Pioneer BDP-320 Blu-ray Player (November 2009 Home Theater magazine review link)

[HDTV1080P]

The Pioneer BDP-320 has an excellent video processor for those interested in watching any type of BLU-RAY disc including 1080i concert videos. The Pioneer BDP-320 scaling for DVD's is better then most BLU-RAY players accept for the OPPO, Panasonic 2009 models, and the Denon DVD-A1UDCI. Home Theater magazine only gave Pioneer a good rating for scaling while some other players received an excellent rating for scaling. The Pioneer BDP-320 will only convert 480i DVD's to 1080P/60. The OPPO, 2009 Panasonic models , and Denon DVD-A1UDCI will even do a reverse 3:2 pulldown and upconvert 480i DVD's to 1080p/24. All BLU-RAY players that also scale to 1080p/24 for DVD have historically received an excellent rating for scaling from Home Theater magazine. For those consumers that still watch a lot of 480i DVD's, having a player that does upconvert to 1080p/24 on DVD is an important feature.

The Pioneer BDP-320 also has a nice feature called source direct that works just like the reference OPPO. One can bypass the video processor in the BDP-320 when source direct is turned on. For example if one owns a 1080P Pioneer plasma from 2006,2007, or 2008 and the pure cinema advanced setting is turned on in the plasma screen, the video processor inside the Pioneer plasma panel will do a reverse 3:2 pulldown for film based 480i DVD's. Then the video processor located in the Pioneer plasma will convert the image to 1080/24 and refresh it on the screen at 1080P at 72 frames per second. For those that own displays that have excellent scalars and video processors that do reverse 3:2 pulldown, the DVD scaling feature is not a issue if one plans on using source direct in the BLU-RAY player.

The Pioneer BDP-320 also includes 1GB of built in memory for BD-LIVE, like most other BLU-RAY players it lacks a legacy 480i S-Video jack.

The biggest negative of the Pioneer BDP-320 is the very slow disc load times and navigation especially on some Java based BLU-RAY discs. Also the Pioneer BDP-320 according to the review takes around 30 minutes to receive a firmware update where as the OPPO only takes less then 5 minutes.


Hopefully Pioneer will improve on future players so that they match or beat the LG or OPPO when it comes to speed and navigation.


The following are some select quotes from the November 2009 Home Theater review

Click here to read the complete review at the Home Theater magazine website

" Pioneer’s first BD-Live player"


" Exceptional video processing"


"Slow boot-up and disc loading, especially on Java-intensive discs"

" With a long history in optical disc technology, Pioneer has been slow to develop new and innovative features in its Blu-ray players. While its previous offerings have been on the upper end of the pricing range, the company’s players have left a lot to be desired. Last fall, I reviewed the Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD player for our sister publication, UltimateAVMag.com. While I was very impressed by its sturdy build quality, it was unreliable, with lip-sync issues and player lockups. It also couldn’t internally decode DTS-HD Master Audio. Granted, a firmware upgrade eventually fixed most of these issues, but the DTS-HD Master Audio upgrade didn’t happen until early this summer—more than six months later than Pioneer promised. As a founding member of the Blu-ray Disc Association, you’d expect Pioneer’s players to be among the most innovative on the market. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case."

" But that’s all in the past. The Pioneer BDP-320 brings a lot to the table at half the cost of the Elite branded BDP-05FD."

"The back panel includes one HDMI 1.3a output with support for 48-bit Deep Color (not supported by either DVD or Blu-ray), an Ethernet port, component output, and 7.1 analog audio for consumers with legacy equipment that lacks HDMI inputs."

" The player internally decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and sends it via HDMI as PCM or analog from the 7.1-channel output."

" It also includes Source Direct mode, which outputs signals as encoded on the disc with no video processing applied. This is a great option if you have an outboard scaler."

" I proceeded with the update and was surprised to see a warning that the firmware update process could take up to 20 minutes! I’d been living with an OPPO BDP-83 for the past several months, so this shocked me, since that machine updates in less than five minutes over the same Internet connection. Regardless, I proceeded with the update, and it took closer to 30 minutes to complete."

" The BDP-320 did an excellent job in virtually all of our video processing tests. With the Spears & Munsil High Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Edition, the player sailed through all of the deinterlacing tests with flying colors."

" The BDP-320 passed both above-white and below-black information, and the scaling from 480i to 1080p rivals the output from my reference OPPO BDP-83."

" As I expected, Blu-ray Discs looked phenomenal."

" The biggest complaint I hear about Blu-ray is the slow startup and loading of discs. Unfortunately, the BDP-320 does little to improve the situation. My biggest criticism of the Pioneer is its responsiveness. The power-on sequence takes nearly 30 seconds compared with 12 on the OPPO BDP-83 and 10 on a PS3. Also, load times for Java-intensive discs can be excruciatingly slow. For example, the Disney/Pixar Blu-ray of Wall-E takes a minute and 30 seconds on the Pioneer versus 53 seconds on the OPPO and 40 on the PS3. I found no tangible improvement in the power-on or disc loading times over the previous generation’s BDP-05FD I tested. Moreover, once discs are loaded, the navigation is sluggish. When selecting a chapter, the player can take nearly five seconds to advance versus the OPPO BDP-83’s near instantaneous response."

" The Pioneer is a solid performer with both Blu-ray and DVD playback. However, its responsiveness and speed leave a lot to be desired..."

Click here to read the complete review at the Home Theater magazine website

[Jwilly019]

Thanks for posting the review OP. Thinking about the 23FD right now.