BC
I am a Home Theater specialist by trade and purchased this unit for my own use. Having looked over the negative reviews, I decided to buy the unit. Most of the negative reviews seemed to centered around more complex setups and since complex installations go hand in hand problems ( Murphys Law, he loves the fearless), I wrote the complaints off to over engineering the installation. Since my needs were basic and I was more interested in Panasonics reputation for reliable above average performance, I did not expect any issues. The unit has a smallish footprint which is allows more placement options. Always very appealing on its own. There are not many connection options but this is ok for most users. Anyone who is looking for advanced high end installation options will be looking at more complex units. My big needs were a good disc player with robust upscaling to improve video on that occasional off the grid bizzaro flic. Panasonic has always been my first choice to video quality improvement. The analog audio product isnt an available option so not an issue in this review. My second requirement, and this is the big one, was streaming ability that is a robust as an Apple TV or a Roku. With DSL internet fed by predictably bad copper ( Thanks again AT&T), the best download speed I can get is 1.10 mbps. I needed a unit that could work with this effectively which is a big IF. Unboxing and set up are a cakewalk, The menu for network connection is direct and simple. They have not changed this in a couple generations and there is really no need. Its great. The remote has shrunk a bit but no buttons that I wanted are gone and button size isnt any more of a problem for my big fingers that it was with larger remotes. No stupid screen to try and make work leaving you stranded when it fails. Top the unit has a few of the needed basic controls out in plain sight so easy and convenient also. PERFORMANCE: Disc playback was all that I expected, great video. Menu options for video have been drastically reduced but in my case this was not a major issue since I couldnt care less about 3D and there is currently no media or a standardized format for 4K. Now we get to the really GREAT part, the streaming. This unit performs like it was connected directly to a Netflix server, even with my horrible service and it does so direct wired connection or via wifi with my Apple Airport Exteme. Let me mention that most of the HT service issues that we address are due to wifi connectivity so this performance is in part due to the very robust Airport Extreme wifi capability. The new menu layout is great, connection to your movie choice is fast and the screen shots of the flic or TV show help finding that feature that you forgot the name of but remember the faces of the actors. It did stumble when bandwidth became precious during prime veiwing hours but that has more to due with peer to peer bandwidth sharing than the units capabilities. Great video, great audio (due in large part to the rest of my system, Marantz SR5009 and a hot 60" Panasonic LED LCD TV). So it was a better performer than I expected and I was thrilled. PROBLEMS So why only 3 stars? GLITCHY. During streaming playback on the second day of use netflix, it just blacked out after about 45 seconds of playback repeatedly. I was able to get back to the movie the first few times but finally I was so frustrated that I gave up on the show. Since normally a splash will come up saying that there was a network issue that caused the failure, this simply blacking out was an issue with the steaming electronics in the DMP BDT 270. After this problem surfaced, the unit began locking up arbitrarily and would not accept commands from the remote. Control processors and video processors not getting along. I am not sure. Easy fix is cycling power but the only way that this would work was to completely disconnect the unit (Power, HDMI and Network patch cord). The reset restored function but the problems resurfaced so I have returned the unit. The vendor, Discones for you readily accepted the return (or Amazon did) however they do not offer free freight for the return, a policy that would make sense if the unit were not DOA. For me less than 24 hours of normal function is DOA. I hope this review is useful, I am not being paid, just a professional enthusiast.