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BD-Live Comes to Panasonic
Panasonic has added interactivity and other new features to its new Blu-ray player, the DMP-BD50.
Panasonic DMP-BD50
Panasonic’s latest Blu-ray player adds BD Live, as well as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD support.
May 06, 2008 | by Rachel Cericola

Panasonic has given its Blu-ray line a bump, with the DMP-BD50.

The company’s third-generation Blu-ray player adds in BD-Live functionality, meaning you can tap into additional features, including games, images and other content, on some newer Blu-ray movie titles. It also has VIERA Link, which allows users to rope in applicable home theater components under one remote.

“Panasonic was the first to bring a Blu-ray player with Bonus View (Final Standard Profile 1.1) to market and now with the DMP-BD50 we are again leading the industry with the inclusion of BD-Live,” said Paul Sabo, Panasonic, National Marketing Manager Entertainment Group. “The beauty of the Blu-ray player is that we can now see movies the way the film maker intended, in glorious HD video and audio. The consumer can now combine the new generation DMP-BD50 with a VIERA flat-screen television to create a true living in high definition experience.”

Of course, it’s still got the 1080p playback, as well as picture-in-picture, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio support. Other features include a PHL Reference Chroma processor and P4HD i/p conversion processor and an SD memory card slot.

The DMP-BD50 ships this spring, for $699.95.



Rachel Cericola - Contributing Writer
Over the past 15 years, Rachel Cericola has covered entertainment, web and technology trends. Check her out at www.rachelcericola.com.



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Comments (7) Most recent displayed first.
Posted by you guys r silly  on  05/24/08  at  10:06 PM

“COOL!  A $700 Blu-ray that can do the same thing a $99.00 HD DVD could do 6 months ago.”

...an hd-dvd player that went obsolete 3 months ago. lol

great analogy.

Posted by JoeK  on  05/08/08  at  09:43 AM

Soundzilla,

Who’s the troll?  I got my $99 player and 25 of my favorite all time movies for a grand total of <$400.  You don’t have to like HD DVD, but it was a fine investment for me.

And by the way, my TV is 720p, so the 1080i player does just fine, and many of my movies have Dolby TrueHD.

$700 for a player that will likely be hundreds less in a matter of months is pathetic.

Posted by Alvmaia  on  05/07/08  at  12:41 PM

Let´s compare it to PS3, which is $300 less, is BD-live (Profile 2.0) compliant with the new 2.30 firmware and will be always up-to-date with the new BD standards.

Why pay more for this player?

Posted by BishopQ  on  05/07/08  at  07:35 AM

Enough with it’ll be cheaper than the $700 MSRP.  If Sony really wants the entire world to leave DVD for Blu-Ray they have to lower the prices.  This is still $400 higher than even the HT enthusiast really wants to pay.

Way to let us down again Blu-Ray assoc.

Posted by Soundzilla  on  05/07/08  at  12:46 AM

Troll.

Despite being a lousy long-term investment, $99 HD-DVD players 6 months ago could never hold 50GB of data, output 1080p or play most of the High-Def movies people were buying at a ratio of 2-to-1 or better. Nor was there a growing list of movies with uncompressed PCM audio on HD-DVD.

You get what you pay for.

$699 is MSRP. Street price will be lower.


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