Thoughts on Pioneer BD51FD

Thanks for the info! I'm currently interested in buying a LX71. Any comment regarding DVD upsampling to 720p / 1080i?

Hi , i really wanted the 71 myself, the build is much more substancial(heavy) better connections on the back.The upsampling of the 51 is not much better than the Samsung.Perhaps the 71 trounces this.
I think the pioneer players are strong on sound.
Music DVD BDs are so much more enjoyable.
I have been warned about price incs soon due to the exchange rate so perhaps dont hold off too long.

David

David, thank you for you input and advices! I guess I'll jump in the BD wagon very soon, then I must say I really enjoyed the sound quality offered by HD-DVD compared to standard DVD and am really looking forward to watch a few of my "classic" movies in Hi-Def audio! And of course the picture quality is not bad either

I bought an LX71 at the end of last year (ironically a couple of days before the VAT reduction). It's a beautiful piece of kit built to standards rarely seen these days, and its performance has been improved substantially by recent firmware upgrades. Early reviews criticising its upscaling and load times were done with older firmware so you should take such comments with a pinch of salt until you know the firmware level.

Picture quality is as good as you're going to get with Blu Ray and DVD upscaling is now regarded as among the best available. Sound quality is a class above its competitors and for many people here this could be the clincher. It's still slower than a PS3 but then so are all the rest. Response times are similar to other BD decks I've seen, and there is a promise of another firmware update to speed things up and provide support for DTS-MA decoding.

I'm very happy with it but it is more expensive than, for example, a Panasonic BD-55, which is also very highly regarded.

Tom

How do you go about getting the firmware updates?

Do you return the machine to your dealer?, or do they supply a disc? or do you have to download it somehow from the internet?

Do they charge you for these firmware updates?

Cheers

Don

Don,
You'll find updates and release documentation here.

Download, burn to cd, and load into the machine. It normally takes 10-15 minutes to install. Make sure you read the instructions as you need to burn an image file.

TomK, thank you for the valuable additional info! Bought my first 2 blu-ray discs during the break at nooon

You're very welcome, If you're just starting out on the BD adventure there are a couple of things you should know:

1. Load and response times (both BD and SD) are slower than you're probably used to with your DVD player.
2. The resume function doesn't work nearly as well as it did with SD DVDs. My old midrange Sony remembered every disk I ever played and always restarted correctly as long as I hadn't disconnected it from the mains. However with Blu Ray this functionality is provided by the disks themselves. Some will resume, but lose the restart info if you eject the disk. Others provide bookmarks, which you set yourself as required. These remain set until you delete them. Unfortunately bookmarks don't work with SD DVDs. Some BDs provide neither resume nor bookmarks. For some folk this is a minor detail but I find it really irritating as I tend to watch a load of episodic stuff and I used to be able to eject a disk and then restart from where I left off the following week.

All of this however pales into insignificance compared to the phenomenal improvement in picture quality.

Apparently, on Friday 7th the Nikkei newspaper announced that Pioneer are pulling out of TV manufacture completely. Get your Kuros while you can!

Apparently they're dropping TV production and entering a joint venture with Samsung to produce DVD players.

I've never seen a Kuro but I've been assured they're as good as it gets so it might be a good time for bargain hunting.

Will this never stop?? First the plasma TVs, now the entire TVs line. I'd gladly get a Kuro but I honestly can't throw my PDP-505 by the window! It's such a great TV.

TomK: again, thanks for the input.