Panasonic launches $600 DMP-BD10A Blu-ray player, bundles five films

Not too long after Pioneer went and introduced its second generation Blu-ray player, along comes Panasonic to follow suit, but unlike the BDP-LX70, we've got a pricetag as well as a few tempting reasons to pick this one up over the competition. The DMP-BD10A packs an audio upgrade that brings 7.1, Dolby True HD, and DTS-HD on board, and it incorporates Panasonic's EZ-Sync system for "one-touch operation" of your home theater. The overall design doesn't deviate too far from that seen in the first iteration, but you will find 1080p upconversion via HDMI, a 14-bit DA converter with 4x oversampling, support for BD-J, and compatibility between select HD camcorders via the AVCHD (H.264) codec. Notably, Panasonic is giving users two reasons to seriously considering its new offering, as the fairly reasonable $599.95 pricetag looks even better when you consider the five BD films (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Transporter, Fantastic Four, and Crash) you'll be getting right in the box.

[Via Impress]

[Tim @ May 15th 2007 9:56AM]

I guess this means that the blu ray camp is getting desperate because they are bundling movies with their players which has never been done by the HD DVD camp.

[sracer @ May 15th 2007 10:05AM]

Not desperate... just a good move. Back in the early days of DVD when you bought a DVD player you received 5 DVD movies. Lost In Space, Stargate, Lethal Weapon 4, StepMom, 6 Days 7 Nights.

[Mak @ May 15th 2007 1:05PM]

LOL, Toshiba have been giving 5 free HD-DVD movies for ages, in their fire sale...

[Gene K @ May 17th 2007 7:18PM]

Toshiba is giving away 5 HD DVD titles by mail with the purchase of their current HD DVD Player and have been doing so for time now.

[Larry @ May 17th 2007 12:56AM]

UMM....Dude, Toshiba's been giving away 5 free HD-DVD's since like Feb this year with the purchase of their player. If you go check out Best Buy this week if you buy the 1080p version of their HD-DVD player you can get 5 HD-DVD's instantly. So pay attention.

[GUMHEAD @ May 29th 2007 8:11PM]

NO THEY NEVER GAVE HD DVD's AWAY LOL!
http://amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_4871172_3/102-4342520-3479365?ie=UTF8&docId=1000089051&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=special-offers-1&pf_rd_r=0JFZBEHN8AQSFGM3AKPD&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=290208001&pf_rd_i=B000IJV4BC

[AG @ May 15th 2007 10:02AM]

Sony was happy to report today that they have claimed victory in the format war. Recent sales of Blu-Ray players have shown an attachment rate of up to five titles....etc.

[Top Engadget Poster @ May 15th 2007 10:03AM]

Tempting... Though I think I'm going to hold out for a combination HD-DVD/BD player for a reasonable price.

[hemmy @ May 15th 2007 10:27AM]

I guess it's kind of interesting they would adopt the HDDVD strategy of bundling films, since the Blu-ray is soundly spanking its competitor, it doesn't need to resort to the tactic.

Oh, and bundled/free films aren't counted by Nielsen and friends in sales reports.

[Jiffylush @ May 15th 2007 11:14AM]

Maybe the 5 free movies are to make it more attractive than the PS3, the real competition for BD standalone players.

[dan abarca @ May 15th 2007 10:35AM]

I have both hd-dvd and using my ps3 as blu-ray player and I believe that until all Movie Studios jump on only one wagon We'll see then a true winner. Visually they both are great truly the same. Plus even though blu-ray is always bragging about capacity a good example is the new released Planet Earth it is available on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD and in both formats it still uses the same exact amount of disks :) so think about that one If blu-ray was superior then shouldn't we atleast see like a 4 disk series vs a 6-disk on HD-DVD???? So video quality and Audio quality are exactly the same, it just depends on the movie you are watching. The only good thing is that both Formats continue to drop in price and Hopefully by christmas of 2008 we'll see a HUGE DROP in price like $99.99-$199.99 Because Broadcasting will ALL be in HIGH DEF making consumers jump on the HIGH DEF band wagon :) So please HD-DVD and BLU-RAY just shake hands and Lets all get along :)

[Wayne @ May 15th 2007 1:27PM]

TV will be entirely DIGITAL in 2009, not entirely in HD.

[Wayne @ May 15th 2007 1:33PM]

TV will be entirely DIGITAL in 2009, not entirely in HD.

[J. Evans Turner @ May 15th 2007 4:42PM]

Planet Earth uses BD-25 discs instead of BD-50. Presumably, this is to save manufacturing costs. Many double-sided DVDs and cheap box sets on DVD used multiple single-layer discs rather than going with the more-expensive double-layer manufacturing process. I consider this a knock against an otherwise excellent Blu-Ray format purchase. I've purchased DVD volumes from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programs and found that the box sets include multiple single-layer discs instead of a single dual-layer disc. Often, this increases the perceived value of the box set. To the uninitiated, it may seem like there are more discs and, presumptuously, more content.

[Galley @ May 16th 2007 9:23AM]

Yeah, rather than encoding Planet Earth twice, once for HD DVD's 30GB capacity, and again for BD's 50GB capacity, we got stuck with a single 25GB encoding that would fit on both, even if it only used one layer on a BD. BD fans got the shaft.

[AG @ May 15th 2007 10:37AM]

hemmy@sony

kool-aid?

[hemmy @ May 15th 2007 11:16AM]

AG@trolling

Facts are facts. Truth hurts, much?

[Mojo_Yugen @ May 15th 2007 10:43AM]

How much more is it if I DON'T want "Fantastic Four" bundled with it?

[Jon @ May 15th 2007 11:01AM]

Not trying to start a flame war, but in my local HMV (pretty small, but it is a 2 1/2 floor store) in London, they dedicated a small corner for Bluray titles (roughly 20-30 choices), but none for HD-DVD. Even the last Borders store I visited sells Bluray films but no HD-DVD. Similar situation in GAME.

I don't know about how it is in the US, but right here, it seems in the short term and unscientific observation, Bluray is 'winning'.

[Asterra @ May 15th 2007 11:13AM]

Does it do 24Hz? For $600, it had pretty much better.

Not that I'm going to go hog wild snapping up MPEG2-encoded movies anytime soon.

[Mak @ May 15th 2007 1:08PM]

Blu-Ray is seriously hammering HD-DVD in Europe (despite Toshiba claiming otherwise). Check out these photos I took in my regional store (Bouremouth, UK), In my local stores, Game and Blockbuster have Blu-Ray, absolutly no HD-DVD at all.

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/905/2ivcgttte5.th.jpg

http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/2738/2vv115txu9.th.jpg

HD-DVD is dead in the states, and is dying in Europe...

[sshah87 @ May 15th 2007 11:14AM]

The reason BD and HDDVD releases take the same amount of discs is that, for some reason, BD releases have been on single layer 25GB discs, while 25GB HDDVD releases need to be put out on dual layer 30GB discs. As far as storage capacity goes, Bluray really is the superior format, with the ability to hold 50GB on a dual layer disc, to HDDVD's 30. However, I have heard that audio quality is a bit better on HDDVD, and that bluray discs have much better scratch resistance. I've only personally experienced bluray, but for now I think I'll hold out on either format until there's a clear resolution to this mess.

[J. Evans Turner @ May 15th 2007 4:44PM]

Blu-Ray supports uncompressed audio AND loss-less audio compression. The quality is perfect.

[Jiffylush @ May 15th 2007 11:17AM]

Wow, what an amazingly uninformed consumer you are, please let us know more of your amazing fracts.

[jerrt @ May 15th 2007 11:48AM]

well at least there is 5 movies that aren't terrible. and i remember when hd dvd did this, but they only had 3 movies i think.

[JeffnLA @ May 15th 2007 11:50AM]

I have the HD-DVD w xbox 360 - what a waste. Yes I have a 70" 1080P TV.

HD-DVD and Blu-ray both will fail or at best stay in a small niche market - the future is NOT on a disk.

itunes sales numbers BLOWS away HD-DVD & Blu-ray sales with downloaded video content.

Are you going to go back to CD's for music or stay with a digital file format "IE mp3"

I have a 15/2 meg Internet connection at home. I can (ahem theoretically) download a 4.7 GIG DVD is real time. This is only the beginning too.

Again - the future is NOT on a disk.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ May 15th 2007 12:13PM]

+10

Moving a lot, I have thrown away countless disks: thanks to CD/DVD ripping I have saved *considerable* time and effort keeping with me my audio/video library.

Disks - as they are now 5.25" - are really antiques. I hoped BD having higher capacity, would introduce e.g. 2" disk or something like that, but no, they are all busy competing on absolute value of "capacity". Sorry guys, but 1" BD/HDDVD @ 5/9GB + DVD quality MPEG2 movie is really what I might consider buying. With 5" disks, home shelf become filled pretty quick - with 99% of it being air, paper and redundant disk surface.

Though, again, DRMed files aren't much better than disks. I will wait for DRM-free music/movies - before I would start buy again.

[zargon @ May 15th 2007 1:42PM]

But I want the physical media. I don't want to have to stream it every time I want to watch it or spring for the storage space.

That is my only problem with not getting the physical media. I need something tanglable to hold and not have to worry about losing media if a harddrive fails. Well that and all the DRM mess and DRM laden crap out there.

[zargon @ May 15th 2007 1:46PM]

But I want the physical media. I don't want to have to stream it every time I want to watch it or spring for the storage space.

That is my only problem with not getting the physical media. I need something tanglable to hold and not have to worry about losing media if a harddrive fails. Well that and all the DRM mess and DRM laden crap out there.

[Chuckles McGee @ May 15th 2007 5:18PM]

While we might eventually ditch the disc, it's a looong ways away for full adoption. Sure you might be able to download a disc in realtime on a nice connection when the wind blows the right way, but there's going to need to be a massive increase in server bandwidth to accomodate the entire movie-buying demands of the American populous plus the fact that the vast majority of Americans are without a semi-speedy (>1.5 Mbps) internet connection rules it out at this time. Even with that real-time-DVD-speed, it would take substantially longer to download a full 1080p quality disc over the net- possible, but still very time-consuming. Maybe Bluray/HD-DVD will mark the final disc based medium and everyone's super 100 Mbps ultra-FIOS connection will usher in an era of entirely non-physical medium movies in 2020, but I don't see such HD-on-demand destroying the rise of Blu-ray.

[WickyWoo @ May 15th 2007 12:53PM]

[quote]I guess this means that the blu ray camp is getting desperate because they are bundling movies with their players which has never been done by the HD DVD camp.[/quote]

Umm, the heck it hasn't. They've been giving away 5 free movies for months now, and if you combined it with the Circuit City giveaway, you could score up to 8 free ones

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/pdf/rebates/12960.pdf

I don't think at a close to 3-1 weekly sales margin(70/30 as of last week), they're sweating anything.

[James @ May 15th 2007 1:24PM]

Nice thumbnails.

[Mak @ May 15th 2007 1:59PM]

Sorry about the thumbnails, here are the big ones, for all your viewing pleasure, to see how HD-DVD is getting squashed out by the big retailers...

As we all know, if you can't buy the media, the hardware will flop...

http://img398.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2vv115txu9.jpg

http://img385.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2ivcgttte5.jpg

[Tim @ May 15th 2007 1:38PM]

It must be impossible to tell that a comment was sarcastic without it having its own mock html tag.

No, really. I thought I had made the sarcasm in my original comment thick enough that no one would have been able to miss it.

[JeffnLA @ May 15th 2007 3:10PM]

Zargon - you have a MUCH greater chance of damaging your disk media or simply losing it(or misplacing it) then a drive failure. Also there is a thing called "backup".

I'd like to see your CD collection.

[zargon @ May 15th 2007 3:33PM]

I have over 500 DVDs and about the same for CDs, all of my DVDs work flawlessly and have only have minor issues with CDs (cars are a brutal enviroments for CDs). I have no worries about ruining my DVDs or CDs, it just is not an issue. Besides, I will take the risk of losing or damaging one or two DVDs or CDs because $10-$30 is much easier to stomach than losing all of my movies or music due to a drive failure or other drive related accident.

On top of that, if we are talking about storing these files. The sheer amount of space and the amount of drives that would be needed to create that space to store all of my DVDs and CDs on a harddrive is obscene. Nothing the average person would be able to do, even with minor compression (because I refuse to take a hit in quality). More drives you have running, the more potential for a drive to go out.

Your idea for backup is all great and I would also suggestion redundancy (like RAID 5), but again, for the average person isn't always a reasonable solution. The cost to properly backup is huge and to run redundancy would be even more to do it properly with hardware RAID controllers. Nevermind that HD content is only larger than standard DVD. Which would only up the space required.

For my DVDs alone, figuring 5 GB per movie, I would need over 2.5 TB of space. My solution to back that up is either, throw together another 2.5+ TB setup to mirror the first one, or to buy a tape backup system with the drives costing a couple thousand and the tapes costings $100+ depending on how big you do. Never mind that fact that you would have to do the backup yourself with swapping of the tapes. This isn't including my music, which I will admit will take up a faction of the space or more importantly, my ever expanding collection of movies. With RAID 5 or 6 setup and another identical for backup, I can't just pop drives in as I want. I would have to build a new setup each time. I just don't see the average person able to do this, let alone able to justify the cost...

I will take my physical media and shelfing systems, that while they take up some space, is a much better and solid solution (and cheaper) for all my media. Downloadable content is simply not a valid solution as a replacement for physical media and doubt it will be for some time. Streaming could work, but like I said, I don't want to have to stream every time I want to watch or listen to anything, never mind the fact that you need a internet connection. What about when I am on a plane with no internet access at all?

Nice try though...

[WickyWoo @ May 15th 2007 2:19PM]

HD-DVD is far from dead in the states, it's been doomed from inception, but it's far from dead, and in Europe, they gave away a ton of authoring stations and other discounts to the small studios to get them to jump on the bandwagon (a film is often owned by as many as 5 companies in Europe), and it's going to take them awhile to get off that bandwagon

The only place where HD was dead from the get-go was Japan, where BR controls something like 97% of the market.

This Christmas will seel HD-DVD's coffin for sure.

[Jon @ May 15th 2007 4:41PM]

The thing is in the UK, or at least in the part of London I live in, no stores carry HD-DVD titles. They do sell the hardware, but there are zero contents, effectively making that shiny HD-DVD hardware an expensive DVD player.

On the other hand most stores has a small corner with Bluray titles. Any victory is too early to call, but HD-DVD isn't making a good early impression here.

[WickyWoo @ May 15th 2007 4:44PM]

It's the rest of Europe where HD-DVD is making more of a penetration, not the UK.

It's still doomed, it'll just take longer

[J. Evans Turner @ May 15th 2007 5:34PM]

I know exactly what you mean. My brother and I built a 6-drive RAID-5 media server setup with full DVD-9 image backups. One day, the RAID acted up. The RAID card indicated that it was rebuilding the array (using RAID-5 redundancy) and.... NO #$%@ing FILE SYSTEM! GYAH!!! We've been so furious about it that we never bothered to run recovery software. So much for RAID-5 redundancy... #@$%!@#%#^%@$

[chilicoke @ May 15th 2007 3:43PM]

JeffnLA:

MP3 and CDs are NOT the same. Compressed formats such as MP3, MP4, WMA etc. are using lossy compression, you lose quality that you can not get back. There are lots of music lovers (such as myself) who would prefer popping in the original CD instead of listing to 192kbps compressed audio.

Same with Blu-ray/HD-DVD, unless your harddrive is big enough, or your internet is fast enough to stream UNCOMPRESSED video/audio, the quality will never be the same.

On top of that, lets say if you are streaming your HD movie, and your internet suddenly slows down for whatever reason, or if your son wants to play game with his friends online, your movie is not going to be very enjoyable.

I'll stick to media on physical disc.

[WickyWoo @ May 15th 2007 4:46PM]

Actually they shipped on BD-25s because A- They're easier and cheaper to replicate, and B- VC-1 encodes for HD-DVD usually come in at the 20GB range, too big for a single HD-DVD. Since to save thousands and thousands of dollars, they use the same compression on both formats, there's no need for a BD-50

[scum1 @ May 15th 2007 7:06PM]

I like to have my media on hand as disc for safe keeping and also a digital copy as well. I ripped my entire 800+ cd collection and put it storage out of site in my house. I still buy cds and add them to my digital collection and then store them away. I have several copies on external disc drives as well for safe keeping. I think that would be hard to do with hd type movies however and also until prices and drm change I won't be buying and music or movie downloads. That said I'm starting to lean towards BR winning the war of the next movie format. I'll hold out though until hd dvd and BR movies stop costing 30 bucks a pop.

[Mike @ May 15th 2007 9:44PM]

Hmmm, PS3 for $600 that comes with blu ray play and can play games, or $600 blu ray player that cannot play games but comes with 5 movies.

They are going to have to get lower than $600 for this to work, especially considering Sony is only charging $400 to upgrade their FZ series notebooks to include a blu ray player.