Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1 BD Player Peek
Blu-ray shot out of the gate like a dead rat. The Samsung player had a problem which made the picture quality well, not so good. Then came the Panasonic and Philips players which were decent, but were a bit high priced, like the Samsung. And the Sony BDP-S1 is too. Actually, the Sony PS3 is the only decently priced BD player out there.
So how does the new Pioneer player fit into all of this? Ultimate AV’s Shane C. Buettner has been really busy recently, just having taken a look at the Sony Pearl and PS3. Now he does a short-take on the Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1.
The Pioneer is a lot like the Sony. Neither plays CD’s. Neither decodes TrueHD or DTS HD Master. But they both play Blu-ray Discs! But the Pioneer also streams media from a PC connected to your home LAN, because the Pioneer has a network port.
So what’s the Pioneer advantage (besides the LAN thing)? The picture quality is fantastic, even on VC1 discs. (I mention that only because they seem to be slightly softer on other BD players than the HD DVD players.) Mr. Buettner even thinks that the Pioneer is worth the $500 premium over the Sony. But at $1500, I find that’s a bit like splitting rat hairs. Once you get into that price range, you know you’re going high end. And what BD really needs now is some affordable players.
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December 21st, 2006 at 12:36 pm
That’s a very nice turn of phrase, there, Henning. I like it a lot: “shot out of the gate like a dead rat.” I would be interested in knowing how HD-DVD came out of the gate, as well, with a correspondingly chosen analogy!
It will be interesting to see how many people pick up these high-priced BD players when they could just get a PS3 for a half to a third of the price, and then play games on it too!
December 21st, 2006 at 12:45 pm
HD DVD’s delayed launch wasn’t too hot either, but it was a lot better than BD’s! So maybe “shot out of the gate like a timid turtoise” ?