Is the great Panny BD 35 obsolete already?

bklynrickel

It's great as many know. But, is it now obsolete what with all the video streaming, wi fi, etc. I mean what am I now missing out on? I even hear that the PS 3 is going to stream HD movies from all 6 major studios. What is a Panny BD 35 owner to do? Add to that, just when I'm enjoying my plasma tv, now we're doing 3D. We'll all need hedge fund financing for all this new stuff.

oblioman

if the 35 is obsolete,,,me 30 is dead. Funny thing,,,it keeps playing everything me throws at it. must be the zombies.

Chris Gerhard

The Panasonic DMP-BD35 continues to be a fine player for any 2D Blu-ray releases. As far as streaming and 3D if you want that, yes, you will need a new player. Things have been changing fast and Blu-ray players have become a lot more than just Blu-ray players. I would say no, it is not obsolete and it will be great with a 2D HDTV for a long time.

Chris

OCgamer

I have one as well and while im not worried about 3D as the first generation is going to be real crappy. As with anything new. Panasonic has been great with firmware upgrades at least they do them in a timely fashion. The BD35's downside is common its slower than old people making a decision at Mcdonalds. I mean it takes like 30 seconds to eject a disc from off rediculous. It takes way to long to boot and like most doesnt let you skip commercials. I swear the first company to produce a blu ray with firmware that lets you bypass commercials and previews is going to win every consumer. Why Panasonic and everyone else cows to Hollywood to allow commercials and forced watching is beyond me when Hollywood releases discs without a standard forcing Panasonic to spend money with firmware upgrades it makes no sense. Hollywood could care less about us including Panasonic so why do they put up with it? I understand Sony since they own a movie company. But you know if I had my own Blu ray company the thing would boot with a quality processor in no less than 5 seconds, have some internal memory so I dont have to use an SD card for some movies (I mean common 1gb of memory is less than a few dollars these days) and of course let the user control what hes watching i.e. no commercials or other boring crap. I would even redesign the DVD case so it didnt break because of the pressure point in the center of the disc. I mean common think about it most of us are way smarter than either Hollywood or China (Japan) when it comes to what we want.

oblioman

the BD30 allows you to skip through the trailers.

PFC5

The BD35 does also. But we should be able to just hit the menu button to go to the main menu instead of hitting the skip chapter button up to 10+ times to get to the main disc menu.

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Chris Gerhard

Yes, the DMP-BD35 is really slow loading compared to current players but that just doesn't seem to me to be very important. I start the disc and often do something else taking a minute or two. As far as Blu-ray discs that force you to choose between skipping the previews or watching them, not just going directly to the menu, that is up to the company releasing the movie. At least worse case, we can FF or chapter skip and avoid watching and that beats the theater where I have to sit and wait for the previews to finish.

It is also possible to author Blu-ray discs that go directly to the menu and you have to actively choose to watch the previews by selecting that option. This choice of forced previews or no forced previews is how it should be in my opinion, it is after all the studio's property to offer however they want. If it is a big problem, just don't purchase or rent discs from studios like Disney. As consumers, it is our right to only use products we like. The concept that player manufacturers should make hardware that overcomes this Blu-ray option available to the studios, if it is even possible to do so, is not a good one in my opinion. I don't complain about such minutia and just live with it personally.

As far as your belief you can build a Blu-ray player with 1GB internal memory and loading in 5 seconds, go ahead and apply for a license from the BDA. The additional cost to add 1GB of internal memory may only be a few dollars but the profits on the Blu-ray models that don't have internal memory is clearly less than a few dollars right now so that cost is material to the profits and probably negate any profits. Slightly more expensive models do have the internal memory and all current models I have seen load a lot quicker than the Panasonic DMP-BD35 but none load in 5 seconds to the best of my knowledge.

Chris

OCgamer

I agree I eject my disc and leave the room get another movie and come back. Its all about thinking ahead, but in an age where we are buying computers for speed then even over clocking them to go faster why hasnt a company simply made a player that a true movie lover would want to buy. What kinda burns me is we BOUGHT the blu ray and STILL have to watch commercials doesnt that seem backwards? Now I havent been to the theater in 15 years but I have heard that before a movie starts you watch 15 minutes of commercials right? For this you pay $10 for a movie ticket? You mention about profits for players, true enough they are im sure low but given that one player is slightly faster or has slightly more features im sure we will opt for that one. For serious movie lovers im sure we would pay additionally for extra gee wiz features I know I would pay tons more for a player that did what I first discribed. Although I would also add to my dream machine one that doesnt sound like its mixing concrete when its track advancing I swear my pana bd 35 sounds like its grinding metal and im told this is normal for this player (from panasonic) I think its hitting the copy protection or something. Anyway why cant one of your smart people come up with ahem a MOD that we can install and skip commercials?

Chris Gerhard

My BD35 certainly makes some noise loading although I wouldn't say it sounds like metal grinding. I just purchased a number of budget Anchor Bay horror Blu-ray titles at $7 each. These movies have no forced previews, load quickly and the movie starts.

The point regarding the fact some studios use the forced previews and some don't is that is optional, not mandatory. If it is as big an issue as you seem to indicate, the market will reject the movies with the forced previews and only choose to purchase movies that don't use the option. You can't force these studios to do what consumers want, that would mean free movies and no copy protection. It is their property to sell in whatever manner they choose, with copy protection, coded for single regions, forced previews or whatever other legal options they choose. The market gets to decide what to buy and what not to buy, I can't ask for anything more. Trying to dictate how they sell something would only mean it won't be available at all, not that they can be forced to do what you seem to think the market wants.

I am certainly a movie lover and I know of no better way than Blu-ray.

Chris

OCgamer

I disagree if enough people complain about the things they dont like say like DRM in mp3's apple dropped it especially when their competition stopped using it. What I dont think Hollywood understands is all of us can remove the previews if we want and move the file to a large hard drive in a jukebox format. We all know there is a program that will do this for you. I have about 200 blu rays on my server right now as I store the discs for archive purposes and dont want them scratched by my children. I use a menu system on the server and the system works its my solution to THEIR system of forced commercials and other garbage I dont want to see over and over again. Hollywood has always been very slow to react to customer wants and desires. I have also noticed that prices have been going up to rediculous levels making it even harder to "do the right thing" and not buy from china. I also disagree when you say the market makes the decisions well if only one movie company makes "Die Hard" how are you going to get it from another company thus you either take it their way or not, thats not a solution. Sony tried that with BETA and it failed. Now the companies that own the movies can do what they want but what im trying to say is I dont think much of america thinks getting movies from off shore is a crime case in point mp3's. Once the record companies figured out that its hard to sell songs when your competition is the same song only its free things have to change. So they did offering $1 songs without DRM. I think time has come for movies to do the same BEFORE its too late and everyone figures out the guy in the trench coat downtown may just have the best prices in town. Example $5 for blu rays.