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March 24, 2009

Panasonic DMP-BD55K review

Product Code: DMP-BD55K

At £280, the Panasonic DMP-BD55K is expensive even for a Blu-ray Disc player.

But the Panasonic DMP-BD55K's superb image quality, excellent design, and wide feature set make the DMP-BD55K a tempting choice for shoppers with deep enough pockets.

In the Test Centre, the Panasonic DMP-BD55K did not receive a single grade of less than Very Good from any of our judges. Jurors' notes were filled with praise, especially when comparing it with our reference player, the Sony PlayStation 3.

In a shot of the Vatican in 'Mission: Impossible III', we noted that columns in the background looked sharper. The opening sequence in 'Cars' was so vibrant that it made the image on the PlayStation 3 look washed out. In 'Good Night and Good Luck', another judge noted the scene's pleasing handling of film grain. And in 'The Phantom of the Opera', our test scene exhibited a great sense of dimensionality.

Unlike less-expensive Blu-ray plyer's we've evaluated, the Panasonic DMP-BD55K has no issues with upscaling standard-definition DVDs to 1080p - in fact, the DMP-BD55K bested all comers we've tested in its handling of DVDs.

Home entertainment news and reviews

The Panasonic DMP-BD55K distinguishes itself in other ways, too. It's sleek, and measures less than 10 inches deep. The unit's buttons are convenient, with large Power On and Open/Close buttons in the corners, angled upward for easy access. The buttons on the programmable remote are also nicely placed, with the playback control buttons (Play, Pause, and so on) done in blue to help them stand out. Unfortunately, they're not backlit.

You won't have any trouble figuring out the Panasonic DMP-BD55K's compact, attractive setup menu. An illustration at the bottom of the menu screen shows you where the remote's ok and Return buttons are. The menus don't explain everything, but they do explain the complicated audio options.

Press the Panasonic DMP-BD55K remote's Display button while you're watching a movie, and you see more than a few numbers and facts - you get a menu, where you can pick subtitles or turn on repeat play. But you don't get what people normally press the Display button for: to see how far they are into the movie.

The Panasonic DMP-BD55K is fast, although it's no record breaker. It took just over a minute to start playing a disc, and lagged only slightly when skipping chapters and barely at all when pausing.

Packed with features, the Panasonic DMP-BD55K can play DivX files, AVCHD movies, and other media formats. An SD Card slot sits in front; you can use the card slot to view photos, but when we tried it, the images stretched horizontally, making everyone look fat.

This BD-Live player has an ethernet port in the back, but no built-in memory: you have to bring your own memory in the form of an SD Card, annoying considering the otherwise premium qualities of this player.

The Panasonic DMP-BD55K offers audiophile features, too. It has 7.1-channel analog and HDMI audio-out, and it can decode both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio if your amplifier can't.

PCWorld.com

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Independent customer reviews from

Panasonic DMP-BD55K scored:
8.9 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 23 reviews:

07 Jan 2009 Smithy, Newcastle

9

Good Points

The blu-ray player is compact & very sleek & modern. The blu-ray load times are only 10 seconds to access main menu of the disc. The overall picture quality is amazing, very sharp & life-like. The HD sound via HDMI is mightily impressive with plenty of bass, with lots of treble for the orchestral scenes. The is by far the best dvd player I have ever owned & I no longer need to tweak the brightness settings when I switch from watching satellite to dvd.

Bad Points

The build quality is too plastic for my liking, but not in the cheap & nasty way. The remote could have come from any 80 pound dvd player and isn't up to my usual high standards. The unit does look trendy alongside my other equipment but again looks just like a cheaper DVD player. Its all about touch, so make sure you get to test one first in the shops.

29 Oct 2008 peter, narberth

10

Good Points

nice design, good manual, excellent picture and sound when connected to a surround system.

Bad Points

not found any at this moment in time

See more Panasonic DMP-BD55K reviews on Reevoo.com

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