The player is great. The menu system is the best I've used in a player and I returned both a Sony BD560 and a Samsung 6500 before getting this unit. Just a few notes for those that might be thinking of getting it this player.
#1 The internet options are extensive, new options to me like Amazon streaming and Skype, mixed with the mainstay apps like Netflix, Pandora, and many more. make this player very attractive to the streaming and online entertainment user.
#2 The firmware the unit currently ships with will not let you get into the Internet streaming apps or anything for that matter until you update the firmware. Updating the firmware from the 1.09 firmware it ships with will not work as of this date via wireless or wired internet connections. The secondary option is to burn the frmware to a disc. This you think would be straight foward, but it isn't. Using Windows 7 or Vista, you MUST create an ISO 9660 ONLY... I went through 3 coasters before this player could properly read the Firmware update disc I created to bring it up to 1.47. Using any other ISO format will fail.
#3, Netflix... I have 2 accounts, one old, one new and active. Got them mixed up during the install process and had my OLD netflix account essentially bound to the unit. No way to empty the cache, or sign-out and login with a new username and password (It doesn't use the code on screen method like a lot of players, you actually log into netflix from the machine) To wipe out the incorrect netflix ID, I had to factory reset the Blu-Ray player. Which meant setting everything up again. My shared drives (You can map a shared folder on your network to play files, very nice) Wireless, everything had to be set up again.
#4 No on board memory. It supports SD cards for Storage for Blu Ray online features and other apps, but it has no storage of its own. I personally found this to be nice, especially given I have many SD cards laying around from 1 to 8 gigs in size. But if you want to take full advantage of extras on Blue Rays, add the cost of an SD card to your price (Or possibly USB thumb drive??? haven't tested) in order to have on-board storage.
This player is fast, has an outstanding menu system. A very reliable network interface (Take note Samsung!) and has some nice next-gen features such as touch-less ejecting, kind of novel, but I did find myself liking it.... having come from the Samsung 6500 just recently, I found the fact that the player keeps you informed with on screen displays as to what it is doing if their are the common loading delays when first starting Blu-Rays for instance, a very nice change from the black of screen of questioning I always had with the Samsung model. And Sony's 560 had a very lame netflix interface so that wasn't an option for me after seeing it, given I use streaming a LOT.
For the 2011 models, I'd like to see the offerings from the competitors before I whole heartily recommend this one, but I'm very happy with my purchase. Panasonic seems to know what they are doing with UI's, UI user Feedback and general tech savyness in their Blu-Ray players. (aside from the current Firmware glitch) Panasonic DMP-BDT210 Integrated-Wi-Fi 3D Blu-ray DVD Player
To give a frame of reference, I replaced a Panasonic BD35 with this Panasonic DMP-BDT210 it is hooked to a Sony HD AV 7.1 receiver and to a Panasonic 50" Plasma TV, and I have a LinkSys Wireless Router (802.11n).
It arrived today and I opened the box at about 6PM, ready for what I expected was going to a long night, just seems to usually work out that way these days, figured it would be issues with getting it on the network, so I started in.
Nothing tricky for my hook-up, just one HDMI connection to the receiver and I used the one that was there from the BD35, and the power cord, that was it for wires.
Put the batts (supplied) in the remote and turned it on, pops up quickly to an Easy Set-Up menu that you can get through in a few seconds and start playing Blu-ray DVD's. I wanted to hook it to the network and I always like to look around at the options, so I opted to go to the other set-up menu.
The Easy Set-up takes you to the option to set up a network connection, if you are not going to use the network features you can just pick no and you are ready to watch a Blu-ray movie. I opted to set-up the network and this is what I thought was going to be the hard part, it asked, wired or wireless, I picked wireless, it found my network in about 15 seconds and put the name on the screen, I picked it and it knew it was a secure/encrypted network connection so it asked for the password, and put up a keyboard to put it in.
Once I gave it the password it started trying to connect to the network, a screen pops up with a number of pass/fail tests it is running, that took another 15 seconds to pass them all.
The rest of set-up can be skipped for the most part depending on your connection to the TV or in my case the player to the receiver and receiver to the TV through HDMI connections, so it knew the capabilities of the TV and set everything right.
If you want to more personalize it or need to set the screen size (standard/wide) then Set-Up offers that an a number of other options, like parental control, the display brightness, a number of audio options and 3D and 2D video options, all in all very nice set of options and again, most never need be messed with if you don't want to, it attempts to optimize itself. (Also, no matter how bad you mess it it, you can just tell it to go back to factory settings and do it again)
After spending about 5 minutes in set-up doing the network and looking around I had to pop in a disc and see how it looked and sounded. I did not really expect a noticable difference from my old one in picture and sound, and perhaps it is just percerption, but both seemed better to me.
However what you notice first is the speed it loads the disc, it is very fast. The BD35 was slow, so slow I would rather watch a bad movie than change discs, I had put in Tron 3D as the first test, killer, video and audio, and effects. Next, I put in Tron in 2D and tried the 2D to 3D, interesting and effective, looked pretty good but I am not a big 3D fan. There are also settings the change the 3D effects.
Next, I went to 2D and again the audio and video were just outstanding, not that the old one was bad at all, this was just better, enough to notice. So for picture and sound it is 5 stars all the way for the price.
The menu navigation is very clean and easy to follow while in the Panasonic menus, and very fast, navigating the disc is also fast, more that quick enough to make those options worth it. So overall navigation and easy of use I have to also give a 5.
Now for something I had not tried before on my TV other than Pay-Per-View via cable, I hit the VeraCast and there was YouTube, Amazon, NetFlix, VuDu, and a bunch of others. I tried out Amazon first and watched a free show, no issues at all. It played perfectly, no picture snags, stops, buffering, audio dropouts, it played as well as from the cable box. Same for NetFlix, the stuff all played fine.
I did notice sluggish menus while on the Internet Movie sites, it was clear that it was not the unit but the sites, and even then by sluggish I mean a few seconds delay on some selections, not like my old unit were somethings could take a few minutes.
So 5 stars on the internet movie, tv, and information features.
I guess no review would be complete with a unit with the ability to wave your hand over the top of the player to open and close the drawer, so here is its honorable mention, it works.
Well my prediction of spending half the night (3 hours) was correct, but it was not in getting it to work, it was watching YouTube and Amazon video's, and parts of a number of movies. A very enjoyable evening.
Overall I give this a solid 5, there was nothing I could find to knock it down, it was easy to set up, easy to use, and outstanding performance and features.
Panasonic DMP-BDT210 Integrated-Wi-Fi 3D Blu-ray DVD Player - Panasonic - 3d Blu-ray - Streaming Video - Blu-ray Disc Players'
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