Panasonic Intros DMP-BD30 Blu-ray Player

Panasonic's DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player sports an SD memory card slot, and supports BD-Video Final Standard Profile 1.1 for picture-in-picture capabilities.

Electronics maker Panasonic has announced its DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player, which the company is touting as the first Blu-ray player to support BD-Video Final Standard Profile 1.1. Support for Final Standard Profile 1.1 means the unit offers both a secondary audio and video decoder (so the player can handle audio and/or video from a second source—say, a director’s commentary displayed picture-in-picture while a movie is running) and a virtual file system. The DMP-BD30 also sports 64 MB of built-in flash memory, 256 MB of local storage, and an SD card slot that enables users to push their high-def snapshots or even video to their televisions.

"One of the more intriguing aspects of the Final Standard Profile is the Picture-in- Picture feature that would allow the movie fan to access a variety of entertainment enhancements, such as having the director or an actor pop up to discuss a scene you are watching, or with an animated movie, you might see the actor performing their character’s voice over, all while still watching the movie," said Panasonic Entertainment Group VP Gene Kelsey, in a statement. "Not only do these features give Panasonic a strong advantage in the high definition market, but they provide the movie community with numerous opportunities to embellish the viewing experience with additional creative elements."

The DMP-BD30 also supports Deep Color, HDMI 1.3b, and 1080/24p video playback. The SD card slot can handle AVCHD video (and offers a Direct Navigator function to help users find video content) and scales JPEG images to 1,920 by 1,080 pixels for display through the HDMI port.

Panasonic isn’t quite saying when the DMP-BD30 will be available (scuttlebutt is that retailers should have it the second week of November), but the company has given its suggested retail price: $499.95.