Andre Yoskowitz
6 May 2008 18:16
Panasonic has showed off its latest BD-Live capable Blu-ray player, the DMP-BD50, finally letting some specifications out of the bag. The player was first introduced at the CES event in January.
After demoing the latest player it is easy to see that the main distinction between the player and its predecessor the DMP-BD30 is the addition of BD-Live. BD-Live simply means the player can handle BD movies that have Internet-enabled content, such as "interactive multiplayer games, and trailers and extra features you can download from the Internet to local storage, either in the player or on an external memory card."
The latest model however, will cost $700 USD, a $200 premium over its older cousin. In addition to BD-Live, the BD-50 adds in-unit decoding for advanced lossless audio codecs like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. The primary advantage to this is that you can choose and control the secondary audio mixing within the player. Another new feature is support for 24p playback of upconverted standard-definition DVDs.
Of course there is a catch however. The BD50 "lacks the minimum 1GB of onboard memory required for BD-Live" and instead you will have to purchase an SD card to use the player's SD card slot.
The lack of sufficient on-board storage is very surprising considering the player's price tag and the fact that Sony's upcoming BD-Live player, the BDP-S550 will retail for $500 USD and have 1GB on-board storage.