The DMP-BD60K required just over a minute of prep time before it began playing a disc. Once the disc was playing, skipping chapters produced a noticeable but not objectionable lag. Pausing seemed immediate.

Many new Blu-ray players come with JPEG and MP3 playback capabilities, and either a USB 2.0 port or an SD Card slot to move those files to the player. But the DMP-BD60K is the first player we've seen that has both a USB port and an SD Card slot. The card slot handles AVCHD video and photos, while the USB port can receive photos and music. The only supported formats are JPEG and MP3.

If you plug into your Internet connection via the player's ethernet port, you can upgrade the player's firmware and access BD-Live content on discs that offer it (the player has no built-in memory, so you'll have to supply at least 1GB of storage). You can use to access select Web content sites, including YouTube and Picasa.

The DMP-BD60K resembles the DMP-BD80; Panasonic says that both models have the same audio- and video-processing chips inside. Both models also support Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master audio on-board decoding. (The BD80 adds DivX playback and multichannel analog audio outputs.)

On all counts, the Panasonic DMP-BD60K is a well-made Blu-ray player, and it ranks among the best Blu-ray players you can buy today.