The firmware is the "operating system" of your Blu-Ray player. As you know, the latest generation of players does a lot more than just play the disk that you've popped onto the tray. This generation of Panasonic players can read USB thumb drives, access data on the Internet, play music, and even let you enjoy your Netflix streaming video subscription, all without leaving the slim little box. Pretty amazing, actually.

Every so often, however, Panasonic, like so many consumer electronics companies, decides that there are certain new features -- and probably bug fixes -- that are important enough to push the update out to existing customers. This happens because every so often your Blu-Ray player goes out onto the Internet and asks Panasonic HQ if the version of the software -- the firmware -- is the latest. If it is, you're good. If not, well, you know what happens.

I can show you what happens based on my own experience, but it's with my own Panasonic 3D Blu-Ray player, a Panasonic DMP-BDT310 that I bought just a few months ago. Why? Because I too have seen the same message.

The follow screen shots are quite literally photographs of my TV screen during the upgrade process. They're not all perfectly rectilinear or in crystal focus. But you'll see how it works...

First off, when you turn on the Blu-Ray player, I'm expecting you see something like this:

On the lower right it says New firmware is available. Please update firmware in Setup.

Not really super explanatory but if you look at the icons in the "plus layout" you'll notice that the one in the middle, with the wrench, is labeled "Setup". A ha! Using your remote, click on the button in the middle of the circular remote buttons. It's labeled "OK".

That takes you here:

This is confusing because there's no indication which to select. In fact, you want to choose Player Settings, the option on the bottom. Click on the down button on the remote and you'll suddenly change to a completely different type of interface, one that's frankly a bit easier to understand:

None of these seem to be about firmware updates, so you'll need to go to "Others". You would have guessed that, right? Use the arrows around the "OK" button to move to the bottom, then click "OK" to proceed.

There you go. The last option on this second menu. Don't worry about the other stuff (though it's interesting to monkey with things like the touch free sensor settings), just "OK" the Firmware Update.

One more selection to make:

Go to the second option, "Update Now", and select it.

Yup, and you said your unit's already online for Netflix, so your life will definitely be easier. Fortunately. Select "Yes" to proceed.

Look! There is a firmware update available after all. I'm running 1.70 and the new version is 1.80. You can check out the information on Panasonic's site at http://panasonic.net/support/ or... you can just proceed by selecting "Yes" again.

And, finally, it's starting the download and update process:

Be aware that the update is not speedy. Mine took about ten minutes to download. Just have patience and definitely don't unplug it during the procedure.

Eventually...

Notice what's missing? No Japanese or Chinese. Interesting. They must have a completely different version of their Blu-Ray product line for those markets, eh?

Meanwhile, look at the player itself. Mine was flashing the following cryptic message during the entire update process:

Interesting. When the process was completely, it showed "FINISH" and the screen showed:

At that point the player automatically restarted and I was done. Ready to watch a movie with the new, presumably improved firmware.

Not the easiest process in the world, so I hope this tutorial helps you figure things out!