New Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray Player Shows Improved Picture Quality and Features

Today, at its Burbank-based Panasonic Hollywood Labs, Panasonic showed off its new DMP-BD30 Blu-ray Disc player. The reaction of many in the demo--myself included--was surprise: The player boasts a new imaging chipset which Panasonic says can improve picture quality over existing Blu-ray Disc players, including its own. Then the company proceeded to back up its claims in its demo.

As showcased on two Panasonic 50-inch plasma displays, the $500 DMP-BD30 produced clearly better sharpness and richer colors on the title Legends of Jazz than did a competing player, the $500 Sony BDP-S300. In a side-by-side comparison of the DMP-BD10 and the DMP-BD30, I saw the BD30 produced a sharper image than its predecessor, with better contrast in the highlights and shadows in the opening Walt Disney logo sequence: the castle's rocks were more distinct, and the weathervane was clearer, for example. (I look forward to taking this model for a spin in PC World's Test Center.)

With the BD30, said, Takuya Sugita, president of Panasonic's video business unit, the image signal processing is identical to what Panasonic sees on reference boards in its Panasonic Hollywood Labs facility.

The image quality improvements--which surprised many participants in the Blu-ray event Panasonic hosted today--stem from Panasonic's UniPhier combined image and audio processor. UniPhier couples Panasonic's P4HD (Pixel Precision Progressive Processing for HD; already in use on the company's earlier DMP-BD10/10A models) with the Panasonic Hollywood Labs' Reference Chroma Processor. The resulting processor deftly handles imaging by reproding colors and textures that are faithful to the original film. In a demo on a jumbo screen in a screening room, Panasonic showcased excerpts from the original film and from their player in a split-screen format. Distinguishing among the two was practically impossible.

The DMP-BD30 has a few other noteworthy points. The player achieves its slim profile in part because of its Unipher image and audio processor. However, it's also because it packs a notebook-sized Panasonic Blu-ray Disc drive inside. By contrast, competing players rely on desktop-sized, "half-height" Blu-ray drives inside; those drives require far more real estate than their slimmer notebook component cousins. "The PC technology comes into play in our consumer technology as well," noted Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, vice president of corporate development and general manager of Panasonic's Blu-ray Disc Group.

The player, due in stores on November 12, may also be the first to market to support Blu-ray Disc's Bonus View features. Bonus View--the newly coined, official name for Profile 1.1 (or Final Standard Profile, as Panasonic refers to it in its press release) players--requires a minimum storage requirement in players, as well as requires players to support picture-in-picture and in-player audio remixing, so you can switch between audio tracks (among other uses). LG's already-announced, dual-format BH200 player will also support Bonus View; that model will ship sometime in the next couple of weeks, according to the company.

In addition to Bonus View, this player supports 24 frames-per-second playback to match film's frame rate; and it outputs TrueHD and DTS-HD Master audio as bitstream over HDMI. At back you'll find HDMI (version 1.3 with Deep Color support; no Blu-ray Discs support Deep Color at this time, since Deep Color is not part of the Blu-ray Disc spec); coaxial and optical audio jacks; component video outputs, and 5.1-channel audio outputs.

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