Mary Chen from Knob Noster has sent in review of Panasonic DMP-BD50K Blu-ray player.

September 29, 2008

This player lacks the lacks the extremely annoying flip-down panel of its predecessor. While a large panel still conceals most of this player's front-panel controls the disc tray hides behind a separate smaller panel that automatically flips down when you hit the Open/Close button. On the right half of the face player is the LED display which was sized to be easily legible from a seating distance of about 7 feet.

The player's included remote control has a decent button layout although there are some missteps. The remote has a centrally located directional pad surrounded by useful buttons such as Back and Pop-up Menu. The separate rocker buttons for volume and channel control--for those who want to control their TV. The placement of the playback controls is subpar with fast-forward and rewind buttons located far away from central buttons.

The audio capabilities of this player are a bit disappointing. There is no onboard decoding available for the newest high-resolution soundtrack formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. This player is capable of sending high-resolution soundtracks to a compatible receiver in bit-stream format which will let you take advantage of the full resolution of these soundtracks. Buyers with new receivers that have Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master decoding can use this feature so most people will be stuck with plain old Dolby Digital and DTS.

This player displays a superb high-def picture. Manufacturer has cut a few corners from its previous models to keep the price below $500. A must have unit. Although it doesn't have ethernet capabilities it can still be updated by computer download and writing to cd. It is a simple procedure.

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