Panasonic DMP-BD85 Blu-ray Player - Full Review coming soon - any requests?

[MrBoylan]

Hey, gang,

We recently got in a review sample of the Panasonic DMP-BD85 Blu-ray player. If anyone has any lingering annoyances on the BD60 or BD80 and they're interested in seeing if things are different on the BD85, then feel free to post here with any requests for tests of specific behavior. I will accomodate where I can. For example, the problematic title, "Inglorious Basterds" on Blu-ray loads in about 80 seconds (not far off from the OPPO) and without the need to have an SD card installed. But "Starship Troopers" still won't load without an SD card installed. I have the player hooked in via HDMI to an Integra DTC-9.8 preamp/processor and also have the multi-channel analog outputs hooked up for analog output testing. The display is a Panasonic V10 plasma so the 4:4:4 color output is up and running.

Initial impressions are that the BD85 is similar in many respects to the BD80, except it's faster to boot and faster to load discs, it has YouTube, Picasa, Weather and Netflix (sorry to pour salt in any wounds there, BD60/BD80 owners) and will have Pandora in a future firmware update. It also has a few extra tweaks in the audio and video processing departments.

The remote is noticeably smaller and lacks a direct Set-Up button which I find annoying (you get to set-up from the "Functions" menu). Performance so far is excellent, and reliable, though I've only played a few discs on it so far. The included WiFi adapter works as expected and comes with a USB extension cable which is nice if you want to place the antenna in a higher/more open location instead of behind the player in an A/V cabinet.

Anyway, if you have any questions or requests, let me know and I'll do what I can.

-CB

[thebat356]

does the playback on the 85 the same like the 80?

Jacob

[MrBoylan]

If you mean the playback quality of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs then so far the 85 seems at least as good as the 80 in that department, but I haven't done very extensive testing yet. Full details will be in the review.

-CB

[thebat356]

thanks. I still have the 80 player.

I have ordered the oppo 83. I hope to have it tomorrow from amazon.

Jacob

[MrBoylan]

thanks. I still have the 80 player.

I have ordered the oppo 83. I hope to have it tomorrow from amazon.

Jacob

A fine player. We have one of those here as well.

Regards,

-Chris

[thebat356]

that is what I had heard about the player.

did you notice a differnce between the oppo and the panasonic 80 with the upconversion for dvds?

Jacob

[MrBoylan]

that is what I had heard about the player.

did you notice a differnce between the oppo and the panasonic 80 with the upconversion for dvds?

Jacob

Yes. The BDP-83 is definitely a bit better than the BDP-80 at upconversion but it's not a huge difference. The OPPO is also a faster player (faster to boot up and load than the BDP-80). The BD85 is faster than he BD80 but still a little slower than the OPPO BDP-83 overall for most tests.

Regards,

-Chris

[thebat356]

that is what I thought.

thanks

Jacob

[vern]

Yes. The BDP-83 is definitely a bit better than the BDP-80 at upconversion but it's not a huge difference. The OPPO is also a faster player (faster to boot up and load than the BDP-80). The BD85 is faster than he BD80 but still a little slower than the OPPO BDP-83 overall for most tests.

Regards,

-Chris

Why is it that some BD's load faster than others? Also why is it that some players can load the same disk faster than other players? When we talk about these load times, is there a significant difference between the times? One last question, how much more does one have to pay to for the faster loading, and is it worth the money? Oops sorry guess that was 2 more questions.

[MrBoylan]

Why is it that some BD's load faster than others? Also why is it that some players can load the same disk faster than other players? When we talk about these load times, is there a significant difference between the times? One last question, how much more does one have to pay to for the faster loading, and is it worth the money? Oops sorry guess that was 2 more questions.

Blu-ray Discs without any BD-Java typically load much faster than those with BD-Java. BD-Java is used to provide enhanced menus, games and and other interactive features. The reason it takes longer to load discs with BD-Java is because you are loading software applications onto the player from the disc. Also, some discs like "Inglourious Basterds" and "Crank 2" (among others) load a substantial amount of BD-Live content from the internet every time you pop the disc in (Assuming you have BD-Live enabled and an internet connection available). This can also lead to long load times.

As to why some players are faster than others, it comes down to hardware, processing power, available memory and firmware. Some BD-ROM drives physically load and get a disc spinning faster than others. Once it's spinning and read by the optical assembly, the player's processor and loading software kick in to read what's on the disc and load it into player memory so the player can display content resident on the disc. In some cases, upgrades to the player's firmware can improve overall load times - Panasonic provided a 20% improve in load times on the BD60/BD80 with a firmware upgrade last year - but in most cases, the overall load time is limited by the physical hardware and processor speed.

As to whether it's important, that's a matter of personal preference. Anyone who lived through early DVD or first/second generation Blu-ray and HD DVD players will find most of today's players perfectly acceptable if not downright speedy. Is 35 seconds too long to wait for a menu to appear on your screen after pressing play? It might be if you're used to a DVD menu coming up in less than 10 seconds, but it might not be if you're used to waiting two minutes or more for the same thing to happen on a first generation BD player. We provide loading times for standard DVD, standard Blu-ray and BD-Java Blu-ray Discs in all of our player reviews so people can have a comparison between each player and others currently on the market.

The differences can be pretty significant but you don't always "get what you pay for." The Denon DBP-2010CI, for example, at $699 retail, is one of the slowest to load - 22 seconds for a regular DVD, 41 seconds for a Blu-ray and 60 seconds for a BD-Java Blu-ray. The Sony BDP-N460 sells for about one third the price of the Denon and loads discs in roughly half the time. The OPPO BDP-83 is also quite speedy but is toward the higher end of the price spectrum.

For most people, player performance and features are more important than load times, but for those for whom "instant gratification takes too long," you might want to consider getting one of the faster players.

-CB