Great Player for the money

Author's Rating:

Pros: Superb picture quality and features for the price

Cons: Slow loading times, no netflix instant watch support

The Bottom Line: 
A great alternative to the evil empire (aka Sony), but like all players it is slow to load and very dependant on the quality of the movie disc.

Author's Review
Being an HD-DVD enthusiast for a long time it was a bitter pill for me to swallow that the format had gone away and that the crooks at Sony had won the battle.  I was content to pick up tons of HD-DVD titles for the price of a DVD rental while I waited for prices to come down on blu-ray players.  Enter November 2009.  Amazon started out by having a sale on a bunch of older blu-ray titles for $8 each and I started to take notice as there were several titles that I really wanted in high definition.  I put them in my cart but of course I didn't have a blu-ray player, so I figured it was high time I got one. 

As you can guess from my comments above I was less than thrilled when I began looking at blu-ray players because all of the positive reviews were centered around Sony models.  I was determined not to give Sony any more money than I absolutely had to.  I was plesantly surprised to find that the Panasonic BD-60 and BD-80 had recieved very good reviews and some even found them a tad better for picture and sound quality than the Sony models.  So when Amazon put the BD-60 on sale around Thanksgiving for $125 shipped with a free copy of the movie "Up" and a $30 VOD credit I took the plunge.

Amazon was fast in shipping both the player and the movies that I ordered to me.  I got out the player and borrowed the AV Cables from my HD-DVD player (as the player doesn't come with any high def cables) to hook it up and see how it looked.  "Up" was definitely impressive on Blu-Ray with lots of color and detail, but I still was looking for a title that really lept off the screen.  Anyways, I should note that the TV that I am using the BD-60 on is a Westinghouse 37" 37W3 set (see my review) with 1080p.  It varies by set but I discovered that on my particular set that the picture quality was actually better via component than HDMI (HDMI had a kind of white-washed look to it), which worked out good as I have 3 players and only 1 HDMI port.  So I have my regular upconverting Oppo 981HD DVD player hooked up via HDMI and my Toshiba A3 HD-DVD Player and Panasonic BD-60 Blu-Ray player hooked up via component. 

Now to the player itself:

The Panasonic BD-60 is full spec 2.0 compliant.  For those who aren't aware there are/were 3 different specs V1.0 (esentially this will allow you to just play the movie and navigate the disc, but this spec has been discontinued), V1.1 (has the bonus view pop-up with commentary, etc. on enabled discs), V2.0 (has access all the features of the previous 2 specs and adds web enabled content and features).  Most players now are V2.0, other than the really cheap entry line blu-ray players, which are V1.1.  The funny thing is that my reasons for getting a V2.0 player are NOT for the web based features.  My reasons are that the V2.0 players are the only ones that can have their firmware (programming code) updated via ethernet hook-up (as they are the only players with ethernet jacks).  As I discovered with my HD-DVD this feature is invaluable as I had no luck whatsoever trying to update my player via disc, but it worked everytime when I hooked it up to the i-net.  This is important as blu-ray is a constantly changing and developing format and as such you are going to want to puchase a machine that can be updated to handle the latest and greatest movies/features.  So it makes sense to make sure you have all sorts of options for keeping your player up to date rather than just hoping you can update your player via a firmware disc. 

Other features include:

Amazon VOD-You can jack in and hook up this player to Amazon's video on demand service to stream it through to your TV.  Not really worth it in my opinion or practical as essentially it is a Pay Per View streaming service and if you have an LCD TV near to your computer you can just hook that up directly to your PC and avoid the hassle of hooking it up via your blu-ray player.

YouTube/Vierra Cast-It is compatible with the well known You Tube site for personal videos and can stream from the site.  Once again not really practical though.

SD/USB for picture and video viewing (although for video you are pretty much limited to the HD WMV and Divx media format and it only works via USB device).

It has 24p Cinema mode for the best possible picture quality and 7.1 channel lossless audio for excellent sound quality.

It will play recordables from the following media formats: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+/-R/+/-RW, DL DVD+R/-R, DVD-RAM, BD-R/RW, DL BD-R/-RW.  So no shortage of recordable options for you with this player.

It has HDMI, Component, RCA and an Optical Audio output

My experience with the player is limited to regular playback as I don't need any of the fancy online features (as it is just easier to hook up my TV to the PC).  The first thing that I noted is that as with most high definition players load times are pretty long (30-45 seconds) before you can even access player control functions and it can take longer for some of the newer discs to load as they do small updates to the player to keep playback smooth and there seems to be no standardization among the movie studios as to how the disc operates (some you can just skip over the previews, others force you to watch them, some allow you to stop the movie and pick up where you left off and others require you to start the whole disc over).  The standardization issue is not the fault of the player, but the movie studios, I just put that in there so people won't be surprised when they find that it's not quite the same as navigating a DVD.  The player is very simple to set the time and date and to hook up provided you know how to hook AV equipment up to your TV and if it is HDMI you can train your grandmother how to do it in about 2 minutes. 

The picture and sound quality is superb (crisp) but as always it depends on the disc itself.  Not all movies are worth the purchase in high-def, so I strongly suggest you check out sites such as www.highdefdigest.com and take a look at the picture and sound quality reviews before puchasing or use sites such as netflix to rent the movie for cheap so you can see if it is worth buying. 

Among the best I have seen thus far in terms of picture quality are:

Speed Racer (Absolutely stunning picture quality in high-def although the sound could use some work)
BBC Planet Earth/Life Documentary series
BBC Galapagos
Transformers (the first one released in 2007)
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Up
Cars
Ratatouille
Wall-E
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
The Fast and the Furious Series
2001: A Space Odyssey
Battle of the Bulge
Casablanca
TMNT
The Ant Bully
Happy Feet
Most of the Classic James Bond Films (with the exception of Thunderball)

Once again movie tastes are subjective so I simply rate in terms of best picture quality (the vast majority of the ones listed also have excellent sound quality as well). 

All in all the player is good but as with any developing format it does have it's disadvantages (slow loading times) and some have been upset that there is no streaming support for netflix instant watch (plenty of other cost effective ways to stream netflix though in my opinion), and as always the player is only as good as the TV you watch it on and the video and sound quality of the movies you put in it so that actually matters more than the player itself.  It is a great player though for those trying to purchase a machine that won't be put out of date each time a new movie title is released in the format.