Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player

[resevilfan86]

Alrighty guys I got something for ya all. Today at my store (best buy/magnolia), we got a Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player put out on our display. Yes I know it isnt suppost to be released for another month or so and technically it still isnt. Do not ask me how but we were able to receive one. It also came with a new demo disc, whcih was a disc full of Fox movie clips of The Day After Tomorrow, Kingdom of Heaven, Ice Age 2, and X-Men 2. The disc was encoded in Mpeg 2 1080p (I know because it kept saying that over and over on the demo itself) and let me tell you that it looked AMAZING!!!. O btw it was being displayed on the Pioneer Elite 1080p plasma. Now i was not able to make any good comparisons like use the samsung demo disc on the new player to see if it made much of an improvement nor was I able to slide in our demo copy of The Fifth Element (we opened it before we knew how bad it looked) to see if it made any significant improvement on the movie. Also in case you are all wondering, on the player itself, it did not have a DTS-HD logo on the front, just Dolby Digital and regular DTS so I am not sure if it can play the HD-Lossy audio.

[hmurchison]

I bet the Pio is visibly superior to the Samsung. Pioneer isn't going to put out an Elite BD player and have it look like crap.

If money wasn't an issue it's the player I'd purchase. It's about as future proof as you're going to get right now in BD land.

[WellInformed]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I bet the Pio is visibly superior to the Samsung. Pioneer isn't going to put out an Elite BD player and have it look like crap.

If money wasn't an issue it's the player I'd purchase. It's about as future proof as you're going to get right now in BD land.

It's about as future proof as one can get in the next-gen player market next to the PS3 (with HDMI 1.3,1080p, and streaming/storage capabilities).

[hmurchison]

The PS3 could be a nice surprise if the quality remains competitive. We'll know soon enough.

[txfilmguy]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I bet the Pio is visibly superior to the Samsung. Pioneer isn't going to put out an Elite BD player and have it look like crap.

If money wasn't an issue it's the player I'd purchase. It's about as future proof as you're going to get right now in BD land.

I know the Panasonic looks spectacular, and I would expect no less from a Pioneer Elite machine... but the Samsung is far from looking like crap.

[illegalprelude]

whats going to be the going price of the unit?

[resevilfan86]

at the moment its at 1800 but once it is officially released it will be 1500, right now we cant even sell any units, im thinking they just sent it out to us so that some people can look at a better unit.

[Tejstar]

Any chance of some pics?

[HTFreak]

Any chance of you being able to test out the built-in network media player capabilities with HD files like those MPEG-2 .TS, MPEG-4's .MKV and VC-1 .WMV files to see if they work. Any mention of this player supporting UPNP storage devices? Sorry for the tons of questions.

[resevilfan86]

Ill give it a try, will most likely be next week since the rest of the week we are going to be pretty busy. But I was under the impression there is nothing out there yet and wont be until 2007 for networking.

[resevilfan86]

Okay guys i got a little bit more info for you guys, remember how i said that this model was not officially released yet. Well it turns out I can understand why. Today i decided to put in the Samsung Demo disc into the pioneer elite to see if it made any difference and to my surprise the disc wouldnt even load. I did however try out our opened copy of The Fifth Element which did work. Of course it did not too much with the film grain/scratches dirt etc etc which was not a surprise to me, especially in the opening shots but it did really improve the color on it. Of course im comparing it to the samsung BD player and Samsung 1080p LCD tv. The picture actually looked more "high def". I really hope they rerelease this movie with an improved master because it is one of my favorite movies and i know it can look better than what it really is.

Also sorry I did not get any pics of the current demo disc in the player but i will try.

[Tejstar]

Originally Posted by resevilfan86

Also sorry I did not get any pics of the current demo disc in the player but i will try.

Thanks - that would be great!

[Tejstar]

The Pioneer is now delayed until December. Click here.

[MovieMinded]

Even if a Blu-Ray player is top-of-the-line, as the Pioneer claims to be, it can only do so much with a Blu-Ray disc. If the disc is not A-quality it will not be A-quality on the Blu-Ray machine. Samsung is not the only company to blame when it comes to the shoddy reputation Blu-Ray has received, Sony also has alot of blame to take since their discs do not look the way they should on any player.

All these delays show that Blu-Ray was not ready for Primetime this year and HD-DVD was. Sony and the Blu-Ray camp simply rushed the format and the PS3 in order to compete with HD-DVD and the Xbox 360.

[illegalprelude]

Originally Posted by MovieMinded

Even if a Blu-Ray player is top-of-the-line, as the Pioneer claims to be, it can only do so much with a Blu-Ray disc. If the disc is not A-quality it will not be A-quality on the Blu-Ray machine. Samsung is not the only company to blame when it comes to the shoddy reputation Blu-Ray has received, Sony also has alot of blame to take since their discs do not look the way they should on any player.

All these delays show that Blu-Ray was not ready for Primetime this year and HD-DVD was. Sony and the Blu-Ray camp simply rushed the format and the PS3 in order to compete with HD-DVD and the Xbox 360.

The PS3 has been rushed on what grounds? Being biest dosent count as facts, just to let you know.