Great Picture and Sound but Ergonomically Challenged

There is a lot to like about Panasonic's latest high-end Blu-ray player the DMP-BD85: excellent video and audio performance a rich assortment of streaming media options (Netflix Amazon VOD YouTube and Pandora Internet Radio) and a highly customizable assortment of tweakable parameters for audio and video hobbyists. Also with built in Wi-Fi via the included USB adapter it's easier than it used to be to reap the benefits of an internet-enabled player. However the bland text-based menus and operational idiosyncrasies of the player make it feel a little bit behind the times.



DVD upconversion is very good to excellent with some enhancements to Panasonic's Uniphier video processor that are only available in the BD85 and in the new Blu-ray 3D players the DMP-BDT300 and DMP-BDT350. The entry-level BD45 and BD65 players include a slightly lesser quality version of the Uniphier processor equivalent to Panasonic's 2009 players. Diagonal lines are clean and free from jaggies 2:3 film cadence is easily detected by the player preventing the tell-tale moire distortion that can occur on lesser players and edge detail is smooth and fairly free of aliasing and any combing or tearing artifacts.



Turning to high def Blu-ray Disc playback advances to the player's chroma (color) upconversion processor enable outstanding color reproduction and color detail from 1080p Blu-ray Disc superior to Blu-ray playback on some other more expensive players. To be honest these improvements are only really visible on larger screen sizes (e.g. large screen projection systems) but home theater hobbyists and videophiles will appreciate the exceptional Blu-ray playback quality of the BD85.



Audio quality is also excellent with some innovative enhancements to the way digital audio is handled that can improve the sound quality even over HDMI PCM and bitstream connections (specifically the "Jitter Purifier" and "High Clarity Audio" features). By providing more accurate data for the audio clock the BD85 minimizes jitter that can detract from the sound quality even when your receiver or preamp does the audio decoding. For those who have older non-HDMI receivers the BD85's multi-channel analog outputs and on-board decoding for DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD can provide outstanding lossless audio from Blu-ray Disc (just be prepared to spend some time tweaking the player's speaker settings and your receiver to get the sound dialed in just right).



In our testing the included 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi adapter worked well. Also with the WiFi adapter is a 3-foot USB extension cable which allows you to place the wireless antenna module outside the audio cabinet where it can get better WiFi reception. We were easily able to stream Netflix in HD using the WiFi adapter one floor away from our 802.11g Linksys wireless router. Access to Netflix Amazon and YouTube was pretty reliable (though we tested YouTube and Netflix much more heavily than Amazon VOD) and BD-Live features worked well on the player (as long as you give it a couple of minutes to fully connect to the network). Also for those with the firmware 1.23 applied as of June 7th Pandora is now available in the VIERA Cast screen on this player.



But Panasonic made some ergonomic choices here that are a bit questionable. They shortened the remote vs. last year's models by about an inch. And while this does make the basic functions like transport and menu navigation a little easier to operate (at least to my thumbs) the smaller size meant removing the "Set-up" button entirely and making the frequently used "Display" button much smaller and easy to miss. And although there is a VIERA Cast button the remote which allows access to all the IPTV streaming goodies the player lacks an integrated splash screen (as seen on recent LG and Samsung players) which would give you the option to select between disc-based USB-based on web-based content in an integrated and logical way.



Also within the "Functions" menu there is an option called "Network" which actually launches the VIERA Cast screen (why not call it "VIERA Cast" to be consistent?). Perhaps most frustrating to those who watch a lot of foreign films (or non-native English speakers) there is no subtitle button on the remote. Instead subtitle controls are buried deep within the "Display" menu where you'll also find the nifty 24p mode switch for DVD playback. This is nothing new in the BD85 but it is a questionable choice for a fairly commonly used function.



In the area of loading speed the BD85 carries on the tradition of earlier Panasonic players being a fairly sluggish disc loader. Sure there is a "fast boot" option (Quick Start) which can take you from powered off to the basic splash screen and "no disc" message in under 2 seconds. But after that initial boot you'll still be waiting a while to view your discs - we clocked the disc loading times at about 20 seconds to load a standard DVD 36 seconds to load a Blu-ray and 39 seconds to load a BD-Java Blu-ray (the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie). A BD-Live heavy title ("Inglourious Basterds") can take over two minutes to get to a visible screen though we did find that using an SDHC card instead of a standard SD card did speed up this load time significantly exposing more of the BD-Live content that we did not see when we used the standard 1GB SD card. And that's one more knock - why does Panasonic still require customers to buy and insert an SD card in order to use BD-Live? Why not load the unit with at least 1 GB of on-board memory so that customers are not disappointed to find they need an additional purchase just to use BD-Live?



In terms of disc compatibility and reliable operations we were only able to find a single disc that was problematic on the player - the first disc in the "Alien Quadrilogy" boxed DVD set. The default Dolby Digital track plays fine but the DTS track on the extended cut of the film emits nothing but silence. Apparently this is an improvement over earlier Panasonic players some of which were not able to play this disc at all. We also saw the machine shut itself down a couple of times when playing Xvid-encoded AVI files from a connected USB drive. But thanks to some follow-up testing from Panasonic confirmed by us this turned out to be media-specific: in other words if you use a decent quality name brand USB flash drive (instead of the cheap promo USB drive we initially used) the player plays these AVI files fine.



All told the operational idiosyncrasies of the player are easy enough to get used to and will be more annoying to hobbyists who like to get into the set-up menus to test various options and settings and perhaps less annoying to the average consumer. It's the performance that matters and at the moment this is one of the top performers available for under $300. So if you don't mind a few less-than-sexy menus and operational quirks then the BD85 will make an excellent choice for a high performance affordable Blu-ray Disc player.



Our detailed review is available on Big Picture Big Sound (dot com).More detail ...

It Also Plays Blu-ray Discs

Having reviewed previous LG Blu-ray players including the vaunted BD390 our expectations for the BD570 were pretty high and happily LG does not disappoint. While some of LG's competitors (notably Pioneer and Sharp) think audio/video performance is the only thing that matters LG embraces the idea that convenience and choice of media and distribution format are also important to many consumers. So the BD570 includes one of the richest media playback offerings of any Blu-ray player including internet streaming from Netflix CinemaNow VUDU and Pandora. The player also supports DLNA networking so it can access audio and video files on a home network as well. For those who have a library of videos on their computers the BD570 supports Divx Xvid and MKV files as well as a number of other formats and codecs.



As far as load times are concerned the BD570's are decent but not winning any speed records. It offers a 17 second overall bootup time (while it loads all of the aforementioned content options in the menu) - this makes it 3 seconds faster than the Pioneer BDP-320 which offers no multimedia options. Standard DVDs load in about 12 seconds Blu-rays in 23 seconds and BD-JAVA-heavy Blu-ray Discs like "Pirates of the Caribbean" in 32 seconds. This is pretty close to parity with the fastest models of 2009 (including OPPO's BDP-83) but it seems like they could have improved things a bit with this whole new generation of players.



In terms of performance the BD570 delivers Blu-ray Discs in excellent audio and video clarity (as it should) and performs most of the difficult tasks of DVD upconversion right as well - excellent diagonal filtering and 3:2 cadence detection for example. But it does not handle noisy source material very well (its noise reduction processing could use some work). Overall as a DVD upconverter it's very good but not outstanding.



What is outstanding is the built-in 802.11b/g/n WiFi wireless networking. For us this worked right our of the box connecting to our wireless router and streaming VUDU's 1080p HDX movies like nobody's business. And although the remote looks almost upside down compared to many other BD player remotes the button layout is actually quite comfortable with the most popular buttons in easy reach of your thumb and transport buttons (play/pause/FF/REW) raised and angled for improved ergonomics.



Overall with its built-in WiFi DLNA networking multimedia playback and internet streaming offerings combined with solid Blu-ray playback the BD570 offers a good blend of performance and convenience for a fairly affordable price. Our complete review of the BD570 is available on Big Picture Big Sound (dot com).More detail ...