Panasonic DMP-BDT310 review

It might not be the cheapest Blu-ray player that you can buy, but Panasonic has built some clever features into the DMP-BDT310 that may just make it the player for some people.

For starters, there are two HDMI outputs on the rear. One is an HDMI 1.4 port, capable of carrying 3D video; the other one is an HDMI 1.3 port, which is just for carrying HD audio to an old amp that doesn’t have HDMI 1.4 inputs. If you’ve got a decent old amp and don’t want to have to upgrade it, then this is the Blu-ray player for you.

This player also has Panasonic’s High Clarity Sound mode, which disables the analogue video output to stop any potential interference it may cause to a Blu-ray disc’s audio. Hi-Fi purists will love having this feature, but we couldn’t hear any difference.

Performance of a player is incredibly important and Panasonic has worked hard on this year’s models to make them faster. For staretrs, there’s a touch-free sensor on top that you wave your hand over to quickly open the disc tray. To be honest, this is more of a gimmick than must have feature and the easily accessible Eject buttons on the player and remote are probably more useful.

What’s not a gimmick is performance. From power-off, we managed to insert a disc and load it in just 25 seconds. This is reduced to 19 seconds when the player is already turned on. Suffice to say that as Blu-ray players go this one is very quick.

When you power the player on you get Panasonic’s brand-new menu system. This uses large icons for all of the features, arranged in a cross. All you do is hit the corresponding cursor key to select the option you want. It’s much more intuitive than regular systems and responds very quickly. We like the way that you can customise the screens with a photo of your choice, too.