Panasonic DMP50 in stores

[TheMoose]

Panasonic DMP50 in stores
Well in online stores, B&M soon

From Engadget,

One of the most highly anticipated new Blu-ray players is the Panasonic DMP-BD50 and after months and months of waiting it is starting to show up as in stock on various obscure online retailers. A quick search online shows that the big box stores have yet to receive their initial shipments, but it is safe to assume that when the likes of 6th Ave and Rainbow Electronics has them, widespread availability can't be too far behind. The first full featured Blu-ray that includes everything from BD Live, to internal DTS-HD MA decoders won't come cheap though, the initial prices are right at the retail of $699.

[wes]

Originally Posted by TheMoose

Panasonic DMP-BD50 $699

Sony 550 will probably do better $500!

[kennyt]

I think buying a Blu-ray player with analog outputs is only for those trying to put a BandAid on their systems until the get something with HDMI 1.1 or later inputs allowing LPCM or bitstream to feed the new codecs, analog outs are often nowadays re-converted to digital and then back to analog in many low to mid and even in some very high end pre/pro's and receivers.

[rex]

Reviews of this have been disappointing.
Why is it so hard for someone to make a BD player at least as good as the Toshiba HD-DVD players?
So far none are as good as Toshiba in terms of audio decoding, load times, and upconversion capability.

[TheMoose]

Originally Posted by rex

Reviews of this have been disappointing.
Why is it so hard for someone to make a BD player at least as good as the Toshiba HD-DVD players?
So far none are as good as Toshiba in terms of audio decoding, load times, and upconversion capability.

Well I think the PS3 is as good if not better than the Toshiba hd-dvd players, they will play all the new lossless codecs & while the video may not be the best it is very good & the load times are the best around.

The thing is the war has only been over a few months & now that there is only one format many manufactures have had to shift gears.
Those that were making dual format players had to scrap them & start over & others are gearing up to release 2.0 players & trying to get them at a price that will be attractive to the masses.

You have to remember Toshiba was selling a heavily subsidized player at a loss & that was one of the things that killed them in the long run, no one else wanted to take that much of a loss so Toshiba was basically going it alone.

I hope around CEDIA there will be a bunch of new players released, the Sony BDP-S350 & BDP-S550 sound like they will be nice players & Onkyo & Denon should have something new soon & hopefully a Sony ES player as well.

[wes]

Originally Posted by rex

Reviews of this have been disappointing. Why is it so hard for someone to make a BD player at least as good as the Toshiba HD-DVD players? So far none are as good as Toshiba in terms of audio decoding, load times, and up conversion capability.

Who says better technology wins, remember the electric cars! To be fare HD-DVD was not that great either I had the HD-DVD A35 and I still had loading time that were super long.

Sony states that the 550 will load faster than the PS3!!