Panasonic's latest top of the line Blu-ray player, the DMP-BD80 offers some really nifty online streaming features (YouTube, Picasa and soon, Amazon-on-demand movies), but its performance sets it apart from the competition with excellent DVD upconversion and Blu-ray playback. Its only problem? The $400 price tag.
Well Panasonic-authorized dealer OneCall is celebrating Father's Day a little early, offering the BD80 for a full $100 off: $299.89, with free shipping and no sales tax charged to most states. Here's the link:
Note that you must put the unit in your cart in order to see the discounted price. Offer is limited to stock on hand and may be cancelled without notice.
UPDATE! 6-12-09: It looks like this is an across the board price cut on the player (instant rebate or lowered MSRP) as Amazon has the player even cheaper ($276.85 delivered). Again, put the player in your cart to see current price. Here's the link:
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| Panasonic's DMP-BD80 (or "BD80" for short). |
The BD80 offers on-board decoding of all the latest surround formats (DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD, etc.) to multi-channel PCM over HDMI or to multi-channel analog outputs (5.1 or 7.1) for use with older non-HDMI receivers. It offers an advanced Uniphier chip set which not only upconverts standard DVDs to 1080p resolution, but also improves the picture quality on Blu-ray Discs by compensating for the color compression used when encoding films onto Blu-ray.
For more details on the player, see our editor Chris Boylan's comprehensive review:
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| The BD80 features a USB jack to read MP3 music files, JPEG photos and AVI videos (including Divx-encoded videos). |
DMP-BD80K Key Features:
- BD-Live: enjoy additional content via Internet (requires optional SD card and wired network connection)
- PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus
- High Precision 4:4:4 color processing
- P4HD: Advanced Picture Processing for 1080p (including 1080p/24 output for Blu-ray and standard DVD)
- 3D NR noise reduction
- 7.1-channel Lossless Decode & 7.1-channel HDMI/Analog Output
- On-board decoding or bitstreaming of Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio
- High Clarity Audio feature disables analog video processing for improved sound
- 96KHz Surround Re-Master
- VIERA Cast™: instant access to online content such as YouTube, Picasa, Weather Channel and Bloomberg Stock quotes
- DivX and Xvid playback via CD, DVD and USB port
- AVCHD Video playback via DVD and SD card
- MPEG2 playback via SD card
- MP3 music playback (USB, CD, DVD)
- JPEG photo display (SD card, USB, CD, DVD and BD-RE)
- VIERA Link™: control all of your HDMI-connected AV devices with one remote
- MSRP: $399.95
- Availability: April, 2009
