Andy Clough:
Yes. The Pioneer is our Best Buy blu-ray player £500-£700, while the Panasonic fits in the £300-£400 band and is our overall Product of the Year on a performance/pound basis.
But the Pioneer delivers a step up from the Panasonic in terms of picture performance, and sonically it's performance is breathtaking, majoring in detail, refinement and finesse.
The only caveats to add are that the BDP-LX71 can't decode DTS-HD Master Audio onboard (although Pioneer says a future firmware upgrade will solve this) and there's no Ethernet connection for automatic updates over the web, or BD-Live functionality.
But if these things don't bother you, it's a terrific player and worth the extra money over the Panasonic.
I'm sure it is a great player and i'd love one....for free.
£600 is a lot to pay for a player that can't do DTS-HD MA out of the box, is not BD Live and no ethernet for EASY updates. Okay you can drop the BD Live but the others are a must.
Future firmware updates are just lazy, rushing a product out before it's ready. It's not on Pioneer, I expect more of you. What happens if the update never happens? You're stuck with a relatively expensive player that can't do what you ask of it.
If I'm paying £600 I WANT latest specs AND a fair degree of future proofing.