Panasonic DMP-BD30

[G_M_C]

I start this thread about the the Panasonic DMP-BD30, cause i find it the best player I have ever had. I have the EU-version, and since updating to Firmware v1.7 (the latest) it simply play anythings I throw at it (with the older fw 1.3 it was far more "fussy").

The only thing you seem to have to keep in mind is that you stick to official "HD resolutions" and "official framerates" , so 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080, and 23.976, 24, 25 29.97/59.94 fps only; But these "restricions" are no problem imho.

I've tried the following things allready, all "muxed" with tsMuxer(gui) in blu-ray mode;

AVC 1280 x 720 interlaced or progressive, with AC3 or DTS (up till 1536 kbps), and at all framerates from 23.976 till 29.97. Same goes for 1920 x 1080, all framerates, interlaced or progressive, with DTS or AC3; It all works, even with b-pyramids etc, as long as you keep to standard resolutions and keep to level 4.1 encoding.

Yesterday i simply took a Mpeg2 encoded Bluray m2ts ("living landscapes", MPEG2 high profile, 1080i / 29.97 fps) and simply "transmuxed" it thru tsMuxer and burned the result on DVD. It worked, mind you it didnt work as intended because the DVD-medium isn't able to diliver the needed transferrate (~ 35 mbps) ... but the test showed it works.

I am shure it will also work with VC-1 and/or EAC3 or DTS-HS (MA); I have no samples to test it with, but i am confident it will work (provided tsMuxer supports those formats).

When BD-R(E) become cheaper, you can burn to those; And then you will be able to transmux anything, and not have the problems with the transferrates. But for now, the BD30 is probably versatile enough to get a small collection of your favorite caps onto a DVD, sometimes without transcoding/encoding.

Beside beeing so versatile with the tested formats HD-formats, it plays " DivX / Xvid and MP3 "out of the box". These features are kinde obsolete compared to the other possibillities; But all in all it is probably the most versatile stand-allone player (that is not a console and has no Sony-brand on it ;) ) i have ever seen and i can recommend it to everybody.

/me == happy :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Beside beeing so versatile with the tested formats HD-formats, it plays " DivX / Xvid and MP3 "out of the box". That's good to hear.... Which containers have you tried?

[G_M_C]

That's good to hear.... Which containers have you tried?

i've tried all avc / highdef formats in m2ts, muxed to a blu-ray structure (also talked of as AVCHD-format).

Xvid i've tried in AVI, with ac3 audio; No problem. Max reso is PAL SD as far as i understand (but remains to be tested; Is there some 720p xvid example for me to try somewhere ?).

MP3's just plays, including ID3 tags. Player supports standard map-structures. MP3 only on CD's though ...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Does the player recognise the .MP4 container or .TS container?

[G_M_C]

Does the player recognise the .MP4 container or .TS container?

Nope dont think so, so not many different containers; But all kinds of sources in the few containers it does have.

[LOGiC]

AVC 1280 x 720 interlaced or progressive, with AC3 or DTS (up till 1536 kbps), and at all framerates from 23.976 till 29.97. Same goes for 1920 x 1080, all framerates, interlaced or progressive, with DTS or AC3; It all works, even with b-pyramids etc, as long as you keep to standard resolutions and keep to level 4.1 encoding.

Yesterday i simply took a Mpeg2 encoded Bluray m2ts ("living landscapes", MPEG2 high profile, 1080i / 29.97 fps) and simply "transmuxed" it thru tsMuxer and burned the result on DVD. It worked, mind you it didnt work as intended because the DVD-medium isn't able to diliver the needed transferrate (~ 35 mbps) ... but the test showed it works.



Thank you for sharing your results. I have done similar testing a couple of weeks ago and did notice, that putting an AVC MPEG4 from one of my blu-ray discs to AVCHD doesnt give success. While the bitrate was very high, it started to stutter in the panasonic BD30, so I think it is somehow restricted with the bitrate from DVD.

Did you do any testings with different ref.frames and b-frames ? I did a CRF-encode short time ago,it had b-pyramid as well and b-rdo, but it was accepted by the panasonic without any problems. It had 3 ref frames and 3 bframes.

I did some more testing. I know that its not recommended, but I also tried reencoding with CRF and having VBV Buffer and Bitrate filled. CRF took care of this.

What I don't exactly know, if I do a CRF reencode and have a high bitrated scene i.e. 30mbps, will the reencode have 30mbps at this scene as well ?

Regards

[G_M_C]

Yeah, max bitrate for DVD is too low for straight BR-transmuxing. DVD can only handle max 18 mbps total (so including audio and subs). Fox X264 reencodes that is enough most of the time.

This bitrate-problem will get less important when Bluray (re)writables get cheaper, cause then you dont have that problem anymore. And our testing has show that BR-backups will work on the BD30, as opposed to some other players where that result is yet unknown (or as some Samsungs where we allready know it wont work/doesnt work).

[LOGiC]

@G_M_C

Do you remember what the highest number of ref. and b-frames was that you fed to your Panasonic ?

Regards

[G_M_C]

There are guidelines about that on the forum; If i remeber correctly it was max 4 refs. for 1080p and 9 refs. for 720p. I've put it on 4, good enough; 5 worked on 720 though. BR profile says max 3 b-frames so i never changed that, but i do use b-pyramids (and all the psy-stuff from the newest patches).

[frank]

Did you test menus in Blu-ray structure on DVD (BR-9)?

Such simple BD (AVCHD) you can create with Nero.

Is it necessary to burn the Certificate folder?

[laserfan]

Xvid i've tried in AVI, with ac3 audio; No problem. Max reso is PAL SD as far as i understand (but remains to be tested; Is there some 720p xvid example for me to try somewhere ?).Your report goes contrary with what I can Google about this player--at least Blu-ray.com says "No Xvid".

I would love a BD player that does my old HD Xvids--does anyone have 720p samples for G_M_C???

[G_M_C]

I use these settings;

I Use a keyframe-interval of max 1 second (so keyframe-interval == framerate, rounded off), min-keyint=1.

--level 4.1 --keyint set yourself --min-keyint 1 --ref 4 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 3 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --subme 6 --trellis 2 --partitions none --ipratio 1.2 --pbratio 1.2 --vbv-bufsize 22000 --vbv-maxrate 16000 --scenecut 32 --me umh --merange 24 --threads auto --thread-input --aq-strength 0.9 --progress --output "output" "input" --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --sar 1:1 --b-adapt 2 --psy-rd 1.0:1.0

PS: Others speak only of keyframe-interval of 24, so try with a DVD-RW to see what works best.

[laserfan]

Which build are you using GMC? The link doesn't work.