By Ian Morris, CNET.co.uk
31/03/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/home_av/others/0,39037618,44643143p,00.htm

The Panasonic DMP-BD60 is a capable and likeable Blu-ray player. We love the simple styling even if it is unexciting, and we think this is likely to be a really popular machine. A USB port and SD card reader add to the features, but this kit is first and foremost about getting Blu-ray movies onto your TV with minimum fuss and maximum quality. Overall, it's a great performer.

Design

Like all Panasonic hardware, the DMP-BD60 is a stylish-looking machine. It doesn't appear particularly exciting, but it certainly won't upset the style dynamics of your lounge.

At the back, you get access to an HDMI socket, Ethernet port, component-video output and optical digital connection. Sadly, there's no 7.1 analog audio output. Panasonic leaves this feature off its base models, probably to upsell you to the more advanced model, the DMP-BD80.

The remote control isn't much changed from previous iterations. It's a perfectly usable design and is more than pleasant to use. The buttons are big enough even for our chubby fingers to use. We do get confused sometimes between all the different menu buttons, though.

Features

The most distinctive new feature is the Viera Cast. The idea behind this is that you can connect to the Internet and enjoy content from a number of Panasonic partners. At the moment, the service offers access to Picasa Web photo album and YouTube videos.

Of course, this being a modern player, you get access to Profile 2.0-specific content, too. We've yet to see much that grabs our attention, but if you want access to it, the DMP-BD60 can provide it. That said, you will need to install an additional USB thumbdrive to supplement the Panasonic's onboard memory capacity.

You also get an SD card slot for viewing photos and videos. The latter will appeal to camcorder owners who shoot in either standard-definition MPEG-2 or high-definition AVCHD format for display on TVs. We can't see it being a feature you use everyday, but, it's a handy function to have nevertheless.

DivX support is also included. We'd like to see access to MKV format video in the future, but players that support this modern format seem thin on the ground. Still, the DivX support is good, and there is plenty of material out there to take advantage of.

Performance

Blu-ray movies like The Dark Knight looked very good indeed. Details were exceptional and, at times, jaw-dropping. Sound, too, via our Onkyo decoder, was a real treat, although the DMP-BD60 didn't really have much to do with that. We'd like to see analog 7.1 outputs on these machines, but that seems to be something of a pipe dream.

The DMP-BD60's DVD upscaling also impressed us. Despite the usual MPEG noise commonly found on DVDs, Jurassic Park looked bright and detailed. Of course, the picture quality doesn't bear comparison to Blu-ray, but if you're a DVD fan, you'd appreciate the enhanced quality.

The DMP-BD60 won't win any speed awards, sadly. It took the player 1 minute and 17 seconds to load and play our test movie, Vantage Point. This is a great shame. Seeing the Samsung BD-P4600 complete the test in 43.5 seconds has proven that fast load times are possible with the right hardware. We'd like to see Panasonic step up to the challenge and speed up its players.

Once it's loaded a disc, the player does a good job of handling interactivity on Blu-ray. We didn't suffer any crashes or other compatibility problems. Navigating through the menus was quick, especially when compared to our clunky old Sony BDP-S500.

The Internet functionality is the usual fare. If you have a decent Internet connection of 2Mbps or more, you'll be able to use the YouTube streaming feature. Picasa is slightly less bandwidth-hungry. Both seemed responsive enough to us. We were slightly annoyed with having to enter searches on the remote control, though. It's a tedious way of inputting letters, but it does work and we can see it improving a great deal as time goes by.

Conclusion

Like every Panasonic Blu-ray player we've tested, the DMP-BD60's a corker. You'll get a well-specified player with access to some additional material via the Internet connectivity. While we don't think the online functionality is much cop yet, we have faith that Panasonic is going to do some brilliant things in the future.

The DMP-BD60 isn't the fastest player on the market. In fact, it was pretty sluggish when loading our test disc. If speed is what you need, get the responsive LG BD370. If a sturdy build, excellent features and awesome picture and sound quality are what you want, this Panasonic is a better bet.