Dissected: Panasonic DMP-BD30K
July 2, 2008 by Tyler Pruitt
closeAuthor: Tyler Pruitt
Name: Tyler Pruitt
Email: tyler@formatwarcentral.com
Site: http://www.tylerpruitt.com
About: Although a Seattle native, Tyler doesn't t fit that stereo type very well. He prefers Red Bull to Lattes, doesn't own a pair of birkenstocks, and has never hugged a tree in his life. As a life long Geek, he is pretty much addicted to anything that has to do with technology. He became hooked on HDTV in early '04, and hasn't looked back since. At his day job in the aerospace industry, he is never too far away from the latest news thanks to Google Reader on his iPhone. Tyler's vision for Format War Central is to provide a very diverse range of opinions, which he thinks really engages the readers and promotes vibrant discussions.See Authors Posts (237)
Filed Under: Blu-ray, Format War
This is the first post in a new series we call “Dissected”. This series will show you the internals of stand alone Blu-ray players.
We will also be covering the hardware that is inside the players, which should give us an idea if there is any re-badging going on (Like with Onkyo’s HD DVD player that was the same as the Toshiba HD-XA2).
The DMP-BD30K uses the “UniPhier” core processor (same as the new DMP-BD50)
HDMI Version: 1.3
BD Profile: 1.1 Bonus View
24p Video Output
AVCHD Support
Dolby TrueHD Bitstream Output
DTS-HD High Resolution Audio Bitstream Output
DTS-HD Master Audio Bitstream Output
Buy it from Amazon for $449.99
Photos by: Jon Spackman
Tags:
BD-30,
BD30,
Blu-ray,
bluray,
dissected,
DMP-BD30k,
Format War,
hardware,
HDMI,
Jon Spackman,
panasonic,
pence,
standalone,
Toshiba
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Impressive
More info please, such as:
How much RAM?
What is a UniPhier processor?
CPU clock speed?
Does it have hardware Java acceleration?
How much flash memory?
How much ROM?
Memory sockets?
Ethernet jack?
USB?
Looks like most of the board space is analog stuff, with the green board being digital. Is that right? If so why? All the listed outputs are digital. (Obviously one board is the power supply, but even that looks strangely large).
Most of the ‘good stuff’ is on the underside of the green board.
Really there is not much to a BD player other than a drive, power supply and the main digital board. The rest is air for the most part.
Id just like to add that it also does 1080p 60p as well
LOL…. if I still had my 1988 $1000 Mitsubishi HiFi VCR (one of the first of my friends) you’d all be shocked about the amount of system boards it had. The entire Cassette cage was huge and complex. Its main board covered most of the top of the unit, but its Power board and others were also on the bottom.
I barely see why this thing needs a cooling fan. Other than to be COOL
@Belard -
Some Blu Ray/HD DVD players are also freakishly huge, mainly the first generation ones but sometimes companies like to slip them in down the line.
I assume the main chip is on the bottom of the green board. Any particular reason for doing it upside down like that? The only one I could think of is if they are using the bottom plate of the player as a giant heatsink?
Perhaps they did it to keep it away from unwanted eyes! :D
My BD10, the first gen Panasonic player, looks remarkably like this.
The A1 on the other hand is packed, since it is pretty much a low end lap top shipped in a DVD player case.
It is interesting to compare these two since they both had essentially the same design (a player built around a standard drive) but the execution was significantly different…
@Andy Pennell -
This is a Uniphier processor
http://www.semicon.panasonic.co.jp/e-micom/MicomFamily/uniphier/construct3.html
ROFL, air
They have to include the air to make the form factor look right :D
So, why does the Euro version support DivX and not the US version? Is there a hardware difference?
@Kevin Murphy -
I doubt its hardware, most likely software is the issue, probably licensing rights.
CostCo just slashed the price on the BD30. Could this be because they Panasonic is getting readly to discontinue the BD30 and bring out a newer one to sell alongside the BD50?