Pioneer BDP-51 any good...?

[kpodolski]

I was at a Best Buy today with a freind of mine who was there to buy a new TV and I happened to see a Pioneer BDP-51 BluRay player new in the box for $149.99. The sales person I was talking with said it normally sold for $600. I bought it not really knowing much about it but with the knowledge that I could return it if I did not like it. To be honest I haven't really kept up with Bluray technology (though I have been following the Oppo 83 player). I'm more of any audio person. I was slightly leary about buying it without having any knowledge of the product but for $150 I thought "what the hell". I've spent worse money before. On a side note, the player is beautiful though...

Anyone have one? Care to share any tips?

Thanks,
Ken

[krips]

Well, a blu ray player is a nice thing to have, even if you don't plan on buying them anytime soon. $150 is cheap too. It's only $2 to rent a bluray here so that's what I do since most are $15+ to buy. Here's a review of your player :

http://www.buyblurayplayers.com/review-pioneer-bdp-51-blu-ray-player-2548

[kpodolski]

Well, a blu ray player is a nice thing to have, even if you don't plan on buying them anytime soon. $150 is cheap too. It's only $2 to rent a bluray here so that's what I do since most are $15+ to buy. Here's a review of your player :

http://www.buyblurayplayers.com/revi...ay-player-2548

Thanks for the link krips. You're right about just having a player. I did not have any intention of buying a Bluray player (anytime soon) but couldn't pass up the offer.
I watched BladeRunner last night. It was awesome! The opening shot with the Tyrell pyramid was incredible. The was so much detail in the "hades" shot and on the pyramid...I was truly amazed. I also rented Dark Knight.

I used the digital coax to my SSP-600 to watch BladeRunner. But I'm going to hook up the muti-channel out from the Pioneer to check out the higher resolution soundtrack on the disc which my processor cannot decode.
We'll see how that one goes...

[kmcheng]

Thanks for the link krips. You're right about just having a player. I did not have any intention of buying a Bluray player (anytime soon) but couldn't pass up the offer.
I watched BladeRunner last night. It was awesome! The opening shot with the Tyrell pyramid was incredible. The was so much detail in the "hades" shot and on the pyramid...I was truly amazed. I also rented Dark Knight.

I used the digital coax to my SSP-600 to watch BladeRunner. But I'm going to hook up the muti-channel out from the Pioneer to check out the higher resolution soundtrack on the disc which my processor cannot decode.
We'll see how that one goes...

It will be awesome.

Just make sure you also change the settings on the player and select the appropriate sound tracks after you switch from co-ax to multi-channel connections.

[wildpanda86]

That's a great Blu-ray player, just got mine from Best Buy a few weeks ago for $200... so $149 is a very good price for it.

Basically it's a debadged Pioneer Elite.

This player has one of the best picture and audio performance out of all the Blu-ray players including current ones. Using the multichannel analog outputs, you would be using the players internal Wolfson DAC's which is a good thing.

If you haven't already done so, download Pioneer's latest firmware update to disc... as it may improve load times, audio performance, and disc incompatibility.

Congrats!!!

[kpodolski]

If you haven't already done so, download Pioneer's latest firmware update to disc... as it may improve load times, audio performance, and disc incompatibility.

Congrats!!!

Yeah, that's next on my list. Just found out I have an older firmware. I called Pioneer after I found out that I may need a hardware upgrade to play some newer movies; Slumdog Millionaire & Quantum of Solace. The rep said my unit did not fall into the serial number range but said I should uprade to the most current firmware. I'm going to rent Quantum of Solace just to make sure it plays.

So far so good. I'm really happy with the player. I can't believe I got it for 150 bucks...things like that never happen to me!

[kpodolski]

Everything is good. I rented Quatum of Solace and it played fine in my unit. Accoring the the Pioneer rep. it sounds like there are less than 100 units that need a hardware upgrade. I loaded the newest firmware (which went smoothly). The firmware added some new features for the multi-channel speaker setup. Did not notice any improvement in regards to how fast the player reads a discs (both bluray & dvd).

There are a few items with this player that I do not like:

1. It is painfully slow. I have a Sony SCD-1. It's slow to load too but compared to the Pioneer it is a lithe gazelle.

2. When you use the HDMI connector the Pioneer kills all the other outputs. So I can't run the composite out to my SSP-600 to view the video feed on the display of the processor. I don't understand this bucause all of my other DVD players do it (Onkyo DV-SP1000, Panasonic DMR-EZ27, Magnavox H2160MW9 hard drive recorder).

3. The digital outs (co-ax and optical) and the multi-channel out cannot be used at the same time either. They are not all hot at the same time. To change one or the other requires the user to go back into the original set up and choose one or the other. Very odd and a pain in the butt.

In conclusion, I can say that for $150 I'm happy I bought this player. It's an inexpensive way to get my foot in the Bluray front door. If I bought this to be used as my sole DVD/Bluray player I would have probably returned it to Best Buy. Its speed and response time would be totally unacceptable to me (others may disagree...and probably will!). I guess it's safe to say that Bluray is still an infant technology going through some teething pains. But, I'm still glad I bought the player! :T

[Hdale85]

I imagine the multiple outputs being disabled probably has something to do with how they programmed it with HDCP.

[BW4me]

Ken - are you saying that the pioneer kills other video and audio outputs when using HDMI?

I'm just curious as I'm looking at this unit and the newer version (BBP320) at amazon, both within $20 of each other. For my set up I would want to run HDMI to LCD and optical or 5.1 analog output to my rotel RSX1067.

Steve

[kpodolski]

Ken - are you saying that the pioneer kills other video and audio outputs when using HDMI?

I'm just curious as I'm looking at this unit and the newer version (BBP320) at amazon, both within $20 of each other. For my set up I would want to run HDMI to LCD and optical or 5.1 analog output to my rotel RSX1067.

Steve

Yeah. Unless I'm doing something wrong, if you select HDMI it kills ALL other video outs (component, S & composite). If you select the multi-channel out it limits the digital outs to 2-channel only. I'm only using the mulit-ch out because my SSP-600 does not decode the newer formats so this doesn't really affect me ( and I don't use this player to play back DVD's). Hope this helps?

I do have one questions for any 51FD owners. When I set up the multi-channel speaker there is no option for setting speaker distance. This seems odd to me. Is the distance somehow calculated into the speaker levels? Tried finding some reviews for this unit but came up empty when it came to this question.