Ultimate AV’s Thomas J. Norton took a sneak peek at the Panasonic DMP-BD10 BD disc player. This is Panasonic’s BD player, and it’ll retail for $1300. It does of course have an HDMI output.

The Panasonic and the Philips are the two BD players to follow up on the first player on the market, the Samsung. Mr. Norton says that it’s the first BD player that deserves a rave review. (He also notes that the problem with BD (the format) previously was not the codec - MPEG2, MPEG4, and VC1 all perform admirably.)

The Panasonic player does a good job upconverting standard DVD’s. It’s operation is also “notably less clunky” than other HD players Mr. Norton has tested. It puts out 1080i or 1080p/60, but not 1080p/24.

Panasonic promises a firmware update for a big weakness the player has - its inability to decode Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master soundtracks. They would be decoded to digital PCM, and put out on the HDMI 1.1 connection. Your receiver would have to be able to handle that, of course.

This player also plays back CD’s and DVD-Audio’s. For more on the player, read the sneak peek below, but you’ll also have to wait for the full review.

Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu-ray Disc Player