Panasonic's DMP-BDT310 and BDT-210 Blu-ray players open with a wave

Panasonic's new DMP-BDT310 and DMP-BDT210 Blu-ray players are as capable and great to use as always, but now the company has added another feature to attract your attention and spending power. So what is this new trick? It's the ability to open the disc tray by waving your hand over the top of the player.

No, we don't know why you'd want that either. But it is kind of cool, and does reduce the amount of time you have to spend looking for a tiny eject button. The only problem we could see is that most people will put the player somewhere that doesn't make waving at the top of it all that easy.

This technology is only available at the top end of the Panasonic range. The BDT310 also has Panasonic's twin-HDMI output system, which allows people with older AV systems to connect the 3D output to their TV, while using the second HDMI to send audio to their sound system.

The company has also managed to get disc-load times right down too. The test movie Coraline, in 3D, loaded in around 10-15 seconds. Panasonic can't do anything about those horrific copyright warnings, but it can at least cut down on the rest of the waiting time before you watch the movie you've paid for.

Panasonic is also very proud of the fact that these smaller players use less power than before, take up less space on your shelf and can ship in tiny boxes. Two of these things are great for the environment, and one is great for your home-cinema system.