CES 2010: Panasonic Debut Four Blu-ray Players, One with 3D

As expected, Panasonic have added their name to the list of companies showing off a 3D-capable Blu-ray player at CES this year, where it's rapidly becoming unusual not to have such a product in your line-up.  The machine in question is the DMP-BDT350 and as with all the others, will need to be teamed up with a 3D television and the watchers will all have to use a set of active shutter 3D glasses.  The BDT350 has received a CES Innovations Award and will play 3D Blu-ray, upscaled DVD and standard audio CD, plus the expected Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD decoding, an SD memory card slot for picture and video playback, BD-Live and the VIERA Cast range of online streaming media.

Panasonic have also introduced three regular 2D Blu-ray players, starting with the DMP-BD45, then the mid-range BD65 and ending with the upper-range BD85.  The BD45 is your basic Blu-ray player, and does without the networking capabilities of its presumably more expensive brethren, along with VIERA Cast and some of the hidden audio and video processing niceties.   

The BD65 and BD85 share many features, including HD audio decoding, VIERA Cast online streaming media, an SD memory card slot, 96kHz audio surround re-mastering for improved CD performance and Panasonic's complex signal processing technology.  What separates the BD85 is built-in Wi-Fi (an option on the BD65), DivX video support via the SD card slot, 7.1 analogue audio outputs, an HDMI Jitter Purifier, gold-plated terminals, a 192kHz-24 bit D/A converter and something called a Digital Tube Sound Simulator, which is said to recreate the sound from a tube amplifier.

Panasonic also talked about their work to make their products more 'green', for example, the BD45 has a reduced power consumption from last year and all players have a more streamlined design to cut down on packaging.  As is becoming standard, there are no prices to go along with the specification, but spring is the season when they are expected to go on sale.