This review is for the people who, like myself have a sizable collection of standard DVDs. I have classics, old favorites, and some very obscure titles, most of them I know will NEVER make it to Blu-Ray. Even now over 90% of all videos sold are still SD-DVDs!! There simply aren't enough Blu-Ray titles to justify $500 for a new player. But prices have come down, so I decided to take the plunge anyway. I'm glad I did.

Setting up the BD30 was very easy, pretty much plug and play. I connected it by way of a 25ft HDMI cable to a ceiling-mounted Mitsubishi 720p projector shooting onto a 100" screen. If you're like me, you want to recapture the movie theatre experience and see it the way it was intended. I put in a SD-DVD of the restored 1962 verion of "Mutiny on the Bounty" filmed in Ultra-Panavision70. The lights went down and the picture came on. I guess I wasn't expecting it, because my jaw dropped, it looked that good!! The colors were well saturated, good black levels, no digital artifacts and film-like smooth! I hate to say this but the upconverting on the BD30 is BETTER than the Oppo 981HD. These eyes don't lie! This is the one to get!

This bd player would have been the best if it can read mp3 music burned on SD card. What a bummer! Other notes: it is made in Japan and has 5.1 rca output connection that is great for old AVR with no HDMI input/output.

This dvd player freezes up aaallll the time. I never had this problem with Sony's Playstation 3. The PS3 played all Blue Ray dvds flawlessly, but this Panasonic freezes up two to three times per movie. And it's not like I mistreated it or that the movies are dirty. These are brand new movies. I'll try to claim the warranty and follow-up with another review once I deal with Panasonic. Wish me luck!!!

I sort of bought this player with only minimum research... just checking its features and a quick glance at its review rating. It was on sale, and at nearly $100 less than its closest competitor, I couldn't pass it up. Then, after my purchase I started really reading the reviews and some of them put the Sony ahead of the Panasonic if the price was comparable (which on Black Friday it was). So then I wondered if I had acted too quickly. I panicked that it was 1.1 instead of the newest 2.0, as the Sony claimed to be. I was worried that it didn't have an ethernet port for firmware updates. And finally, I had read in other reviews here that its upconversion of regular DVDs wasn't as good as Sony's.
Well, I was worried for nothing. This is a great player. First, you can update the firmware by downloading a file from their website and burning it on CD-- that takes care of both the 2.0 concern and the ethernet issue. I have already run one firmware update on mine and it was quick and easy. Next is the upconversion issue-- I have an Oppo upconversion player, which is arguably the best. Now I only have one 52" 1080p plasma TV so I can't do a true side-by-side comparison, but I was switching back and forth. I saw NO difference in the quality of upconversion, plus my wife said the colors are more vibrant on the Panasonic.
It's a little slow on open/close, but from what I can tell they all are. If you want a great BluRay that's not outrageously priced, then this is your machine.

This is my first Blu-ray player and I have to say it's a mixture of good and bad.

Good: The picture quality is outstanding on both BD and DVD. I previously had an upconverting DVD player and I thought the picture looked only marginally better than my standard DVD player. But this player makes DVDs look surprisingly good! Sometimes I can't tell the picture apart from a true HD image.

The SD card slot is a neat idea. If I get an SD camcorder in the future I'll definitely take advantage of it.

The player itself is attractive. I like how they hid slots and buttons behind doors; it gives the face a sleek and simple look.

The bad: No zoom function whatsoever. I bought a 47" TV because I want to see a nice, big 47" picture on it. I don't care if the sides are clipped off a little or the aspect ratio is slightly distorted. Because of this bewildering oversight I'm forced to endure these huge black bars flanking my picture. Unfortunately, my TV's zoom options are disabled for HD images for some reason, so I can't fix the problem there either.

No DivX support: DivX playback is supported on even the cheapest of DVD players nowadays, so why wouldn't they include it on a $300 Blu-ray player? Beats me, but I'm not thrilled about it.

Painfully slow tray: I timed it. The time it takes from being completely off to when the tray is open and ready for a disc is a whopping 23 seconds. I would consider about 2-5 seconds to be a reasonable amount of time.

Because of the drawbacks I almost gave this player three stars but because of the oustanding video quality I'll be generous and give it four. However, I'll most likely replace it when something more suitable comes along.