Pulled the trigger on a Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-ray Player

[Ruined]

Robert @ Value Electronics offered me the unit for a good price (PM for detail if interested), no tax & free "quality" HDMI cable as well as being part of the first shipment of players in mid-July. This year it appears Pioneer has the most innovative and highest quality Blu-ray players. While they lack BD2.0, they have features such as Source Direct output for external scalers (i.e. my Reon processor) as well as 8bit->12bit upconversion which may be able to fix some of the BD titles that have banding due to studio's low-precision downconversion to 8-bit. All-in-all, it looks like the best bet of this year's batch for those with a more high-end setup. The more expensive Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD also looks like a nice player, but its pretty much a waste of money unless you are still running component output - the rest of its upgrades are purely cosmetic in nature. And to be honest, the BDP-51FD actually looks better than the 05's 90s-style gold look IMO.

While it is not BD2.0, this year we probably won't see too much exciting stuff with BD-Live. Though I think that eventually things will transition to many extras being online, with the Funai-based and lower-priced players all being 1.1 out of the box that will probably be quite some time away. Plus, this Pioneer has all the decoders on board as well as bitstreaming capabilities so I have the option of either in-player decode or bitstream for decoding in my DTC-9.8.

So, my second standalone venture into Blu-ray will continue with the Pioneer BDP-51FD, which will usurp my current HTPC setup. It's not the "reference player" yet due to lacking BD2.0, but it looks to be the most solid and best-valued player under a grand based on the specs released thus far. The initial reception has also been very positive from insiders. So, we'll give it a shot and see how it goes. This will be my second Blu-ray player, the first being the Panasonic BD30 which I returned due to the LFE bug and poor deinterlacing + lack of support for external scalers.

P.S. - If anyone is interested in a KILLER price for a Panamax M5400-PM Surge Supressor/Power Management/Voltage Regulator PM me as I know a local place in NJ that is clearing them out due to store closure.

[ganthc]

I hope this player works out for you and I look forward to seeing your review on it later on.