Customer Reviews
PANASONIC BLU RAY PLAYER DMP-BD 30 
2008-05-28
JUST GOT MY PANA BD 30 PLAYER LAST MON 19/5/08 THRU AMAZON ( THEIR DELIVERY WAS VERY VERY PROMPT & A SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OF YOU PEOPLE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR RESP. REVIEWS SO I COULD CONFIDENTLY ORDER THE SAME ONLINE) & LUCKILY GOT YAMAHA 1800 AMP. WITH LATEST HD FORMAT SOUNDS SAME DAY HOOKED BOTH THE BD & AMP TO EXISTING SANYO Z 5 PROJECTOR WITH 120" SCREEN & A VERY POWERFUL PARADIGM ULTRA CUBE 10 SUBWOOFER (1500WATTS) THE PICTURE & SOUND WAS UNBELIVABLE (MUCH BETTER THAN LOCAL MULTIPLEXES).I WATCHED AVP2/RESIDENT EVIL 3/ DIE HARD 4/ ETC ON BLU RAY DISC & THEY ALL WERE AMAZING WATCHING ON THESE SYSTEMS.THE PICTURE/SOUND QUALITY ON MY EARLIER DVD PIONEER 696A/YAMAHA 1400 WAS VERY GOOD BUT WITH THIS NEW PLAYER THE PICTURE/SOUND IS MUCH BETTER.
THE ONLY DRAWBACK WITH THE BD PLAYER IS THAT IT ONLY READ/PLAYS REGION 1 BDS/DVD'S WHICH IS NOT A VERY BIG ISSUE SINCE 99% OF MY COLLECTION IS REGION 1'S.
I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMEND THIS PLAYER & GIVE IT 6 ******'S IF POSSIBLE & WITH A GOOD COMBINATION OF AMP/PROJ/TV/POWERFUL SUB WITH THIS PLAYER ONE WOULDNT VENTURE TO GO TO MULTIPLEXES TO WATCH MOVIES.
UDAY BHATIA. MUMBAI (INDIA)
More Responsive, Less Frustrating! 
2008-05-26
This Panasonic Blu-Ray player is way better than the Sony BDP-S300. I actually own two large screen high definition TVs and each one has a blu-ray disc player attached. One of the TVs is connected to a Sony BDP-S300 and the other to a Panasonic DMP-BD30K. The Sony was the first one I owned, and I eventually got used to the frustrations involved in using it. Now that I have the Panasonic, though, it has become very difficult for me to put up with the Sony any longer!
The big difference is speed and responsiveness. Let me give you some very specific examples. I timed the two machines, so you can see what I mean when I say that the Sony is frustratingly slow and the Panasonic is much more responsive.
If the Sony is powered completely off and you decide you want to load a disc in to it and use it, you have to wait an agonizing 45 seconds from the time you push the eject button until the time the machine has completely booted up and opened the disc tray for you. 45 seconds! That is a horribly long time to wait for the door to open after pushing the eject button! The Panasonic boots up and slides open the tray in less than half the time: just 20 seconds.
I did a test using "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets" on both machines... seeing how long it took from the time I inserted the disc in to the machine until there was actually a picture on the TV screen. The Panasonic was six seconds faster than the Sony. That's just to get the very first thing (movie studio logo) to come up on the screen. To actually get the movie to start playing, that's another huge wait on the Sony. On the "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets" disc, there is a series of movie previews on the disc and when you finally get through all of those, the disc player will actually load all the menus and take you to the screen where you can actually begin playing the movie. On the Sony, the time it takes to get from the last movie preview, get everything loaded, and actually put the main movie menu up on the screen... it's an unbelievable two minutes and seven seconds. The Panasonic does it in 34 seconds.
Forgetting load times, the Panasonic is just more responsive overall. For example, if you are navigating through disc menus, things actually happen immediately as you push the buttons. On the Sony, you push a button, wait, and after a short delay the machine does what you told it to do. Very frustrating! It's like using a very old, under-powered computer with too little RAM and a microprocessor that is incapable of keeping up with the demands placed on it.
I think ten years from now we will laugh at the slow load times of the Panasonic DMP-BD30K... but at this time in the history of Blu-Ray players, it's way better than the competition!
wonderful 2008-05-25
This is a great player, my only regret is that it's just for zone 1 dvd's. I have a little collection of regular dvd's and they look great on my hd tv.
Fantastic! 2008-05-17
I purchased the Panasonic DMP-BD30K recently after Blu-ray won the HD format war. Last summer when I purchased an HD TV I initially went with the HD format with a top of the line Toshiba HD-XA2 - an excellent player. So I have some basis for comparison.
I really found myself liking the Panasonic BD30K. Updating the firmware to the 1.8 version was relatively easy and problem-free. The picture form Blu-Ray discs is excellent. Sharp and colors especially are vivid. In comparison I would say my Toshiba XA-2 is better for upconverting DVDs than the Panasonic.
I bought my BD30K through Amazon sellers for $480 so as far as I am concerned my purchase was a value. If you wait on Amazon or shop around at different sites (Circuit City, Best Buy) you may be able to find the unit at or around this price.
Mike
Panasonic BD30 is the best player on the market BAR NONE! 2008-05-08
I paid $470 for mine (with shipping on eBay) and it was the best purchase I have made on a blu-ray player. I think the higher price reflects the quality of this player. This is, bar none, the best player on the market.
I had both the Samsung P1400 and the Sharp HP20 and the Samsung was a piece of junk. I had problems playing 1/2 of my BDs; skipping, picture going blank with audio continuing, power failures, etc. (and yes, I had the latest firmware updates installed). The Sharp HP20 I had minor issues with but the main flaw is it's limited audio ability.
This Panasonic bitstreams DolbyTrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio in 7.1 along with lossless PCM 7.1 and all the discs play flawlessly...
Yes, $500 kinda expensive, but you can't argue with the quality. The Samsung for $400 is an outright joke.
Now, if you want profile 2.0 capabilities, the Panasonic BD50 will be coming out soon. It is basically the same player but will have DTS HD MA and DolbyTrueHD decoders built into the machine (and will also bitstream them to a capable receiver) along with the Ethernet port for BDLive...
Either one you get, you cannot go wrong with the Panasonic!!!
Great Blu-Ray Player 2008-07-04
With HD-DVD gone with the wind, I purchased this player as a high definition (Blu-Ray) disc source to replace my 2nd generation Toshiba HD-DVD player. Although still not as fast as your standard DVD player, I found significant peformance improvment in starting up and reading discs compared to earlier generation high-definition players.
My player is connected via HDMI to a Sony VPL-VW50 (1080p) projector and is projected on a 100" screen. Blu-Ray picture quality is vivid with great sound effects. Setup was very easy and the player has operated flawlessly. Standard DVDs also play with very good picture quality. The player appears to have good DVD upconversion to 1080p.
I upgraded my firmware from version 1.6 to 1.8 using a CD-R by downloading the update from the Panasonic website. The CD-Rs which I created using Vista (tried various formattings) gave an error message and ejected the disc. An earlier post mentions the need to create ISO compliant disk. I used a freeware Express Burn (nch.com.au)to create the CD-R data disk which worked.
The player has good quality fit and finish. The remote is easy to read, though could use a backlight.
I noticed the player is now directly avaiable from Amazon (free shipping with Prime) at about 10% off what others are charging.
Finally a good stand-alone Blu-ray player 2008-06-23
I was relying on my PS3 most of the time but now that there are more Blu-ray players out on the market, I decided to buy a stand-alone unit. AFter much research I bought the Panasonic and it works really well. Picture quality is probably even better than my PS3 can give. I can't be happier. Too bad Blu-ray movies are still too expensive.
MOT LASCAM 2008-06-14
Great quality of both picture and sound. Product now costs more than I paid because I went with Blu-Ray early. Research paid off!!
Quality BD player 2008-06-09
This blu ray player does everything it's suppose to. Beautiful picture. I bought it to go with my Denon 3808, which handles all the up conversions and other things a more expensive player is designed to do. I don't need ethernet. All I want to do is watch great movies with a great picture: 1080p. The Panasonic BD 30 does it well.
Blu-Ray All the Way!! 2008-06-01
I am very pleased with this product!
The controller needs backlighting, and the menues are not easy to use. For example, I had to search and search for the tiny little open tray button, which is placed in the upper left corner of the remote.
It takes about 15 to 20 seconds to warm up, but then reading the drive and access is quick.
I may need to update the firmware which is easy to download from the Panasonic wed site.
Michael
