There's no doubt that there is something extra special about Blu-ray. The picture and the sound are a noticeable upgrade over what your old standard-def DVD has been offering all those years.
The only problem with replacing your current DVD collection (aside from the cost) is that you need to also replace all of your DVD players. Sadly, Blu-rays won't play in your old, dusty DVD player, which means they won't play in the bedroom, the basement or the car -- unless you've made the hardware switch in all of those places.
Portable Blu-ray players are starting to pop up, so far exclusively from Panasonic. The Panasonic DMP-B100 is the company's second generation player, an "entry-level" player intended purely for portable use. But with an MSRP of $499.95, it's not likely to be popping up in a lot of homes. It's a player for the person who simply must have access to that Blu-ray collection at all times and isn't too concerned about the price of entry.
The DMP-B100 does have some nice travel perks. First of all, Panasonic was kind enough to include a car adapter with the DMP-B100, as well as a standard power cord, a battery and a remote control. It also features a mono-arm design, which means the screen can be flipped, so you don't have to contort your body too much in the car, bathroom, basement closet, or wherever else you'll take this unit.
For a high-priced item, the DMP-B100 is incredibly simple. The sides of the device feature very few connections: a power jack, an SD card slot, and a headphone jack. Surprisingly, Panasonic isn't giving you the option to plug this baby into a TV, let alone access any BD Live material or IPTV content via the web. It's strictly a stand-alone portable player which outputs content only to its integrated screen. For connection to the Web and to external displays, you will want to opt for the DMP-B500 instead, which is about $200 more expensive, and features a slightly larger screen.
So, the audience for this product is fairly limited, to say the least. It can be limited even more, if you'd like, since it offers options a menu option to block the kiddos from viewing DVDs and Blu-rays with specific ratings.
Portable Performance
For our first use, the DMP-B100 took 25 seconds to start up. We punched in our language of choice and were in business in seconds. After that initial setup, it routinely took about 20 seconds to fire up the player to the main menu screen.
We used our three standby discs to test out load times. The discs all start automatically from when you close the player, so that's when we started our countdown. We got the DreamWorks logo on our standard DVD (Old School) in about 28 seconds. A standard Blu-ray (Hitch) came up in a mere 16 seconds, while a BD-Java Blu-ray Disc (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) took 20 seconds. That's actually pretty speedy, and faster than the current generation Panasonic component Blu-ray players, which should be a nice perk when on the go.
For our maiden voyage, we charged the DMP-B100 overnight. On that charge, we made it through one-and-a-half movies, for a total of 183 minutes or a little over three hours. The second time, we charged the unit for about 15 hours. This time, we got 188 minutes. That's very close to Panasonic's promised 3.5-hour battery life. Also, the unit gave us a good 8 or 9 minutes of warning before finally pulling the plug (well, battery) on the device.
Hey Good Looking!
The DMP-B100's 8.9-inch WSVGA screen is surprisingly nice, offering a 1024x600 pixel resolution. Sure, it's not the full 1080p (1920x1080) pixel resolution of which Blu-ray is capable, but packing that many pixels into this small a screen would be no mean feat! And at 8.9 inches, full 1080p would probably be overkill as the pixels would be too small to discern any enhanced detail in the image. Ultimately, this player is about convenience, not ultimate performance. For instance, we only have The Hangover on Blu-ray, and this player saves us the trouble of having to store an extra copy in a different format just for portable viewing.
That said, it provided very high quality video playback on Blu-ray Discs, using its Dynamic setting. There's also a slightly dim Night setting, a Standard setting, and a way to customize video options under the User setting. Colors were bright and punchy and fine details on close-ups were very enjoyable when watching Blu-ray Discs. Wide shots (on 2.4:1 Cinemascope titles), aren't as much fun here, as these lose some impact on such a small screen.
We popped in the HQV Benchmark DVD, to see how the player handled upconversion of standard def content. The lines on the Color Bar test were pretty hard to see, but they were visible. We got impressive results on all three of the "Jaggies" tests showing that the player has good diagonal filtering. During the last "flag" test, the brick appeared to have a nice texture and the flag itself was pretty crisp. The Detail test was difficult to judge, primarily due to the small screen size. Also, in the Noise Reduction test, the night sky was pretty noisy -- surprising based on the performance on other tests, but not too concerning since this is really a test more for a display's handling of noisy signals such as broadcast TV. The player handled the 3:2 cadence test in the "Super Speedway" clip well, preventing excessive moire in the grandstands.
From there, we moved on to a few titles. We had both SD and Blu-ray versions of 13 Going on 30 to run through the player. While not the most action-packed movie, there are plenty of bright, cheery colors. The SD version looked fine, but the Blu-ray was a lot crisper when displaying outfits, colors, and even had more pop for Jennifer Garner's freckles.
Then we threw in a few of our favorite key scenes from Iron Man on Blu-ray Disc. The inside of that cave was hard to decipher because of the darkness and lack of detail. Once he makes it outside, things start to blow up -- literally and figuratively. The brighter scenes looked a lot better, again - with excellent detail and bright punchy colors. The built-in LCD screen just can't resolve a lot of fine details in the dark.
After that, we popped in a few standard-def DVDs, such as Bring It On and Elf. Both looked just fine. However, they just didn't have that crisp detail and powerful colors that Blu-ray provides. The train scene from the SD version of Spider-Man 2 was particularly hard to follow. There was just a lot going on, and it seemed like the smaller screen had a hard time keeping up.
As far as the portability aspect, we were very pleased. We can't speak for air travel, but we did take this unit on a pretty bumpy car ride, with no gripes. The unit played fine. Some discs weren't as easy to hear with the ambient noise, which brings us to the sound performance. The maximum volume level for the DMP-B100 was fine for most of the material we tested out. However, on The Hangover, the dialogue could have been a few clicks higher, but the player's little speakers had no more to give.
On the Road Remote
The remote control that comes with the DMP-B100 is compact and lightweight, but a little confusing. For a portable device remote, it has an awful lot of buttons -- 44 to be exact. There are the ones you'd expect, such as stop, play, pause, and the other typical player functions. There are multiple menu buttons, which take you to the LCD's menu, to the setup, and other weird menu options.
We're not even sure why you'd need so many buttons, given the player's limited reach. However, Panasonic has certainly covered all of the bases -- and then some. The device itself also has the necessities, including a power button, a Disc/SD button for switching between a CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc and a connected SD card. The SD card allows playback of pictures (JPEG) and videos (AVCHD) from a compatible digital camera. There's also a selection wheel, and five playback-related buttons. On the side of the LCD, there's also volume controls and a button for the LCD menu.
Turn Ons
Turn Offs
Final Thoughts
If you are in the middle of amassing a big Blu-ray collection, it would be nice to be able to play those discs almost anywhere. The DMP-B100 offers that convenience, and a higher quality image than any portable DVD player on the market -- but that's about it. Considering the $499 asking price ($399 street price), we'd expect people to buy this as a main player, with the intent to take it on the road for portable viewing and plug it into a larger set and home theater rig when reaching their final destination. However, other than the headphone/audio output, there are no options for connection to an external system, nor are there any other bells and whistles.
You could say that it's the least expensive portable Blu-ray player currently on the market (and you'd be right), but if you are going to put that much into the portability thing, consider springing a little more for the DMP-B500 instead. Yes, it's more expensive still, but it includes a slightly larger (10.1-inch) screen, an HDMI output, Wi-Fi support, and VIERA Cast, which provides Netflix streaming, YouTube, and other instant entertainment as well asthe option to connect it to a larger screen when yo uget where you're going. But if your primary need is to watch Blu-ray Discs and DVDs in the car, on the plane, by the pool or in the hotel, the DMP-B100 gets the job done with a nice quality picture, decent sound and healthy playback times to boot.
Where to Buy:
Features and Specifications
What's in the Box?
Manufacturer's Contact Information:
Panasonic Corporation of North America
One Panasonic Way
Secaucus, NJ 07094
1-800-211-PANA (7262)
Web Site: www.panasonic.com
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