Panasonic To Release Two New Blu-Ray Players
Masayuki Kozuka, the general manager of Matsushita's storage device strategy reveals company plan to release two new High-End Blu-ray players In January. No further information on spec or pricing but Masayuki also announced bundle package with current line of Plasma TV and Blu-ray player coming to your local electronic retailers such as Circuit City and Best Buy. [updated: We just found out Best Buy is selling the bundle online with $500 off Panasonic plasma TV and DMP-BD30K Blu-Ray player, what a sweet deal!]
The most current line of Panasonic's Blu-Ray player is DMP-BD30 and by far the best standalone Blu-Ray player has to offer. It's 1.1 profile certified but only does HBR (High Bitrate Bitstreaming) for HD audio, that included the holy grail DTS-MA. There is no internal decoder capability for DD+, True HD or DTS-MA. To get the best out of BD30, one has to get an external processor or a receiver that's capable to decode HBR. My speculation of the coming 'High-End' players is nothing but featuring Internal decoding for Hd-audio and DTS-MA with 7.1analog outputs. What they can do better is adding SACD (via DSD) and DVD-A capability or perhaps no region code and profile 2.0. We'll see if that's the case in CES 2008.
Matsushita Manager: To Bundle Blu-Ray Players, PDP TVs In US [via Beurs]Best Buy deal