After showing off the player in Japan last August and then again at the CES event this January, Panasonic’s Blu-ray/VHS player, the first and probably only in the industry, is headed stateside in April, with a price tag of $399.95 USD.
The company is also launching two other BD-Live Blu-ray players the same day, each of which include Panasonic’s own Viera Cast technology which allows any Web-enabled BD-Live standalone “to access Amazon.com’s Video On Demand, YouTube and Bloomberg, among other services.”
The entry level model, dubbed the DMP-BD60, will sell for $299.95 while its more expensive brother, the DMP-BD80, will retail for $399.95.
The BD/VHS dual player, dubbed the DMP-BD70V, as well as the other two units, will each include SD memory card slots and USB ports to allow playback of photos and video.
“With the expansion of the unique Viera Cast functionality and the introduction of the industry’s first dual VHS/Blu-ray player, Panasonic’s 2009 line cements our position as technology leaders and places Panasonic in the forefront of the Blu-ray arena,” said Richard Simone, director of the entertainment group at Panasonic.
Result for: vhs
Laserdisc, the format from 1978, is now at the end of the road. The Philips developed disc format was originally marketed as Discvision but changed its name to Laserdisc in mid-80s when Pioneer bought majority of its shares.
LD was the choice for many home theatre enthusiasts because of its better quality over VHS and Betamax. However, LD didn’t get popular amongst the general public and quickly became obsolete when DVD hit the markets.
According to Akihabara News, Pioneer has ended the production of its all three Laserdisc players. It sold over 3,6 million LD players in Japan between 1981 and 2002.
Result for: vhs
Panasonic hasn’t had the high profile among Blu-ray backers that the formats other major backers have. In fact just based on their decision to let others, such as Sony and Disney, take the lead in marketing it you might not realize they have as much to gain from its success as anyone. After all they own as many patents for the format as any other company and more than any besides Sony.
This year they seem determined to make more of a market impact, starting with the introduction of new Blu-ray players capable of streaming video from online sources like Amazon and YouTube. Support for the Netflix streaming video service is conspicuously absent.
The company has also added other improvements to their line of players.Perhaps one of the most interesting is the addition of a VHS deck to one model.
“With the expansion of the unique VIERA Cast functionality and the introduction of the industry’s first dual VHS-Blu-ray deck, Panasonic’s 2009 line cements our position as technology leaders and places Panasonic in the forefront of the Blu-ray arena,” said Richard Simone, Director, Panasonic, the Entertainment Group.
The new players also feature support for both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio
