Panasonic to launch DMP-BD10 Blu-Ray player

Panasonic will launch its first Blu-ray disc player together with a matching receiver and speaker system for home theatre fans. The new Blu-Ray player, DMP-BD10, will be a bit expensive. The player will be available at a price of $1,300 USD.

Panasonic has announced that the DMP-BD10 player, along with SA-XR700 receiver and SB-TP1000 speaker package will be available for sale from September onwards. The delay is expected to give Blu-Ray its first foot-hold in the market, since the Blu-Ray is an absolutely new technology.

The Blu-Ray movies from Sony are expected to reach the stands this week itself. The rival format of the Blu-Ray, the HD DVD had a better start ahead of Blu-Ray with some models from Toshiba going on sale. The company will sell only 10000 units for its launch.

Although the new models may bring a lot of exciting features, they are yet to make a strong impression among the common people. The reasons being stated are high cost and the shift to a completely new platform.

The Panasonic DMP-BD10 player comes with a 296MHz, 14bit video D/A converter with 4x oversampling for 1080i/720p output. The DMP-BD10 player is also backward-compatible, which means that the normal CDs and DVDs will work on the player. Using the Blu-Ray player from Panasonic , older movies can be upconverted to 1080p.

Reid Sullivan, Vice President, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company's Entertainment Group said, "Panasonic is proud to be a leader in the development of cutting edge Blu-ray technology, which is the most significant technological advance in home entertainment since the arrival of the DVD almost a decade ago."

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Panasonic to launch DMP-BD10 Blu-Ray player