Panasonic's 2008 Blu-ray Players were so popular during the holidays that most stores sold out their entire stock toward the end of the year and Panasonic could not keep up the supply. The DMP-BD35 and DMP-BD55 proved to be exceptional performers both for Blu-ray playback and DVD upconversion, and were reasonably quick to load discs as well, compared to earlier players. But they were lacking one thing that competitive players had: access to online content.
In 2009, Panasonic has addressed this issue, building VIERA Cast - a feature previously available only in their 850 series top of the line plasmas - into every Blu-ray Disc player in their line. VIERA Cast is effectively a web portal into content such as YouTube, Picasa photo-sharing, Weather Channel and Bloomberg News, with Amazon on-demand movie downloads coming later this Spring. With VIERA Cast, you can enjoy internet-based content on your TV or home theater system without the need for a computer. Because it is an extensible platform, VIERA Cast can be enhanced with new content (new sources of internet-delivered content) without the need for a hardware upgrade. The entry-level DMP-BD60 is the first of Panasonic's players to include VIERA Cast.
Although we have not reviewed the DMP-BD60, we have reviewed the step-up model, the DMP-BD80. Both players feature the same audio decoding and video processing chip sets including the latest version of Panasonic's proprietary UniPhier video processor. So the performance and operation of the BD60 should be identical to the BD80 except for a few features: Divx playback, multi-channel analog outputs and "High Clarity Audio" - a feature which allows you to disable the analog video processing and output if you don't need it, thereby minimizing any potential interference with the player's audio output.
If you don't know what Divx is or don't care, and if you have a receiver which supports HDMI audio decoding (HDMI 1.1 or above) or if you plan to use the player with just the built-in TV speakers, then the BD60 is probably a better choice as it's $100 cheaper and should be otherwise identical in performance to the BD80.
Features common to both players (DMP-BD60 and DMP-BD80) include:
As of its launch, the VIERA Cast content is not quite as compelling as the online features of some competitive players (notably Netflix online streaming in the LG and Samsung players), but because VIERA Cast is a fully extensible platform, the quality and selection of content should continue to improve with no upgrade required.
The Panasonic players do lack a Wi-Fi (wireless network) connection, requiring a hard-wired Ethernet cable instead. However, this can be addressed via a few different options: a wireless gaming adapter, wireless bridge or via a power line networking solution (such as this one from Corinex) which uses your existing power wires as a data network.
Overall, with performance and features comparable to the excellent DMP-BD35 and the addition of VIERA Cast online content access, Panasonic's DMP-BD60 should be a popular seller in the Blu-ray market this year.
Where to Buy:
The DMP-BD60 is also known as: DMP-BD60K, DMPBD60K, BD60, BD-60, BD60K, DMPBD60.
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