PRELIMINARY REPORT-PANASONIC BD-60 BLUERAY PLAYER

My brother got this unit for $78 at Walmart by showing an ad for a local store that was giving it at a black market price. He hooked it up to his Samsung 720P 5054 HDTV. At first we only had dvds to upconvert. The upconverted dvds were astonishing looking at least as good or better to my eyes as high-def sattelite televsion in ost cases. Color and sharpness were first rate. He later bought the BD disc, SWORDFISH. Not a good choice iMHO. He thought it was sharp; I thought it was colorless and a nothing on the player. We only had sound coming thru the HDMI cable in two channel mode on the surround encoded mode on top of srs in the tv, a no-no but tell that to my brother who thinks one would sopercede the other. He should read the manual which states otherwise. I hope to make a test of one of my transferred two channel dolby surround discs to test the two enhanced virtual modes of the player over the Samsung.

I would like to comment on built in virtual modes of players. I only tested one; a upconverting $35 dollar magnavox that had two virtual modes against the srs mode of the 5054 Samsung. The virtual #1 mode of the Magnavox was superb beating out the SRS mode of the tv set and giving a great virtual surround sound and stereo surround sound field from the television. The SRS mode was ambigious in placing the sound field correctly. So IMHO, the SRS os a FLOP. I do not know how good SRS-XT is but I will get a chance to test the same disc in a friends set who has that set up along with a basic magnavox player that also has a virtual surround mode-perhaps rwo modes like my own. The Magnavox players are made by Funai. I have had experience with Funai vcrs both hi-fi and mono. Their vcrs suprisingly at times delivered a good picture along with good linear and vhs hi-fi sound. The picture quality on both players are quite good in fact.

ADDED: 1/22/10-specs on Magnavox upconvered dvd player.

Magnavox DP170MW8 DVD Player
The Magnavox DP170MW8 DVD player gives you full HD video up-conversion (up to 1080p) with the HDMI connection. That means you’ll be able to enjoy brilliant, HD picture quality when you play your favorite movies. The Magnavox DP170MW8 DVD player features progressive scan video out, marker (10 points), 2x & 4x zoom, slow motion, virtual surround sound, Dolby Digital Stream out, S-Video output, and digital audio output (coaxial). Other great features of the Magnavox DP170MW8 DVD Player include a convenient LED indicator trilingual on-screen display (English, Spanish, and French), parental lock, and remote control.

What It Is and Why You Need It

* DVD Player with High Definition video up-conversion (up to 1080p)
* Progressive Scan Output
* S-Video Out