Panasonic has amped up their CES 3D demonstration this year with a presentation on a 152 inch 4k2k plasma display.

The demo covered a number of Panasonic technologies, including the new live 3D cameras and the improved plasma technology needed to work with their 120Hz shutter based 3D.

Panasonic also had a wide range of Blu-ray support elsewhere in their booth, showing their range of players including their portable model.

It is great to see Panasonic bringing so much innovation to their players and displays.

Be sure to follow Blu-rayStats on Twitter to see more CES news.

It has been a busy week with a lot to do as CES kicks off for another year.

I was thinking that this year would be the year for 3D and it seems that this will indeed be the case with both Panasonic and Samsung announcing Blu-ray players with 3D capability.

LG is heading in a different direction, adding a hard disk drive to their Blu-ray offering for mass storage of media, making the Blu-ray player more of a media center.

I will be catching a flight for Las Vegas myself soon and with any luck will spend some time with these new players in the flesh.

At Sony Style right now you can save $50 instantly on the Sony BDP-S360 Blu-ray Disc Player, now only $249.99.

This promotion starts July 19th and ends August 1st.

Alternatively you can also buy the at Sony BDP-S360 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player at Amazon for $217.99.

Prices on players are certainly coming down - right now you can get the  Panasonic DMP-BD60 1080p Blu-ray Player at Amazon for only $194.50.

The next generation of Blu-ray player is now in the stores.

For example, the new Panasonic DMP-BD60 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player is now available at Amazon.

Pricing is in the $270 - $280 range right now, though that can change on a daily basis.

This player features all the usual stuff including BD Live, but also has online capability such as Amazon Movie download and ‘Viera Cast’, connecting the player with YouTube, Picasa and Weather.

In the very least it offers a player for those who missed out on the BD35, which apparently sold so well that the supply ran dry well before it should have.

I know that for some of us the region coding map to the left is a very annoying aspect of Blu-ray Discs.

I have been talking to Magnus over at BlurayMods.com about the parts he sells for multi region capability.

Today I have a picture of the modification in place on the main board of the Panasonic DMP-BD55.

As you can see there are only six wires running from the board to the player, so it is a relatively easy install if you have the right tools.

The only down side I see is that after the modification is installed, the player defaults to being a Region B player.

I am not sure if there is a workaround for this but it would be inconvenient to have to select Region A every time you want to watch a Fox movie… especially for wives and family.

I see a modified player in my future and assuming this comes to pass I will make a report on the pros and cons of player modification.

So today I got to spend some time on the show floor and saw a couple of things I think worth commenting on.

A couple of Taiwanese companies Ritek and Optodisc were showing their writable discs.

Optodisc are fairly new to BD-R and were showcasing a BD-R and BD-RE in the 25GB capacity. There are no plans for mass production currently - they are waiting for the market to grow.

Ritek had a whole range of discs including printable 4x media (hub printable coming soon), 50GB media in both BD-R and BD-RE and a 6x BD-R disc. Expect 8x to hit shortly.

Panasonic was demonstrating their new range of Blu-ray players with VieraCast YouTube technology, though I thought the coolest product was the portable DMP-B15 with a built in screen that is beautiful and sharp - ideal for taking your movies on the road.

The player also won a CNET Best of CES Award.

You can see pictures of these new items now in the Gallery.

Here we are for our third day in Las Vegas and I am taking some time out and adding some new Blu-ray Player pictures to the Gallery.

I have added nice Press Release images from both Panasonic and Samsung for their new Blu-ray Player products.

Today at 4pm we have the BDA press conference which is the next big press conference, so be sure to follow us on Twitter as we update live.

Panasonic seems to be ahead of the curve, with a new Blu-ray player, the DMP-BD70V, that contains an upscaling VHS player as well.

The DMP-BD70V distinguishes itself as the world’s first dual deck VHS-Blu-ray player, providing the consumer with a video product that features multi-format playback allowing the user to play VHS, CD, DVD and 1080p high definition Blu-ray Discs.

The BD70V allows for premium 1080p up-conversion for all video formats.I am not sure who was asking for this, but Panasonic aims to deliver!

I know a lot of us have been mulling over upgrading our Blu-ray players, and that the Panasonic DMP-BD55 and the Sony BDP-S550 are two key players on the short list.

I have been talking to Magnus over at Blu-ray Mods about modifying the current range of players to play discs tied to other regions and the short of it is that the Panasonic players are easier to mod than the Sony players.

Blu-ray Mods is based in Sweden and offers mod kits as well as pre-modified players.

The mod kids for the Panasonic DMP-BD35 and DMP-BD55 give the players region compatibility for both DVD and Blu-ray discs. The links here are for the US players, and the mod kit for these comes with a handy firmware update to convert the players to Euro firmware, allowing the playback of standard definition PAL Blu-ray extras and PAL DVDs.

The region switch for DVDs is automatic while for Blu-ray you can select the region that is compatible with any given disc.

While in general region coding is considered a problem for foreign types who want movies from the USA, as an art house movie lover I am interested in titles from Europe and Australasia, and for the most part the discs have compatible frame rates across the world.

While kits for the Sony players are also available, the physical modification procedure for the Sony players is considerably more difficult.

Now that my Panasonic BD55 player has arrived (Happy Birthday to me), I will look into this modification procedure and perhaps in the new year will have a new feature article covering the modification procedure…

I was thinking the other day, that it would be nice to be able to track the Amazon prices of the Blu-ray players I was interested in buying.

Rather than having to go to each page and see what the current pricing for each is (since they like to hide that useful info!), wouldn’t it be great to have it just laid out for you.

And so, I added the current pricing information to the Blu-ray Stats home page!

(more…)