does Panasonic's latest Blu-ray Disc player appeal? Check out Panasonic's press release on page two, then give us your take in this thread in the HEXUS.lifestyle news forum.
