Panasonic Goes Live
By Thomas J. Norton May 10, 2008 — Panasonic recently announced the upcoming release of its new DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player, which I got to see in person on May 9 at the Panasonic Hollywood Labs right next to Universal Studios in Los Angeles. The BD50 follows the DMP-BD30, which was the first standalone BD player to conform to Final Standard Profile 1.1 (aka BonusView). As you might expect, the new player is fully equipped for BD-Live (Profile 2.0), which lets it access the supplementary Internet content and online interactive features that are planned for future Blu-ray releases by connecting the player to a broadband access point such as a home-network router.

The DMP-BD50 includes all the DMP-BD30's features, including a front-panel SD-card slot for playing your own JPEG digital photos and AVCHD camcorder footage. The card slot is also used to add the 1GB of local storage required by BD-Live (1GB SD card not included).

Like the DMP-BD30, the new player can send both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks to your A/V receiver or pre-pro in bitstream form. In addition, the player can decode both of these formats into multichannel PCM for receivers that cannot decode the native bitstreams.

On the video side, the DMP-BD50 can play 1080p/24 content directly, as does its predecessor, for displays equipped to properly handle 24fps material. But it can also convert standard-def DVDs to 24fps by stripping out 3:2 pulldown, giving your legacy DVD collection the benefits of 24fps playback, freeing them from 3:2 motion judder.

The DMP-BD50 will be available this spring for $700.

In related news, Panasonic also announced the SC-BT100 wireless home-theater-in-a-box system. In addition to wireless surround speakers—that is, wireless apart from the power cords for the amps built into the surrounds—this package includes a fully equipped BD player (Profile 1.1, not 2.0), receiver-like system control built into the player, audio inputs for external sources, amplification, and a full 5.1-channel speaker complement, including the subwoofer.

Not only will the system decode all the new audio formats, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but it also provides an iPod dock. The SC-BT100 will be available in late spring for $1000. An optional pair of wireless speakers and transceiver will also be available for expanding the package to a 7.1-channel system.