Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD Review Thread

[Tekman]

DENVER — Pioneer will unveil at CEDIA Expo its second Blu-ray Disc player, which will be sold in October under the Elite badge at a $1,000 suggested retail price.

The Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD Blu-ray Disc player offers increased bandwidth capacity affording internal decoding of high resolution audio formats for: Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital+Plus, and DTS-HD as well as bit-stream output for all advanced audio formats including DTS-HD Master for 7.1 surround sound performance.

The player includes HDMI v1.3 output, and support for 1080p high definition at a 24 frames per second (fps) rate.

The Pioneer Elite Blu-ray Disc player incorporates HDMI Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) to simplify integration of operation with other HDMI-CEC-enabled high-definition theater components. The feature allows users to control a whole home theater setup with a single remote

for maximum convenience capability.

Also included is Pioneer’s Home Media Gallery that allows users to directly access and playback music, movies and photos stored on a home PC.

The home networking feature provides IP networking for immediate downloading of new digital media files from the computer through the BDP-95FD to a connected flat-screen television.

The Pioneer Elite Blu-ray Disc player is compliant with Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), Windows and Apple computer video, Windows Vista or Windows Media Connect as well as Microsoft Playsforsure DRM technology.

The new BDP-95FD supports playback of CD, DVD, MP3 and WMA formats. Improvements in the new model over the previous BDP-HD1 model include: HDMI 1.3 vs. HDMI 1.1, internal decoding of Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital+Plus and DTS-HD as well as bit-stream output for all advanced audio formats including DTS-HD Master for 7.1 surround sound. The BDP-HD1 only decoded standard Dolby and DTS audio and did not support internal decoding of Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus or DTS-HD. The BDP-HD1 also did not offer HDMI-CEC control.