As with all of my Blu-ray player reviews, I ran the deck through its paces using Silicon Optix's HQV Benchmark discs (both Blu-ray and PAL DVD). These discs have, in both HD and SD versions, a series of tests that can expose lesser picture processors in different areas.

Tests include noise reduction, video resolution loss, film resolution loss, jaggies reduction (the stepping effect around diagonal edges) and more. The BD80 passed all of them. I haven't seen that before. Not with such ease anyway.

Normally, the Blu-ray performance can be exceptional but the player can fall down with DVD-upscaling. Or vice versa. Or they're both just sort of average. However, this Panasonic disc-spinner excels with both. And in the real world it makes a huge difference.

Like its predecessor Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace on Blu-ray is a visual feast – one that requires keen control of shaded areas (there's a fair bit of sneaking around in the dark) and vivid colourfields.

And the BD80 handles both so accurately that it can be afforded the ultimate accolade. Rather then study the picture intently for faults, I just fell headlong into the movie and found myself forgetting to review the hardware.

For the record, the image holds up crisp, clean and true without any unnecessary fiddling with the set-up options. And the sewer chase near the beginning of the movie looks more defined and detail-crammed than when I saw it in the cinema.

The colour-denuded clarity of An Empress and the Warriors is also eye-popping. Images of period slaughter seem supernaturally sharp. Standard DVD playback is a treat too – as evidenced with Slumdog Millionaire.

Upscaled SD pictures are not HD – and don't believe otherwise – but this deck does a great job of making them look their best. it also manages to keep fast camera pans in check, where lesser processors may initiate a fall into a blurry mess.

Multichannel mayhem

Audio performance is a step-up from the budget BD60, and its ability to both bitstream and decode DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD is admirable. The deck also offers a 7.1 analogue audio output for those without an HDMI-switching receiver.

However, while there's nothing wrong with its sound processing per se, this is clearly the area exploited by high-end Sony, Denon and Pioneer players – which many of my colleagues are now using as CD-spinners too, so good is their stereo performance. They are, though, approximately three times the price, so, with audio at least, you get what you pay for.

Actually, this is also true with build quality. This may not be a major bugbear, but the BD80 isn't exactly a looker. It's not got the same kind of design flair as, say, the Samsung BD-P4600. In comparison, it looks like a bland slab of plastic. It does, however, sit in a rack quite nicely, and that's all that really matters.

And while we're being finicky, I'm not particularly bowled-over by the player's loading times either. As a PlayStation 3 owner, I'm used to almost instant start-up and disc access. The BD80 is far removed from that.

As with many current stand-alone decks, it can take around a minute just to play a conventional BD movie (such as Spider-Man 3), and that is bound to put off those with little patience.

The rest of us, though, can simply bow down to the awesome, near-perfect images, cracking feature-set and amusing and relevant gimmickry that, for a brief moment at least, remind us what it's like to be a kid again.

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