This may be of interest to those who are not sure about the LX-71 and the FD-51 Here is a review of the FD-51 and the differences between the 2 players, with a £200 approx in price difference it seems a great buy.
71 compared to 51
+gold connectors (analogue)
+touch sensitive buttons
+chrome power/play button
+Metal Remote
+Higher quality DAC's
+Higher quality component video
NO DIFFERENCE IN PQ
REVIEW: Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-ray Disc Player
Review is based on v1.02 firmware.
Opening the box
When I first unpacked the Pioneer, it was evident that this player is built well. It weighed a ton more than my previous Panasonic BD30 and everything about it felt sturdier. Tray was nice and smooth and styling was good. The remote is adequate but the ENTER button on it feels kinda cheap; I have my Harmony 880 setup now, though, so it doesn't matter all too much.
Video
Getting down to brass tacks, the video quality of the BDP-51FD is second to none. It has builtin 8bit > 12bit per channel color upconversion, which no other player on the market features. When a film's master is prepared to be encoded for Blu-ray, that master has to be downconverted to 8bit - most studio masters are 10bit or 12bit. During the downconversion process to 8bit, BILLIONS of colors are lost. The Pioneer's color upconversion looks for hints of color loss in gradients, for example, and essentially injects new color into the picture in order to make color transitions more smooth and lifelike. When put next to a BD50 or PS3 for instance, the Pioneer is clearly king of video quality thanks to its color upconversion.
The Pioneer also gives you a ton of controls to tweak all aspects of the video, and even lets you send the original source resolution to a scaler just in case you have a scaler that is better than the one in the Pioneer. Paired with a scaling chip like Reon it will ensure highest quality deinterlacing for 1080i/30fps Blu-ray Discs as well as DVD. The player lets you force 1080p24 as well, since some A/V equipment require this due to HDMI stupidity. Overall, this player crushes every other player in the under-$1000 range when talking about video quality & tweaks.
The builtin DVD upconversion of the 51FD is good based on my HQV test results, however it is easily suprassed by high end processors like Reon, Realta, Qdeo, etc. So the 51FD's upconversion quality is much better than the Panasonic BD50, but yet worse than most high end video processing chips... For reference, I would position it a couple of notches above a Toshiba HD-A35, but a couple notches below a Toshiba HD-XA2. Then again if you use source direct to an external video processor, you can get results with this player superior to an XA2.
Audio
The audio on the Pioneer is also top notch. In addition to having jitter reduction circuits to ensure LPCM digital transmission is highest quality, it also has high-end Wolfson DACs for 7.1 analog output. The player does have bass management and level controls, though delay times are absent from the player. The sound quality overall, once again, is excellent.
This player supports decoding of all formats, but DTS-HDMA decoding will not be active until a future firmware update. Pioneer has promised it is coming though, and it is in the product's literature - so a bit of patience is needed here (besides, the 1.5mbps core sounds pretty much the same anyway). The player also supports bitstreaming. So no matter how you want your audio delivered, this machine has it covered!
While not quite as impressive as its video section, once again we have top notch quality in the audio department.
Speed
The 51FD struggles a bit in this area with its current firmware. It only takes 20 seconds to boot from cold off to power on, which is quick compared to competing players. However the Pioneer does take a long time to load discs with BD+ or heavy BD-J. Menu operation is snappy on most discs, with the exception of some select titles heavy on BD-J. This player is able to render BD-J menus fast as evidenced by the DVE disc's menus, so I believe it is simply not optimized yet. So Pioneer does adequately here, but could use improvement.
EDIT: As of the latest firmware, the Pioneer is now very fast in all menus including intensive BD-J menus.
Functionality
The player is very polished and the setup menus are all very smooth. There are a few glitches with certain titles (lip sync, resume problems) but it appears Pioneer has been very quick to resolve glitches thus far with this player with earlier firmwares. The 51FD is based on a new design unlike most of the other BD players this year, which use chipsets from 2007 that have had much more debug time. I am impressed with Pioneer's responsiveness in this category. I believe with a few more firmware updates this player will be fully up to speed. Its BD-J implementation just isn't quite complete yet IMO.
Profiles
The 51FD is a Profile 1.1/BonusView machine. This means it can display PiP and some of the other HD extras. However it does not support BD-Live/2.0. While I at first wanted a BD-Live player, after reading the downsides of BD-Live (privacy invasion + increased DRM) I decided 1.1 would be fine.
I can understand some wanting a 2.0 player to have "the final spec," but I don't believe 2.0 will be the final spec. Full color 3-D video still needs to be added and the BDA actually commented a couple of weeks ago that they are still trying to determine whether the 3-D decoding should occur in the player or display; you might need a new player profile and/or a new HDMI revision for this to occur. Thus, you really aren't safe with a 2.0 player as full color 3-D video is not part of the spec. BD-Live extras thus far have been underwhelming and take ages to download, which kinda defeats their purpose in the first place.
Overall
The 51FD is a fantastic player overall. It is not as fast to load discs as PS3, Panasonic BD30/BD50, or Sony 350/550, but it mops the floor with them when comparing video quality. Thus, I highly recommend this player so long as you can wait an extra 20-30 seconds for discs to load. If you cannot wait this time, one of the above players might be better for you - but you will lose video quality in the process.
In conclusion, it appears Pioneer has unleashed a beast of hardware here. As with all Blu-ray players based on new designs, the software still needs to go through some more firmware updates before everything falls into place.
If you are one that wants top shelf a/v quality, you need to take the BDP-51FD for a spin. There is no doubt it will be at the top of the pack in video quality. Highly recommended for home theater enthusiasts.
Also, Pioneer makes a model for $200 more (BDP-05FD) that is identical in A/V performance except it has a higher quality analog component video jack, which is bypassed if you use HDMI... So I don't think that upgrade is worth it.
71 compared to 51
+gold connectors (analogue)
+touch sensitive buttons
+chrome power/play button
+Metal Remote
+Higher quality DAC's
+Higher quality component video
NO DIFFERENCE IN PQ
REVIEW: Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-ray Disc Player
Review is based on v1.02 firmware.
Opening the box
When I first unpacked the Pioneer, it was evident that this player is built well. It weighed a ton more than my previous Panasonic BD30 and everything about it felt sturdier. Tray was nice and smooth and styling was good. The remote is adequate but the ENTER button on it feels kinda cheap; I have my Harmony 880 setup now, though, so it doesn't matter all too much.
Video
Getting down to brass tacks, the video quality of the BDP-51FD is second to none. It has builtin 8bit > 12bit per channel color upconversion, which no other player on the market features. When a film's master is prepared to be encoded for Blu-ray, that master has to be downconverted to 8bit - most studio masters are 10bit or 12bit. During the downconversion process to 8bit, BILLIONS of colors are lost. The Pioneer's color upconversion looks for hints of color loss in gradients, for example, and essentially injects new color into the picture in order to make color transitions more smooth and lifelike. When put next to a BD50 or PS3 for instance, the Pioneer is clearly king of video quality thanks to its color upconversion.
The Pioneer also gives you a ton of controls to tweak all aspects of the video, and even lets you send the original source resolution to a scaler just in case you have a scaler that is better than the one in the Pioneer. Paired with a scaling chip like Reon it will ensure highest quality deinterlacing for 1080i/30fps Blu-ray Discs as well as DVD. The player lets you force 1080p24 as well, since some A/V equipment require this due to HDMI stupidity. Overall, this player crushes every other player in the under-$1000 range when talking about video quality & tweaks.
The builtin DVD upconversion of the 51FD is good based on my HQV test results, however it is easily suprassed by high end processors like Reon, Realta, Qdeo, etc. So the 51FD's upconversion quality is much better than the Panasonic BD50, but yet worse than most high end video processing chips... For reference, I would position it a couple of notches above a Toshiba HD-A35, but a couple notches below a Toshiba HD-XA2. Then again if you use source direct to an external video processor, you can get results with this player superior to an XA2.
Audio
The audio on the Pioneer is also top notch. In addition to having jitter reduction circuits to ensure LPCM digital transmission is highest quality, it also has high-end Wolfson DACs for 7.1 analog output. The player does have bass management and level controls, though delay times are absent from the player. The sound quality overall, once again, is excellent.
This player supports decoding of all formats, but DTS-HDMA decoding will not be active until a future firmware update. Pioneer has promised it is coming though, and it is in the product's literature - so a bit of patience is needed here (besides, the 1.5mbps core sounds pretty much the same anyway). The player also supports bitstreaming. So no matter how you want your audio delivered, this machine has it covered!
While not quite as impressive as its video section, once again we have top notch quality in the audio department.
Speed
The 51FD struggles a bit in this area with its current firmware. It only takes 20 seconds to boot from cold off to power on, which is quick compared to competing players. However the Pioneer does take a long time to load discs with BD+ or heavy BD-J. Menu operation is snappy on most discs, with the exception of some select titles heavy on BD-J. This player is able to render BD-J menus fast as evidenced by the DVE disc's menus, so I believe it is simply not optimized yet. So Pioneer does adequately here, but could use improvement.
EDIT: As of the latest firmware, the Pioneer is now very fast in all menus including intensive BD-J menus.
Functionality
The player is very polished and the setup menus are all very smooth. There are a few glitches with certain titles (lip sync, resume problems) but it appears Pioneer has been very quick to resolve glitches thus far with this player with earlier firmwares. The 51FD is based on a new design unlike most of the other BD players this year, which use chipsets from 2007 that have had much more debug time. I am impressed with Pioneer's responsiveness in this category. I believe with a few more firmware updates this player will be fully up to speed. Its BD-J implementation just isn't quite complete yet IMO.
Profiles
The 51FD is a Profile 1.1/BonusView machine. This means it can display PiP and some of the other HD extras. However it does not support BD-Live/2.0. While I at first wanted a BD-Live player, after reading the downsides of BD-Live (privacy invasion + increased DRM) I decided 1.1 would be fine.
I can understand some wanting a 2.0 player to have "the final spec," but I don't believe 2.0 will be the final spec. Full color 3-D video still needs to be added and the BDA actually commented a couple of weeks ago that they are still trying to determine whether the 3-D decoding should occur in the player or display; you might need a new player profile and/or a new HDMI revision for this to occur. Thus, you really aren't safe with a 2.0 player as full color 3-D video is not part of the spec. BD-Live extras thus far have been underwhelming and take ages to download, which kinda defeats their purpose in the first place.
Overall
The 51FD is a fantastic player overall. It is not as fast to load discs as PS3, Panasonic BD30/BD50, or Sony 350/550, but it mops the floor with them when comparing video quality. Thus, I highly recommend this player so long as you can wait an extra 20-30 seconds for discs to load. If you cannot wait this time, one of the above players might be better for you - but you will lose video quality in the process.
In conclusion, it appears Pioneer has unleashed a beast of hardware here. As with all Blu-ray players based on new designs, the software still needs to go through some more firmware updates before everything falls into place.
If you are one that wants top shelf a/v quality, you need to take the BDP-51FD for a spin. There is no doubt it will be at the top of the pack in video quality. Highly recommended for home theater enthusiasts.
Also, Pioneer makes a model for $200 more (BDP-05FD) that is identical in A/V performance except it has a higher quality analog component video jack, which is bypassed if you use HDMI... So I don't think that upgrade is worth it.
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