Sharp wasn’t the only company showcasing a new duo of Blu-ray players at CEDIA, as Panasonic decided to whip up a couple as well just for kicks. The DMP-BD35 and DMP-BD55 were made official during IFA, but not until now has Panny shown them off to the wide-eyed public. As with the aforementioned Sharp duo, this pair is also hard to distinguish from one another at first glance. Unfortunately, neither are really worth sweating, but you can have a look over at Engadget HD if you just refuse to believe that.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

A spec sheet is well and good (and trust us, these spec sheets are that), but when we’re talking Blu-ray players it’s really becoming a question of price: when will they drop? Well, if these Europe prices for the DMB-BD35 and DMB-BD55 from Panasonic are any indication, Panasonic’s answer is “not yet.” The BD35 is being priced at 399 Euro, while the BD55 will go for 499 Euro. Our guess is the conversion rates ($588 and $735, respectively) won’t apply here when these get shipped over to the States, but even at $399 and $499 these well-specced players aren’t doing themselves any favors in a Blu-ray market dominated by the PS3. There’s really nothing to say about actual “hands-on” impressions of these two, though we would like to say that we scoured Panny’s booth for the DMR-BR360V Blu-ray / VHS combo and were sad to come away empty handed, our tattered copy of “Titanic” unwatched.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Say hello to the successors of the short-lived Panasonic DMP-BD50, the new DMP-BD35 (above) and DMP-BD55 (after the break) check off every feature we can think of for a new Blu-ray player, complete with a slim profile (49mm high on the BD35) and hopefully low, low price thanks to a 45nm 3rd-generation UniPhier processor. Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD MA audio support, with internal decoding or bitstreamed output in full 7.1 (plus 7.1 analog audio outs on the DMP-BD55) on top of fully BD-Live / Profile 2.0 compatible hardware finally promise no-compromise hardware for Blu-ray buyers. Release dates and pricing information? Your guess is as good as ours, for now.

Continue reading Panasonic DMP-BD35 & DMP-BD55 Blu-ray players officially official, still unpriced

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