The Panasonic DMP-BD65 is a Amazing high quality Blu-ray player for around $100.

[HDTV1080P]

I am not a Panasonic fan when it comes to their plasma displays (I don’t like how the Panasonic plasmas handle 24fps and the rising black level issue on some models). Panasonic makes one of the best low cost Blu-ray players on the market in terms of picture quality and other neat features.

The Panasonic DMP-BD65 list price is $179.95. Recently I purchased two Panasonic DMP-BD65 Blu-ray players for $98.99 each including free shipping. The players come in an attractive colorful retail box. The Panasonic Blu-ray remote can be pre-programmed to control basic functions on a TV like power and volume. Also the Panasonic remote can operate the volume of a A/V receiver. The remote control sensor on the Panasonic Blu-ray player is super strong. I did some angle testing and I was surprised how far away I could move away from the Blu-ray player that was inside a TV cabinet. The remote is very powerful with medium size buttons.

Some negatives: Before I get to the many positives of this player I want to talk about some of the negatives. All Panasonic Blu-ray players from the cheapest to the most expensive lack 1GB of internal memory to use BD-LIVE. In 2010 there are many other brands of Blu-ray players that come with at least 1GB of internal flash memory storage for BD-LIVE. So one needs to purchase a SDXC, SDHC, or SD card to use BD-LIVE if they go with a Panasonic model. Another issue is the noise of the disc tray when closing is loud when compared to some much more expensive high-end Blu-ray players that have better build quality. Like all current Blu-ray players the Panasonic DMP-BD65 will play Blu-ray discs, DVD discs, and standard audio CD’s. Panasonic does not make any Blu-ray players that offer both SACD and DVD-Audio playback like the famous OPPO BDP-83. All 2010 Sony Blu-ray players will play SACD’s. None of the Panasonic Blu-ray players offer a source directly feature which can be found on high-end players like the OPPO BDP-83. I noticed the screen saver on the Panasonic DMP-BD65 was lower quality compared to other Blu-ray players. There was some weird distorted colored areas toward the bottom of the screen.

General info: I was amazed at how fast the Panasonic Blu-ray player is at powering on in quick start mode. The DMP-BD65 takes much longer to power off then to power on. When quick start is turned on the Panasonic DMP-BD65 will literally turn itself on in a half a second. This player is superfast at power on. When it comes to Blu-ray disc loading speed the Panasonic DMP-BD65 and DMP-BD85 are around medium speed. The Sony BDP-S570 and the OPPO BDP-83 is much faster at disc load times when compared to the Panasonic DMP-BD85K according to CNET speed ratings. I also experienced faster load times with the OPPO BDP-83. According to CNET the Panasonic DMP-BD85K is faster at loading discs compared to the Sony PS3 (It is my understanding the DMP-BD65 uses the same processor).
http://reviews.cnet.com/blu-ray-players-recorders/panasonic-dmp-bd85k/4505-9991_7-33971085-2.html?tag=rvwBody

As soon as I connected the Panasonic Blu-ray player to a Pioneer PRO-141FD I opened the Panasonic disc tray and when I pushed the player power button to turn the player off to my surprise the Panasonic BDP-BD65 left the disc tray open. All other Blu-ray players I tried in the past would automatically close the disc tray before the power is turned off (This issue was fixed as soon as I installed the latest firmware update). From a wired Internet connection using Verizon FIOS I installed the latest firmware update. It literally only took no more than 5 minutes to download and install the latest firmware update from Panasonics website. I opened the disc tray and when I turned the power off the Panasonic operating system automatically closed the disc tray before powering down (That is one of the improvements with the latest firmware). The Panasonic Blu-ray players like almost all other Blu-ray players will automatically notify you when there is a new firmware update available. Firmware updates improve the quality of the internal operating system of the player and they also allow consumers to play the latest movies that contain the newest BD+ encryption codes. So after a few months or several months when a new firmware update becomes available it is recommended to have the Blu-ray player download and install the latest software update which only takes around 5 minutes.

I was amazed at how will organized and easy the Panasonic menus were. The Panasonic Blu-ray player automatically outputted 1080P with 36 bit deep color upconvert while connected to the Pioneer PRO-141FD. If one has a display that supports 1080p/24 they need to manually turn on 24P setting in the Panasonic menu. When connected to a 1080P display the Panasonic Blu-ray player will output everything as 60HZ unless one turns on 24P. When 24P is turned on native 1080P/24 Blu-ray discs are sent to a 1080P display as 1080P/24. Also when 24P is turned on the Panasonic Blu-ray players will do a reverse 3:2 pulldown for film based 480i DVD’s and upconvert the image to 1080p/24.

The 24fps DVD upconversion on the DMP-BD65 was outstanding for a low cost player. I have only seen better DVD upconversion on an OPPO BDP-83. The Panasonic Blu-ray players will also properly display 4:3 DVD’s at 4:3 with black bars on the side just like the OPPO BDP-83. When one plays anamorphic widescreen DVD’s the Panasonic Blu-ray players will properly display the image as 16:9. There are some Blu-ray players on the market that display 4:3 DVD’s as 16:9 instead of 4:3, unless one adjusts the ratio setting on their TV display. My old 2008 Sony BDP-S350 will not display 4:3 DVD’s as 4:3 without manually changing the display ratio. I would need to check the modern Sony Blu-ray players to see if there is a 16:9/Auto mode. It is a excellent feature in both the OPPO BDP-83 and Panasonic Blu-ray players to be able to automatically display DVD’s at the original ratio of 4:3 or anamorphic 16:9.

There are some very neat features on Panasonic Blu-ray players like the BDP-BD65. The onscreen messages that informs people when a native 1080P/24 disc is being played at 24P. Another brief onscreen message pops up when a Blu-ray disc is accessing the Internet. For those that do not like those messages I saw a menu selection to turn off the notifications. Playing standard audio CD’s was easy on the Panasonic but the only negative is that one cannot hear audio during the fast forward mode like a dedicated CD player and a OPPO BDP-83. The 2X speed video mode that allows one to watch and listen to a 2 hour movie in 1 hour had good quality results but personally I would never use the feature since it is more enjoyable to watch a movie at normal speed. I have used and tried many Blu-ray players before. I have spent several hours watching movies on several different computer Blu-ray software packages, Sony BDP-S350, OPPO BDP-83, and now several hours playing around with the Panasonic DMP-BD65.

I was amazed at the amount of quality streaming content that the Panasonic DMP-BD65 came with. One also does not need to install any type of SD card when using steaming, the SD card is only needed for local BD-LIVE storage (or future Internet downloaded videos). The Panasonic DMP-BD65 was loaded with all kinds of free and paid streaming services. Personally I do not like watching streaming and downloaded movies since the picture and sound quality is not as good as Blu-ray, but there are a lot of neat features that some people would be interested in using daily. Pandora Radio, Netflix, Amazon on demand, local weather, You Tube, Bloomberg, and many other streaming features are available on the Panasonic Blu-ray players. The Amazon on demand allows one to watch free HD and SD movie trailers before purchasing or renting a movie. You Tube videos are free. The local weather with weekly forecast graphical interface was a nice feature that also tells one the weather for the entire world by entering a zip code or city. Free Bloomberg is ideal for quick market news and stock quotes. It is starting to become a standard feature to find streaming features on many entry level Blu-ray players. I was impressed with the navigation speed of the Panasonic BDP-BD65 Blu-ray player when it came to streaming.

The Blu-ray disc picture quality matched the quality of an OPPO BDP-83. When I tried to access BD-LIVE on a Sony Blu-ray movie title I was informed that there was not enough storage available to launch BD-LIVE. The reason for this is because Panasonic does not include 1GB of internal storage to use BD-LIVE in any of their players. Since I have a very fast Verizon FIOS Internet connection I decided to get a good quality fast memory to use with the Panasonic player.

Choosing the storage memory to use on a Panasonic BDP-BD65

1. A 64GB SDXC card costs $209.99 at Amazon and would be more than double what I paid for the Panasonic player. So that would be too expensive to add to a low cost player.
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Secure...9813558&sr=1-1

2. A 32GB 30 MB/S read and write SDHC card would be ideal for speed and storage but it costs $169.54 at Amazon. I have used fast USB flash memory on the OPPO BDP-83 before, but for a $98.99 Panasonic Blu-ray player that would be too expensive.
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-III-Flash-memory/dp/B002TQ6HT6/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1289792043&sr=8-18

3. Now a 30 MB/S extreme speed 8GB SDHC card for $43.82 was a serious possibility. But since the family member I was giving this player too was not interested in BD-LIVE, I decided to get something even cheaper.
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-High-Performance-Card-SDSDX3-008G-P31/dp/B002GEQDK4/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1289792252&s r=1-10

4. For only around $11.79 with free shipping one can purchase a SanDisk 15 MB/S Ultra II 4GB SDHC card. This is the low cost card I used to test the Panasonic BD-LIVE performance. Cheaper cards are available with bigger capacity but they have slower read and write speeds which results in slower BD-LIVE performance.
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Memory-SDSDRH-004G-A11-Retail-Package/dp/B000J5LA9Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1289792883&sr =1-1

One nice thing about the 2010 Panasonic Blu-ray players is they accept SDXC, SDHC, and SD cards. They will also read exFAT, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file formats. In the future SDXC engineers are planning on releasing a 2TB SDXC card with 300Mbps transfer speed. If and when 2TB SDXC cards actually become a reality one day, they might be extremely expensive. With a firmware update perhaps studios one day could make available 50GB encrypted Blu-ray movie images that could be downloaded over a 100Mbps Internet connection to a 2TB SDXC card. One might need a new Blu-ray player if Blu-ray movie images can be purchased and/or rented as a download option in the future.

When testing BD-LIVE with the Panasonic BDP-BD65 while using a ScanDisk 15MB/S Ultra II SDHC card I noticed that the BD-LIVE speed and navigation was slower compared to the OPPO BDP-83. The OPPO BDP-83 is a faster player but also I was using USB drives at least twice as fast as the one used in the Panasonic Blu-ray player. To be fair I should have used a 30 MB/S read and write SDHC card instead of a 15MB/S SDHC card. Also on the Panasonic Blu-ray players the USB input cannot be used for BD-LIVE so I could not use the same drive as on the OPPO. For best BD-LIVE results a 50Mbps or 35Mbps download speed plan from Verizon FIOS or another service provider is recommended.

Even though the Panasonic Blu-ray player’s BD-LIVE performance was slower when compared to the OPPO BDP-83, it was more reliable. I only had to power cycle the Panasonic Blu-ray player once because of a BD-LIVE java lock up freeze. Now that is good since on the Sony BDP-S350 and OPPO BDP-83 I have had more problems when using BD-LIVE. The Panasonic BDP-BD65 download speed and navigation was very good for a $98.99 Blu-ray player. The Panasonic DMP-BD65 ran circles around my old 2008 Sony BDP-S350 in terms of speed and navigation performance. Most likely the new Sony BDP-S570 that I do not own would be much faster at BD-LIVE then the Panasonic models (CNET has it listed as the fastest Blu-ray player but video performance is not as good as the Panasonic).

The Panasonic DMP-BD65 is ideal for someone that does not need 3-D and that has a wired Ethernet home networking jack next to their TV (See below section about wireless LAN on why the DMP-BD85K and other Panasonic Blu-ray players are better choices when using wireless LAN). The DMP-BD65 will internal decode and bit stream all the advanced audio formats over HDMI. If one needs 7.1 analog outputs then the Panasonic DMP-BD85K is ideal to use with older A/V receivers.

Hopefully in the future Panasonic will offer some higher-end Blu-ray players models that have the following features:

Feature some people would like on a future high-end Panasonic Blu-ray player

1. At least 1GB of memory built in for BD-LIVE.
2. SACD and DVD-Audio support.
3. Improve on the video processing so DVD’s upconversion matches or beats the OPPO BDP-83.
4. Offer a source direct mode for high-end displays.
5. Offer 1Gbps home Networking speed like the PS3 does instead of just 100Mbps home networking.
6. Add a RS-232 port for custom installations.

Panasonic Wireless LAN info

The Panasonic DMP-BD65 and 3-D DMP-BDT100 are ideal for someone that has a wired Ethernet home network. Sure you can add wireless to the players with the optional $99.95 wireless LAN adapter (Around $61 on Amazon), but the problem is both the DMP-BD65 and DMP-BDT100 only have the USB port in the front of the player instead of the back. So cosmetically the wireless LAN adapter is not that attractive sticking out of the front of the player.

For those that need wireless LAN the 2-D Panasonic DMP-BD85K, 3-D DMP-BDT300, and 3-D DMP-BDT350 are ideal since they have both a front and rear USB jacks with a wireless LAN adapter included. It looks better cosmetically to have the wireless LAN adapter plugged into the back of the player instead of the front.


I use a 100% wired network for my Blu-ray players, I am just posting this information since some houses that are over 10 years old were not wired in the walls with CAT6A, CAT6, or CAT5E.

http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-e...702#tabsection

Here is a list of mail order companies where one can order the Panasonic DMP-BD65 for around $100 with free shipping.

http://electronics.pricegrabber.com/...7a2464e58449ed

Also I recommend this high speed low cost 4GB SDHC card for around $11.79 with free shipping from Amazon in order to use BD-LIVE with any 2010 Panasonic Blu-ray player.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Memory-SDSDRH-004G-A11-Retail-Package/dp/B000J5LA9Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1289792883&sr =1-1