Best Blu Ray video and for 2 channel transport?

I got my Panny from Amazon a few days before you started this post. I just got my 983H today and have ran my test DVD's through it (music videos which I am very familiar with from watching and listening to them over and over). Nothing special, but stuff I love and know very well. Here are my initial impressions: The Oppo default picture on my Sony CRT dispay is set a bit too dark (as it was with my friend's Oppo). A minor brightness adjustment + a bit of contrast and it was fine. Once tweaked the picture was lovely. I would say the colors occur to me as overall just a bit more natural than the more punchy colors I recall on the Panny (at default). I don't think that is anything more than a matter of tweaking...maybe. The picture itself is excellent on both players. I'd give the edge in the upsampling in terms of sharpness to the Panasonic, believe it or not. It occurred to me as a bit sharper. I prefer the more natural colors to the more punch, exaggerated colors. With one of my vids I was getting a strange artifact in jump cuts in dark scenes on the Panasonic though. For a milisecond I'd see a checkerboard (pixelated) effect in the shadows, this occurred in almost every cut where there were predominantly dark areas in the frame (common in stage concert films). That does not occur with the same vid upsampled on the Oppo. The significant difference, which I cannot fully understand or explain, and which delights me, is in the digital output via my Modwright Transporter - The Oppo is clearly and without any doubt more immediate and engaging. This holds true with CD performance as well. I don't really get that as both should be feeding the same digital stream to the Modwright TP, but the Oppo output commands more attention while the Panny was fine, but didn't have the same kind of immediacy. I wish I'd held onto the Panny to do a direct comparisons now, but this is how it occurs to me, and that actually comes as a surprise. I'd expected the Oppo to be a clear winner in video and didn't expect to hear any differences via the digital out. Anyway, I'm happy as a clam with the Oppo and I'm sure the memory thing would have really been a problem with both me and my wife. I hope Panasonic updates that soon as it's a real fly in the ointment for me, in an otherwise near perfect BD player. I'm not experiencing any unusual lag times with the Oppo and it is certainly faster than the Panasonic in starting up and cuing up and almost everything else. My Panny was current and needed no firmware updates. My Oppo is also current and probably one of the last ones they made. Can't account for the differences in our experience there... Go figure. One difference in my experience of the two players is that I had to use the Panasonic lamp cord AC power cord, while I'm using a TG 688 on the Oppo, FWTW. I've not tried out the analog output of the Oppo, mostly because I'm not interested and won't likely ever use it. I also did not try the analog outs on the Panny. I'll be very curious to see where BluRay goes from here. I do hope it makes it as it's clearly a superior format. Until they start releasing an abundance of films that actually interest me to watch on that format I'll be sticking with DVD.

Got me thinking, yeah I am going to try the Sony 350 and see what it has, being it does have the coax out on the lower model, the upper has nothing to offer accept a 7.1 output and like a sony link hdmi or something which I have no use... So I realize in the future with no Disc memory at least for a couple discs, the panasonic is going to be a problem.. And a Sony transport should be pretty good, I believe the oppos actual had a sony as well as raysonics used a decent sony transport that I had in the past.

Yeah the oppo is probably a little more film like, the panasonic is a bit more well "Digital blu ray" look... The oppo is a great machine, surprised about the digital out too myself! The oppo does sound good as a stand alone machine even without dac, so it does have a good solid transport and dac in it.

As for the panasonic with the memory issue, I will have to dig in further... Maybe I will have to stave it off as well this is a bit of an annoying issue due to not holding even 2 or 3 discs... The oppos hold 10 disc memories which is plenty.

As for startup time no doubt the blu ray players going thru the boot process takes a little time, but you can just leave the player on which actually I did all the time with the oppo as well, it does not draw any real power anyway just the display which I had set to off all the time. So this speeds up retrieval time on both units really, and keeps them warmed up a little for audio playback as well.

I also just suggest leaving your DAC on all the time, again without a signal its not pulling anything but does help for sound.

Thanks for the update!! I will be evaluating the memory issue... I will also go ahead and do some head to head comparisons with the transport sound on the panasonic against a couple other DVD players including the oppo, right now I am waiting for a DAC so in a couple weeks I will have the answer, and I have 30 days to return the panasonic if it does not "Pan" out :-)

I don't think you'll improve on the Panny with the Sony 350, but I'm making that assumptions simply from the spotty real-world feedback. It's also an older machine in a technology that seems to change daily. Boy, as far as BD players, I'd stick with the Panny or wait for the Oppo myself. Your description of the differences of the pictures is spot-on: The Panny seemed more punchy and digital while the Oppo occurs more film-like. I did not try tweaking the Panny's video fine-tune controls and there may be some latitude there, but I could easily live with the imaging I saw both on DVD and BD. I really cannot explain the optical output and will look forward to yours and others feedback there. I think my Modwright Transporter DAC is capable of 96khz streaming, but even on PCM the sound of the Oppo seems better IMO. Then again, I am going from aural memory which is NOT always that reliable. I am just struck by the sound with the Oppo and was not either struck the same way, nor disappointed with the sound of the Panny. Anyway, I appreciate your input as well. I'll look forward to hearing what you end up deciding on. If I were really into the BD thing I would have kept the Panasonic. I think that's huge bang for the buck, especially in the video department.

Jax2 & Kennyt,

Okay it was nearly impossible to find a S350 from sony.. Target, walmart, best buy, circuit city, etc.. Were all sold out nation wide!!

That being said I found one new in the box stashed away in a back room that somebody missed at a Meijer store!

Anyway got it home hooked it up.

First off the sony interface is faster! It is a step above the Panasonics..

Now for the good stuff, Audio thru HDMI is not as good as it is on the Panasonics built in processor, however I don't care because I need the transport anyway.

So one up for the panasonic, however its all downhill from there!

Shockingly sony Invented this Technology and guess what? Their player is superior in function and video for blu ray, it is just MUCH more film like truly reminds me and is virtually identical performance to the smoother and less digitized presentation of the OPPOS.

And DVD upconversion on this sony player with some of my Standard DVD's against the oppo is ABSOLUTELY as good, and it loads faster than the Oppo!! Only in standard DVD it loads faster, however blu ray is a little lagging, but its Faster loading blue ray than the panasonic by about 15 seconds it seems!

And it is a sony transport mechanism which have been good to me in the past, thru Wadia players, Oppos, and Raysonic...

So for 100 less street price, the sony is definitely superior for the overall and actually is the most compact in size Blu ray player to date from what I see and read.

Its a killer unit... So in this round Kennyt wins :-) I might be the ONLY person to have seen both the panasonic and Sony in home side by side however, they are both backordered and difficult to get anywhere... Money wise the sony is the best buy at this point..

Now down to the final issue I don't understand that has been overlooked by all these manufactures it seems.. NO damn disc memory! Still you can shut off the sony and it will return to the spot on a blu ray or standard disc.. However as soon as you open the drawer its over.. .And I have a USB card that fits the sony off my laptop, it works, however it does not have anything to do with saving the spot on discs from what I can figure out so far..

Oh well... Anyway tomorrow I will be conducting now that the video is settled and Sony wins for price and features with the 2.0 profile etc... a full out transport sound test..
My friend has a samsung unit, a good DAC, and we will go head to head with the oppo... So sony vs. Oppo, vs samsung coming tomorrow feed from coax digital out thru a hi grade 2 channel DAC.

AS for now the pricing on the sony is right, and better than panasonic, and picture literally makes SDVD and BDVD nearly identical to the oppo... It was not really noticeable how digitally chopped or motion sick the panasonic was until I put the sony in and it looked as smooth and vivid as a IMAX theater!

In the end the one feature killing the total love on these machines is the fact it can't do the most simple function of saving the place on a DVD to return to it later!

So being we are on the same page Jax2 you might have missed out on the sony with the picture, you would love it with the oppo type presentation.. Just still the memory issue. And to be clear the sony is lightning fast, I mean in 3 seconds it loads a standard DVD, the oppo 980 is quite a bit slower!