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Pioneer BDP-51FD User Manual

Review, Home theater high fidelity, Of and

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© Copyright 2009 Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

www.hometheaterhifi.com

IntroductIon

Many people have been waiting for Blu-ray

players to hit the magic price point of $200,

where people think mass adoption will start to

take place and it will slowly overtake DVD as

the dominant home video format. However,

there’s also another range of players that are

starting to come out now, those of reference

quality designs with virtually no expense

spared. The BDP-09FD from Pioneer is their

entry into that arena. Featuring a top of the

line analog section, full compatibility with all

areas of Profile 2.0, and high quality internal

and external parts, how would it compare to

a standard Blu-ray player?

desIgn

If I hadn’t known how well built the Pioneer

was going to be, my first clue would have

been when the UPS driver had to use the

hand truck and elevator to deliver it to my

condo instead of just carrying it up the stairs

as they will do with most deliveries I get.

Opening the box, the Pioneer was packed

decently in a couple of

Styrofoam cutouts and

it was in perfect shape,

though I had expected

that they might pack it

in something a bit more

secure and reusable, as

that type of packing

tends to break down or

break into pieces after a

few uses.

Also contained in the box was a remote

(identical in layout to the other Pioneer

BluRay players, but with metal construction

instead of plastic and glow-in-the-dark

buttons), manual, Ethernet cable, BNC

to RCA adapters for the component video

jacks, and standard RCA audio and video

cables. Unfortunately, Pioneer still doesn’t

see fit to include an HDMI cable inside the

box of their Blu-ray players, but includes a

standard composite video cable that will

almost certainly never be used by someone

purchasing this player. The remote, which

has a design that I am not a fan of, was

designed so if you have other Pioneer

components (Plasma display or Receiver),

the remote layout will be familiar and you

can use it easily, but if you don’t have these

other components, then the layout is just not

that well designed. Anyone that is buying this

player will almost certainly have a universal

remote solution I would imagine though.

The Pioneer BDP-09FD is constructed

unlike any other BluRay player, or other AV

review

“... they did a fantastic job with Blu-ray playback once

again.”

“The BDP-09FD delivers

in spades and should

probably be on the very

top of your short list.”

Pioneer BdP-09Fd elite Blu-ray Player (Benchmark) - May 2009

by chris heinonen

&

AdriAn Wittenberg

Home Theater High Fidelity

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