Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-ray Disc Player, Black

I just purchased the Panasonic DMP-BD60 a couple of days ago. My criteria for purchase were as follows: great reviews from amazon, sound and vision award winner for the BD60's predecessor product the BD35 and finally a great price.

Here is a link to the award winning BD35 (Sound and Vision Magazine product awards April/May 09):
Panasonic DMP-BD35K 1080p Blu-ray Player

I had been using an upconverting HDMI output Sony DVD player which I bought a couple of years back. Until now, I had been fairly satisfied with the picture quality of the Sony. Not anymore. The Panasonic MP-BD60 blows it away in picture quality. I project on a 130 inch diagonal screen and the difference is easy to see. My regular DVD's look like high definition blu-ray discs! The upconversion is that good.

I was holding off my purchase thinking the Sony was good enough for my needs. Boy, was I wrong! The Panasonic is one solid performer as far as I am concerned.

Hooking the unit to the internet allows watching YouTube videos and Picasa photos. The first thing I did was update the firmware to the latest version (1.5 as of this writing). This took about 5-10 minutes and went without a hitch.

In conclusion, if you have a large DVD collection and want to watch it all in stunning 1080p, you will not go wrong with this player. For between $200 and $250 you will be getting an amazing player.

I am relatively new to this whole HD/flat screen thing, but in just the last 2 months I have become a convert. I bought the Panasonic DMP-BD60 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player so I could get full enjoyment out of the Neil Young archives. While I waited forever for that oft postponed collection, I picked up a couple movies (2001 Space Odyssey & couple others). Awesome. I can never go back. SD Digital hurts my eyes now. Even standard DVD looks ordinary. It plays mp3 CDRs, Audio CDs, and bunch of other formats. It supports BD-Live which is an apparently new / developing technology that I do not fully understand yet. The player firmware can be updated directly via internet. I just discovered that I can play mp3s stored on a thumb drive plugged into the USB port on the front of the player. Very cool. No more burning mp3 CDs every time we entertain (unfortunately no random play feature). All things considered - this player is best quality/most features/fairest price option I found.

Well, I did a lot of research before buying the BD60 from Panasonic and I believe it was a good move. I cannot agree with the previous reviewer today who stated that the unit loads in very short time, because mine does not. However, load time is not a feature that means a hill o' beans to me for a movie player. If pauses were happening during playback, that would be another story.

The video and sound quality are excellent, which is what I expected. I have to say that the remote is also pretty good. I've played everything under the sun on it from olllllllllllld DVDs to Blu Rays with no problems. I would recommend it and would buy it again if I had to do it over.


Lamar

BDiscs and DVDs occasionally freeze for a couple of seconds while playing or right after fast forwarding. There is also temporary random loss of audio/sound after freeze or fast forwarding. Have to SKIP back or forward to resume sound. The problems occur to multiple discs already so I'm sure it's not the problem of the discs. Already asked Amazon for a replacement. Will report back if the problems persist in the replacement unit. A good player otherwise.

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Update: the replacement unit has the same problem of random loss of sound. Returned it to Amazon again. Very disappointed in this potentially solid player. Amazon has a great return service though.

Had this unit for a couple of months now after owning a Sony BDP-S350 Blu ray and I can say this is a superior player in comparison. Load times are still a bit slow but having all audio formats decoded by the Panasonic makes it all worth it. The Panasonic SD upconversion is better and the dialog lift feature is very worthwhile for dialog rich movies. To sum up this is a solidly built Blu ray player with great audio and video plus all the features one would want in a Blu ray player.