For those not up to speed with the issues of this player, let me update you. It has an LFE bug. Not just a small one either, in fact all PCM soundtracks played over HDMI with this player have their LFE attenuated by -5db. Without going into an exhaustive analysis, there is no easy or clean way to compensate, workaround, or fix this. Basically the best fix is to play the 640kbps Dolby Digital track instead of the PCM track.
Panasonic has all but washed their hands of the issue, stating that it is a "hardware issue" and that "the player meets spec," therefore it is "not their responsibility" to fix the issue in any capacity. I can tell you that the fix would be a messy one, but a fix is possible. Panasonic simply does not want to spend the money to execute said fix.
So, here is the deal, I got this player for $425 + 10 free movies. My 30 days return policy runs out in a week. There are no other good Blu-ray standalones out now (IMO - no interest in slow profile 1.0 players nor PS3), and if I returned this player it would simply mean I would wait a few months and watch my HD DVD & SD movies until the new BD players shown at CES 2008 come out - such as the new Panasonic, Pioneer, and Sony players.
Return or not? What do you all think? I guess the question is, should I go through the inconvenience of not having a BD player for 3 months in order to get what will likely be a better player for the same price that has less issues... Or should I just keep this one and avoid PCM tracks for now, selling this player when an issue-free one arrives (after all, no guarantee that those new players won't have issues, too). After all, lossless doesn't sound THAT much better than Dolby 640kbps, sometimes not any better. But I think its more of a being treated like crap by the company/principal issue I am dealing with... combined with the fact that this is a $500 player and not a $200 HDAO!
