New Blu-ray player Pioneer BDP-51FD reviewed by Jim Kieburtz

August 30, 2008

I have a Pioneer BDP-51FD, and PS3. In the 1 week that I've had this player, it's done a terrific job on video and audio quality. I'm playing it on a 49" Sharp connected through HDMI. I've never had any of the stutters or other audio/video glitches that others have mentioned. I can say right off that Panasonic has taken the sting out of the higher price of Blu-Ray players with a good offering of features you won't find in other models. The BR players are all updatable so it's possible to play the latest movies. However, this player has a VERY weak failure mode and upgrade procedure. Since Bluray is still in its infancy (so-to-speak) there aren't many options for players.

I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY DISC PLAY OR CONNECTION ISSUES AS HAVE BEEN REPORTED BY OTHER USERS. MY ONLY ADVICE ON THIS IS TO KEEP THE FIRMWARE UPDATED EITHER BY LAN OR BY CALLING SAMSUNG AND REQUESTING A FIRMWARE DISC. For those who wonder if it will play homemade Blu-Ray DVDs I can report that I have sucessfully created a Blu-Ray DVD with menus on a 25G Single Layer BD-RE (Rewritable) disk using the LG GGW-H20L burner. One drawback that keeps this unit from being perfect is no ethernet connectability for firmware upgrading. It is my opinion that this player was released prematurely based on its feature set. This player did a great job on the Bluray compatibility & picture quality and the DVD upconversion quality. This player is good as far as disks that work on it but it does not support 48kHz/24-bit HD true sound that most blu-ray disks come with. The sound will pop out of sync with the visual. Before you buy call the manufacturer and ask if they have solved this problem by issuing a firmware (disk to put in the machine to update the harddrive) or not.

Upconversion on this player is great, which is very important if you have big library of DVDs. I figured instead of spending $100 or so on upconvert DVD player to work with my new TV, I decided to go directly to Blu-Ray, since the Blu-Ray is now standard of HD DVDs. The upconversion is wonderful! Best part is I can use optical and take advantage of the new audio codecs. Overall, I found this player to be competent Blu-ray player and a great upconverting DVD player.

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