Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-ray Player Gets BD-Live, $700 Price Tag

Panasonic's DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player, first announced at CES 2008, is finally nearing its release date and a few lucky people had the chance to see it demoed yesterday. Extremely similar to its predecessor, the DMP-BD30, the new Blu-ray player from Panny has one major difference. It has BD-Live. Yes that's right, we've been waiting for a while now, but finally we'll have a Blu-ray player that can handle BD-Live discs. BD-Live if you remember, allows all kinds of interactive features including multiplayer games on the internet, and trailers and other extra features that can be downloaded and stored on your computer.

The Panasonic DMP-BD50 also allows decoding of Dolby HD and DTS-HD Master Audio, something the DMP-BD30 can't do. This means you'll have greater control over audio playback, so when you do things like use the picture-in-picture feature, you can choose which picture will have the emphasized sound. Other added features include 24p playback and standard DVD upconversion. Interestingly, the DMP-BD50 doesn't have the 1GB of internal storage required for BD-Live. Instead you'll be forced to use your own SD card to make up for its lack of memory, though Panasonic doesn't seem sure exactly what SD card types will be the best to use.

So how much will you pay for the new and improved Panasonic BD-Live Blu-ray player? Try $700. In my humble opinion, I still think the best Blu-ray deal around, BD-Live or no BD-Live is the Playstation 3. But in case you want to pay the $700, the shipping date remains "late spring".

Via PC World

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