Blu Ray Player - Advice needed

[admin_exported]

I'm looking for a Blu ray player which is also a good dvd upscaler - only really interested in picture quality. So far on my list are the following:

Pioneer bdp51fd @ £300

Pioneer LX70 @ £400

Panasonic dmp60 @ £220

Denon dvd1800bd @ £300

or

Pioneer bdp320 @ £400

I encountered a setback when I went to richersounds to get a demo comparison between the panasonic dmp60 and the pioneer bdp51fd. So any help from this forum would be great.

Thanks

p.s. whathifi team, do you know when you'll publish a review on the pioneer bdp320?

 

[Anonymous]

Just researched the pioneer bfd51fd, and I can see people have had problems playing certain discs. Do these issues exist with other blu ray players? If so, is there a soultion, will a firmware update fix it?

Is this problem bad enough to remove it from my list and does it affect every unit?

 

[Anonymous]

Go for a BD35 at about £140.00.

 

[Anonymous]

hmtb:
Just researched the pioneer bfd51fd, and I can see people have had problems playing certain discs. Do these issues exist with other blu ray players? If so, is there a soultion, will a firmware update fix it?

Is this problem bad enough to remove it from my list and does it affect every unit?

No i've not had any problems with any discs on mine and that's not even on the latest firmware. If you can put up with slow loading times the performance is excellent and very good at upscaling.

 

[Anonymous]

What AV amp are you runing it through?

Many find running Bitstream and letting the Amp upscale does a nicer job if you have one of the higher spec ones.
The Sony 350 is well though of in the Reviews (around £145)

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the comments so far.

My main question, I suppose, is whether, for the difference in price between the entry-level panasonics (& Sonys - although I don't want a sony) and the Pioneer 51 and Denon 1800, there is an improvement in blu ray and dvd picture quality sufficient to justify the extra cost. I have no doubt that the sonys and panasonics are good (5* WhatHiFi), but are the others better for PQ performance.

I'm sure it's hard for most people to comment since, like me, they may not have seen or tested them with different sources. I saw the denon and tried blu rays and a few dvds and was impressed. I haven't seen the others, and won't be able to test them, so I'm sort of using the denon as my benchmark - how do the others compare? And on that basis I can decide which to go for.

Also considering the Pioneer bdp 320 - looking forward to a review in the next issue?

 

[Andrew Everard]

Big BD player test underway for the September issue, out end of July. You might want to wait until then...

 

[Anonymous]

Will the Oppo be in there?

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:Big BD player test underway for the September issue, out end of July. You might want to wait until then...

I shall eagerly look forward to the outcome of the Blu Ray player test, but I will be buying a player in the next few days (hopefully).

If I were in a different position and looking to upgrade then I would certainly wait, but since I have just bought a new tv, and I don't have so much as a dvd player to watch films on, holding out until the end of July might be too hard.

I'm probably going to go for one of the pioneers (on the assumption that they outperform the panasonic and the denon - I'm not trying to be controversial, just going on other reviews)

 

[Anonymous]

I went into a shop today, and they have agreed to provide a demo of the panasonic dmp60, and the pioneer bdp51fd. They also have a Denon 1800 which they seem very keen to sell - and I was told that if outperformed the pioneer 51 by about 30% with DVD, and that the pioneer outperformed it by 10% on Blu Rays.

I was going to pop over on sunday with a few dvds and try them out, but it just occurred to me (a little slow, I know), that this could be potentially useless. They don't have the panasonic plasma I have, and they want to connect it either an hd-ready LG plasma, or to a cheap samsung lcd. Am I right in thinking that testing a player under these circumstances is not going to of much use?

My other option is to buy the pioneer 51fd, take it home and test it, and if I'm not happy with it, I can return it within 7 days and get a full refund so long as I don't damage the box. Though, again, this leaves me unable to do a direct comparison.

It took me months to finally settle on a tv (partly due to its release date), and it looks like it's going to be more of the same with Blu ray, and since the pioneer bdp 320 isn't released for another 3 weeks, I may even end up waiting for the supertest Andrew mentioned was being published at the end of July.

 

[Andrew Everard]

bennyben:Will the Oppo be in there?

Nope-o, as it's not available yet.

 

[Anonymous]

Will the denon dvd1800bd and pioneer bdp51fd be in it?

 

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure i'm going to go for the pioneer bdp51fd - just wondering whether the what hi fi team had ever reviewed the denon dvd1800bd since their is no record of it on the site or in the magazine, in which case the denon isn't likely to figure in the upcoming supertest.

Also could the whathifi team clarify something for me please:

"The Pioneer does itself no harm with DVD playback either. Upscaled 1080p images are detailed and well-defined: Tropic Thunder looks lush and vibrant."

Does this mean that dvd playback is fine, but not quite up to the standard of others at this price (eg panasonic dmp 60)

 

[caddyhound]

If you have a Panasonic plasma then the BD 60 has Viera link.My BD 35 is better at DVD pictures than my Tag Mclaren DVD player and I would assume the BD 60 would be the same.Pioneer is just about to replace it's current range so I would go with the Panasonic.