New Blu-ray player Pioneer BDP-51FD reviewed by Williams Knoop.

May 31, 2008

I have a Sony BDP-S1E, Samsung BD-P1400, and PS3. In the 15 days that I've had this player, it's done a terrific job on video and audio quality. I'm running it on a 37" Vizio connected through HDMI. I've never had any of the stutters or other audio/video glitches that others have mentioned. This player started having hardware/software problems. It would simply quit playing during the middle of the movie 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. This likely makes this required operation out of reach for most people on this device.

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. Other firmware updatres are available but I haven't needed them yet. This player is good as far as disks that work on it but it does not support 48kHz/24-bit HD true sound that some 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 good, which is paramount if you have vast library of DVDs. I figured instead of spending $150 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. I found that the picture quality is great and the upconversion quality is superb for this player. Overall, I found this player to be competent Blu-ray player and a great upconverting DVD player.

Check out great prices on Pioneer blu ray players at Ebay.com click here now!

Click here to buy Pioneer Blu-Ray Player and save up to 25% off NOW!

Rating: