Blu Ray Disc Players

Philips BDP7200 Blu-ray DVD player has made its entry in CES (Consumer Electronics Show). It has been set to hit the markets of UK, around this year’s mid-October (2008). This will be the debut Philips Blu-ray player to arrive Britain. Philip’s BDP7200 boasts its additional interactive functionalities.

Design:

The player’s body design:
The player has a simple but an attractive look. Philips BDP7200 Blu-Ray Disc player has a unique look and differs from the other players. It is of the table-top form factor and weighs around 9.1pounds. It has a brushed-black chassis and gloss-black front panel with its edges rounded. The front panel has a one-line LCD screen and the buttons are petite that are for play, stop, power, open/close, forward, reverse and a resolution toggle. The disk tray is placed towards the left side of the player.

The Infra Red remote control:
Philips BDP7200 Blu-ray player has an Infra Red remote control that is a long and slender one. The buttons are black and placed in a black background without any backlight illumination, and hence you can hardly see any keys when you are in a dark room. The directional keypad is at the near centre with the transport controls just below it. The keys are placed in a visceral manner but the forward and reverse controls are an exception as they are placed no where near the other transport controls. Separate rocker buttons were provided for volume control and channels. The remote does not have an output resolution button. The backside of the remote has a glossy finish.

Features:

Philips’s first Blu-ray player which crawled into the market in 2006 was lacking a lot of features with a bulky cost. But BDP7200 supports 1080p/24 playback and passes Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD bit stream over HIDI. BDP7200 Blu-ray video player is profile 1.1 compliant.

Audio and video features:
The player has the A/V connectors and HDMI, component and composite outputs for video purpose. For audio, it has HDMI, optical and coaxial connectors and both 5.1 and two-channel analog audio outputs. The dual-multimedia card readers and USB port are absent. Automatic firmware updates cannot be done in the unit itself as it contains no Ethernet port. Hence the firmware updates that are released by Philips must be downloaded from its website.

Set-up:
This blu ray disc player is very simple to set-up. Philips provides a lot of Auto modes for the convenience of novice users. The video output choices include HDMI, 1080p, 1080i, 720p and 480p. The video menu includes options for noise reduction, de-interlacing, Deep Colour and Black Level. When the information about the screen is being accessed, the information screen which appears is unnecessarily big and blocks the images in the centre of the screen.

Media supports:
This DVD player is a Divx certified device. Thus it supports Divx VOD content, DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW, CD, CD-R/-RW, MP3, WMA (non-DRM) and JPEG playback. There are options provided for you to customise the JPEG slide-shows. Philips’s EasyLink HDMI-CEC functionality allows you to have a logical control over the other Philips products that are connected via HDMI.

Performance:
This Blu-ray DVD player produces a very clear display with high-quality colour and sharpness. It has a good audio quality too. The picture-in-picture playback feature in certain movie titles can be viewed clearly as Philips BDP7200 Blu-ray DVD player is BonusView-enabled. This BD-J functionality completely optimises the HD experience. Philips BDP7200 is a full 1080p player which includes some major features and a lot of enhancements such as, 24p processing, HDMI, Standard DVD Upscaling, digital audio outs, Deep colour, the BD-J specification, multi-channel audio decoding. But the player lacks the BD-live to access the web content. The player converts the standard-definition DVDs but its processing of high-definition source content is questionable. The player does not support on-board decoding for high-resolution audio tracks, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. The device is limited to Blu-ray profile1.1.

Though the player powers-up quickly, it takes around 45 seconds to start playing. This is a poor start-up time for a Blu-ray DVD player. Once the player starts running, it has sluggish response to certain remote control commands such as popping up certain menus and by skipping chapters. The on-screen menu was standard and not very attractive. Though the menus consume most of the on-screen area, they do not provide much of any useful options or information. The menu features high definition menu graphics similar to its predecessor BDP9000. The home menu features three options, first is the disc tray which plays the video for you, the second one is settings which takes you to another menu for you to change the settings and the last one is product info giving you information on the products firmware. The player does provide the “Auto standby” facility.

You will not be having any problem in loading and playing the interactive games. The player exhibited its reliable performance and quickly responded to the remote control commands.

Warranty:
Philips BDP7200 Blu-ray DVD player comes with one year warranty.

Though there are a few minor complaints, the player provides a very impressive quality of video and audio for a reasonable cost.

Technical Specification Details of Philips BDP7200 Blu-Ray Disc Player

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