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Charlene Ai from Athens has sent in review of LG BH200 Blu-ray player

June 27, 2008



I purchased this player with the1.3 firmware and it was great. Yes, it did take a very long time to load Predator  - almost 3 full minutes. That is due to the disc mostly using Java (BD-J) for interactivity. Few days ago I flash updated the firmware to 2.60 in about 16 minutes. See manufacturer's web site for the firmware and carefully follow the instructions. They will even provide you with the disc.
I purchased a 46" HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A20 1080p HD DVD Player player along with this Blu-ray Disc Player. I wanted to see the results of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD before investing in more expensive units. I must say that the image and sound quality of the Blu-Ray player is quite impressive  There needs to be a ethernet port or some other way to access updates online direct to this player, a wireless method possibly? My Toshiba HD DVD player has the CAT-5 ethernet port and it makes updating (not exactly simple) more flexible.  Manufacture's website offers the image (ISO) burn to DVDR method for updating, but this seems not convenient at best. One other thing I immediately noticed is how whisper quiet this player is. There is no noticeable fan noise whatsoever. Compare this to the Toshiba HD-XA2 fan, which has a sound resembling the whine of a tiny fighter jet.

This player's plastic remote is reasonably good. It's well designed and compliments HDTV - the remote controls the TV's basic functions too.  The problem with this player is that it does not output Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA in any way shape or form.  There is hard to hear fan noise during dvd playback, which was only audible with the tv turned off. While the movie is playing, I couldn't hear the fan at all. The display on the front is a gray-blue. There are 4 brightness settings (High-Med-Low-Off), which can be accessed with one button on the top top of the remote. Very nice. With the display turned off, this is a very nice viewing experience. There is also an additional display button on the remote, which tells you the TRT of the disc, which chapter you are watching, time remaining in the chapter, and bit rate.

 


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Rating:

4 Blu-ray rating

 

 

Review sent in by Charlene Ai. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

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New Blu-ray player Pioneer BDP-HD1 reviewed by Bob Garrett.

June 27, 2008



I aquired a Marantz BD8002, SharpBD-HP20S, and PS3. In the month that I've had this player, it's done a good job on video and audio quality. I'm watching it on a 50" Samsung connected through HDMI. I've never had any of the stutters or other audio/video glitches that others have mentioned.  The picture quality is great and the upconversion quality is superb. The BR players are all updatable so it's possible to play the latest movies. However, this player has a VERY out of place failure mode and upgrade procedure. This likely makes this required operation out of reach for most people on this device.

I have only had significant problems with one disk that I own and that was "Lord of War". It played the first 3/4 of the movie just fine and then started freezing up every 1-2 minutes making the movie unwatchable.  For those who wonder if it will play homemade Blu-Ray DVDs I can report that I have sucessfully created a Blu-Ray DVD with menus on a 25G Single Layer BD-RE (Rewritable) disk using the LG GGW-H20L burner.  Other firmware updatres are available but I haven't needed them yet.  This player is good as far as disks that work on it but it does not support 48kHz/24-bit HD true sound that other blu-ray disks come with.  The sound will pop out of sync with the visual. Before you buy call the manufacturer and ask if they have solved this problem by issuing a firmware (disk to put in the machine to update the harddrive) or not.

Upconversion on this player is pretty good, which is very important if you have huge library of DVDs.  I figured instead of spending $100 or so on upconvert DVD player to work with my new TV, I decided to go directly to Blu-Ray, since the Blu-Ray is now standard of HD DVDs. I found that  the picture quality is great and the upconversion quality is superb for this player.  Overall, I found this player to be competent Blu-ray player and a great upconverting DVD player.


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Rating:

5 Blu-ray rating

 

 

Review sent in by Bob Garrett. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

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Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player reviewed by Ethan Derrick

June 26, 2008



Design:

This player received the highest design score of any next-generation player we've reviewed so far.  Its silver chassis and a black front panel combine for an unusually stylish look.  The front panel is glossy and is marked by only two buttons: power and disc open/close.  our only complaint about the design is that the aforementioned blue light around the disc drive and the blue light next to the power button cannot be dimmed.

Remote Control:

The clicker that ships with this unit outclasses most of the competition.  Important buttons are clearly separated from each other and there are even little tactile bumps on the play and stop buttons to make it easy to find them by feel.  The main buttons glow in the dark for better usage.  There's still room for improvement of course--we'd like to see larger buttons for the main controls and a better layout for the fast-forward/rewind and chapter-skip buttons.

Features:

This player can play standard-definition DVDs and CDs. It cannot play any discs of the competing HD DVD format. The BD-P1400's high-resolution soundtrack support is excellent. It has onboard decoding for Dolby Digital Plus Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD High Resolution. This means it can output these soundtracks either in PCM format over the HDMI output or via the analog outputs. the player also offers bitstream output for high-resolution soundtracks. There should be absolutely no sound quality difference whether you let the receiver decode or the player decode. Connectivity is also solid. There's an HDMI output capable of carrying both 1080p video signals and high- resolution audio. One drawback for this player is that it is Blu-ray profile 1.0 which means it does not meet the hardware requirements that will be necessary to access some special features on Blu-ray discs released in the future.

Performance:

This player evinced middling performance. It didn't pass the Film Resolution Loss Test. as the edges of one of the boxes exhibited strobe-like behavior--we've seen other players perform worse. We could see some minor moire in the grandstands of Raymond James Stadium but otherwise it did an acceptable job. It had no problem passing the Video Resolution Loss Test demonstrating its competence on video-based material. On M:I:III it did well by showing no moire on the stairs at the beginning of Chapter 8. We also looked at some movies in 24 frames per second output. The output at 24 frames was not as flawless as it should have been. We saw quite a few instances of stuttering that wasn't present when we had set at standard 1080p/60 mode.

 

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Rating:

3 blu-ray rating

 

Review sent in by Ethan Derrick.  Thanks!  Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

Written by admin · Filed Under Reviews 

Raphael Zahn from Atlanta has sent in review of Sharp BD-HP20 Blu-ray player

June 26, 2008



I bought this player with the1.3 firmware and it was great. Yes, it did take a very long time to load I Robot  - almost 3 full minutes. That is due to the disc heavily using Java (BD-J) for interactivity. Few days ago I flash updated the firmware to 2.60 in about 14 minutes. See manufacturer's web site for the firmware and carefully follow the instructions. They will even provide you with the disc.
I purchased a 46" HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A20 1080p HD DVD Player player along with this Blu-ray Disc Player. I wanted to see the results of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD before investing in more expensive units. Setting up was quick and straightforward - no problems here. I noticed that this Sony player weighs much less than the Toshiba HD-A20 HD DVD player.  There needs to be a ethernet port or some other way to access updates online direct to this player, a wireless method possibly? My Toshiba HD DVD player has the CAT-5 ethernet port and it makes updating (not exactly simple) more flexible.  Manufacture's website offers the image (ISO) burn to DVDR method for updating, but this seems backward at best. One other thing I immediately noticed is how whisper quiet this player is. There is no noticeable fan noise whatsoever. Compare this to the Toshiba HD-XA2 fan, which has a sound resembling the whine of a tiny fighter jet.

Remote is reasonably good. No more fumbling around for 2 different remotes. The one area where this remote disappoints is that unlike the black aluminum Toshiba remote the buttons are not backlit.  I have a 60inch 1080p Sony tv and a decent 5.1 home theater-in-a-box sound system.After doing research I bought a (too expensive) "high-speed" monster HDMI cable rated to handle 1080p audio/video.  There is small fan noise during dvd playback, which was only audible with the tv turned off. While the movie is playing, I couldn't hear the fan at all. The display on the front is a gray-blue. There are 4 brightness settings (High-Med-Low-Off), which can be accessed with one button on the top top of the remote. Very nice. With the display turned off, this is a very nice viewing experience. There is also an additional display button on the remote, which tells you the TRT of the disc, which chapter you are watching, time remaining in the chapter, and bit rate.

 

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Rating:

3 blu-ray rating

 

 

Review sent in by Raphael Zahn. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

Written by admin · Filed Under Reviews 

New Blu-ray player Panasonic DMP-BD30E reviewed by Tom Jarvis.

June 26, 2008



I have a Sharp DV-BP1, Pioneer BDP-94HD, and PS3. In the 15 days that I've had this player, it's done a excellent job on video and audio quality. I'm playing it on a 40" Panasonic connected through HDMI. I've never had any of the stutters or other audio/video glitches that others have mentioned.  at random times and multiple times throughout a movie. The BR players are all updatable so it's possible to play the latest movies. However, this player has a VERY bad failure mode and upgrade procedure. Since Bluray is still in its infancy (so-to-speak) there aren't many options for players.

I have only had significant problems with one disk that I own and that was "Lord of War". It played the first 3/4 of the movie just fine and then started freezing up every 1-2 minutes making the movie unwatchable.  For those who wonder if it will play homemade Blu-Ray DVDs I can report that I have sucessfully created a Blu-Ray DVD with menus on a 25G Single Layer BD-RE (Rewritable) disk using the LG GGW-H20L burner.  Other firmware updatres are available but I haven't needed them yet.  This player is good as far as disks that work on it but it does not support 48kHz/24-bit HD true sound that few blu-ray disks come with.  The sound will pop out of sync with the visual. Before you buy call the manufacturer and ask if they have solved this problem by issuing a firmware (disk to put in the machine to update the harddrive) or not.

Upconversion on this player is excellent, which is essential if you have big library of DVDs.  I figured instead of spending $150 or so on upconvert DVD player to work with my new TV, I decided to go directly to Blu-Ray, since the Blu-Ray is now standard of HD DVDs. The upconversion is wonderful! Best part is I can use optical and take advantage of the new audio codecs.  Overall, I found this player to be competent Blu-ray player and a great upconverting DVD player.

Rating:

3 blu-ray rating

 

 

Review sent in by Tom Jarvis. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com

Written by admin · Filed Under Reviews 

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