Review: Pioneer BDP-51 Blu-Ray Player
February 4, 2009
Pioneer has consistently produced high quality audio and video equipments aimed at audiophiles and videophiles. Consequently, the consumer electronics they manufacture cost more than its competitor's products. The Pioneer BDP-51FD is aimed at higher end of the Blu-ray disc player market. The player supports most, if not every major audio formats. Also, the player incorporated Wolfson digital audio converter, which is stated as being professional grade audio component.
The BDP-51FD's design really stands out from other Blu-ray players. Primarily, it looks like an extra blu-ray player stacked on top of a blu=ray player. This effectively doubles the size of the player. Also, it is definitely heavier than most other Blu-ray player. The tray and LCD are loaced in the center of the player with basic play back function on the right side. The back of the player supports the HDMI, component and composite video, S-video, 2 channel and 7.1 channel output, and two digital outputs. It's nice to have out of the box support for 7.1 channel audio output. The player also links up with your Pioneer Kuro television set like Sony and Sharp. The combination of Kuro tv and this player gives you extra convenience and features. This seems to be the trend with big manufacturers, linking their television set with Blu-ray disc players.
I watched several blu-ray movies including Batman Begins, Ghost Rider, and Matrix. None of them showed any problems, which is on par with most other players from top manufacturers. No artifacts or jaggieness or motion blur. Also, the upconversion looked exceptional. Some players show definite signs of upconversion problems. Not this player. It upconverts with flawless accuracy.
The real selling point might be its prowess in audio front. It can bit stream all formats to receivers without many problem. Also, it has onboard decoding of Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, and DTS HD Master AUdio. This will be helpful if you have older receiver not capable of decoding these audio formats. Now, I'm not expert audiophile, so I didn't notice any difference between this player's sound system compared to other comparable players. This does not mean that there are no discernible difference in sound quality. It just means most consumers might not notice any difference in audio quality.
This player debuted around June of 2008. This most likely attributed to the lack of Profile 2.0 support. This player only supports Profile 1.1 out of box. I'm not sure if there is planned upgrade via disc flashing. Even with dsic flashing, I don't see it supporting Profile 2.0 as it lacks ethernet connectivity. Ultimately, it's up to consumer to decide if inclusion of Wolfson DAC is worht the extra $100-150.
Rating:
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Blu-Ray Discussions
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Excellent build quality and performance
I’m very pleased with this player. The build quality is excellent. The video performance is stunning and the audio performance is also outstanding. My system has electrostatic speakers and very high resolution. I compared the sound of this player to an excellent CD/SACD player that I use and found the Pioneer to produce a very natural soundstage that was deep, wide and transparent without being bright.
Highly recommended.
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Up to Pioneer Standards
I purchased my first Pioneer product in 1975, and this player contiues the streak of well made, easy to use audio/video products.
Was it worth the extra money? Yes.
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BLU-RAY-ALMOST UNIVERSAL
This Pioneer BDP-51FD player is indeed a great machine. The picture quality is VERY cinematic as advertised, and artifact free even with the factory presets. What I loved above all is its ability to play NTSC as well as PAL encoded video. It is region locked to Region 1 DVD and Region A for Blu-ray, but the ALL region discs play perfectly wether they are NTSC or PAL encoded. Many of the European imports that are region free, either standard or Blu-rays, have PAL material that will not play on my SONY Blu-ray players, but will play on this unit, just fine. I wish we had the ability make this unit region FREE altogether. It would make it a great international or “universal” player!
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Just the best
After owning several blu-ray plavers, the Samsung BD-P1000, Sony S300 and S1, this is the very best. Picture is awesome and audio is just great. just buy one!.
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Great Player for a great price
Was concerned from reading all the other reviews that I would have difficulty with this since I am not overly techno literate. But I was able to copy the necessary upgrades to a disk and upgrade the unit when it arrived. Everything went just like the instructions and the picture and sound quality are excellent. Have only one actual BluRay disk but other DVDs look like BluRay on this unit. Same unit in Best Buy, highly recommended by their sales person was over twice as much. Thanks for making it available at such a great price. Delivery was on time too.
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Quite a deal…
After doing some research, I decided that a BD Profile 2.0 player wasn’t something that I needed or even wanted, so I starting looking for the best Profile 1.1 deal I could find. I decided on the Pioneer…just a few months ago this unit was selling for $600, $300 to my door was the price range I was looking for and got. So far its everything thats its cracked up to be, particularily after upgrading the firmware to 1.25a. Plays everything I’ve thrown into it, picture quality is incredible plus does a very nice job on audio CDs. If you have an older A/V receiver, it has analog connections so you don’t have to miss out on the new codecs. I highly recommend this unit.
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EXCEPTIONAL SOUND AND PICTURE
Bought this unit to replace a Samsung BDP-1500 which failed after 1 disk. It exhibits the signature Pioneer quality construction and finish – looks good even when turned off!
It really is a pity that they are exiting the TV business – they built by far the best units available – but you have to pay for the best and these days most people will settle for a cheaper price and lower final quality.
In this case sound quality is superb and picture is all that I hoped for. It may have cost more tahn the Samsung, but quality and flexibility of set up (outputs 7 channel analog) more than justify the cost uplift over the bargain unit.
Only negative is the slow start-up, but I’m told it is quicker than most (certainly faster than the non-starting Samsung), so that is just the price of entry to 1080P Video replay! Like the Cadillac ad claims – if you can wait for it to turn on, it will return the favor!
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MUCH better than PS3 player
I bought this blu ray player as a result of having to get rid of my PS3 because it was just too fun. Anyway, I have to say that although I can’t give a technical review of this player, I can say that just on casual visual comparison it is miles above the PS3 in image quality. I’m so happy I got this player.
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Best BD Player under $300
This is by far the best player on sale under $300 price range ($600). It’s built like a tank with outstanding picture and sound quality. I have PS3 and I can say that the picture quality of Pioneer is better. Also, it is very quiet compared to PS3. It is not BD live, but I don’t really care about that; for me, it’s the picture quality and the sound that matters. It does not internally decode DTS Master but is promised in the future with system update; for now, the player downmixes DTS Master and sends DTS signal to the receiver; however, if the receiver can decode DTS Master, there is no need to worry … the player can send a bitstream DTS Master signal to the receiver. One more thing I’d like to mention is that the player is made in Japan.
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Nice blue-ray player but has flaws…
I’ve had this player for about a week. Overall it’s a nice player. It’s quite a bit bigger than most other players I’ve seen. I’d compare it to a typical home theater receiver. Mine came with 1.17 firmware so I went ahead and updated it to the most recent available from Pioneer’s web site. Somewhat of a hassle, but at least its possible without returning it to a service center.
Likes
It’s built like a good quality home theater component.
Noticeable picture quality improvement over DVD.
HDMI connectivity.
Dislikes
Slow boot time. Approx. 30 seconds from pushing power to being able to load a disk. With my previous dvd player, I could push power and instantly load a disk. Maybe all blue-ray players have this issue?
Menus tend to be fancier with blue-ray discs which results in slower response time when your bouncing through the menus. Not unacceptably slow, but noticeably slower than with dvd menu
The LCD can be dimmed or turned off, but other front panel lights cannot be dimmed/shut off. For some reason, they felt it was important to make the power button excessively bright which is an annoyance.
Overall, I like the player but would have looked more closely at the competition if I’d knew about the three dislikes I discovered once I bought it.
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