Official Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD & BDP-51FD Owners Thread / Vs 1.32 DTS-HD MA - Page 724

I'm happy to report that I just purchased an BDP-51FP on clearance at the local Best Buy (Tukwila, WA) for $200, turns out that they couldn't locate the remote since it was the floor model and chopped off another $80, making the cost $120. I'm excited to say the least!

I hope we get another firmware soon... T2 Skynet just locked up my 05 again, and it seems like the latest release of the 320's new firmware didn't help those users at all with reguards to T2 Skynet... What the heck is Pioneer thinking? A really great player, but hampered performance due to lack of having good firmware programers!

Is anyone on here in touch with someone at Pioneer, and if so, how about stepping up and sharing some information, like if and when the next firmware is going to be released. I think we deserve to know atleast that much.

You stole it! That is an amazing price on a player which I am quite fond of. Download the newest 1.32 firmware of the Pioneer website and enjoy. Whatever you do, do not turn off the player while the update is being performed. And do not do so during stormy weather when power outages are possible. Do not do anything until the player ejects the firmware disc. Otherwise, you will brick the player and have to send it in to Pioneer for service.
Cheers,
AD

Had my 1st BD that doesn't act right on my '05. "Knowing". Sound is just trash - high pitched screeching! It was a rental at my local BB - took it back and got a new copy. Same thing!

I'm at 1.32 - come on Pioneer - another FW needed!

Mike

Just a heads-up if anyone has experienced any issues with The Code BD. I don't know if I just had a bad Blockbuster rental, if there's a bad batch of disks, or some kind of mastering issue with the disk itself.

Here's my results with 3 different players.

On my Pio 51FD, it loaded, showed all the previews and then went to a black screen and hung with the Pio display showing Top Menu. I rebooted the player and this time it loaded, automatically skipped past all the previews, (this was actually a good thing ) went right to the menu and played perfectly.

On my BH200, it would not load the first time, gave me a disc error. I opened and closed the tray, this time it loaded, showed all the previews, went to the menu and played perfectly.

On my Sammy 2550, it loaded and played everything without a hitch.

Welcome to the wonderful world of BD.

Btw, this flick couldn't even be saved by Morgan Freeman. Maybe the Pio and LG were trying to tell me something.

Mike T

I have that flick in my BB queue, should be getting it in a few days. I'll check it out.

Mike T

Hey AD, long time no see. Hope all is well. I've been thinking of trading in my 3 BD players for an uber S-VHS and a carton of blank VHS tapes. I really miss the film grain and the very cool rewind feature.

Mike T

I watched the BD of Knowing last night on my 05. It played fine, no problems.

Hello,
Mike, hope all is well and that you had a great Independence Day. That would certainly be an interesting direction to take. Funny, I was reading an article the other day about the various techniques to add grain to material from HD cameras. But since you would also be receiving a carton of tapes....
Cheers,
AD

Just thought I'd share my experience in updating the firmware of my LX 71 (US equivalent 51FD) to the latest version1.32.

My set up is: Pioneer LX 71 hdmi to Yamaha RX3900 hdmi to Toshiba 72" DLP MX.

After several unsuccessful tries (WRT-Failed), I was finally able to achieve (DWLD OK) but only after I turned off the receiver and TV display. Apparently, in my particular set up, one can download only with all systems off except the player. Has this been experienced by others?

After testing the player with several blu ray discs, the player performed as expected, perfectly!

Good to know. Maybe a bad batch at BB. I'll try Hollywood Video later this week.

Thanks,
Mike

Played fine for me as well. Maybe its your receiver? Are you bitstreaming or PCM?

Watched Knowing as an mkv file the other day and was (almost literally) blown away by the sound. Although I though the ending of the movie sucked the SQ was very very good.

FYI If you are using the 51FD in Source Direct mode w/ an Onkyo xx5 or Intengra DTC-9.8 + Reon enabled, there is a bug in the Onkyo that can cause high pitched screeching with certain movies on many players (not just 51FD). This is different than the DTS-MA "bomb" some may reference.

Give us more info about your entire setup, don't just assume it is the player's fault as others have played the movie w/o any problem.

they did to some extent on the 320. I am experiencing a much lower failure rate of netflix discs on my 320. I have tested a number that WILL play on the 320, but not on my 51. Feel your pain Saturn94.

I don't think I've ever tried updating FW on my 51 with the AVR and display on. Can't think of a reason why I would either.

It's enough of a problem to be irritating at times, but not enough to be worth buying another player at this time. As of now, most of my movie viewing is still on DVD which is handle by my DVD player.

i guess i am lucky with my 51, no failures yet from any disks from my personal collection and netflix.

I have the DTC 9.8 and the 51FD and wasn't aware of this particular bug. I don't use the REON though so it wouldn't creep it's head in my particular setup. It is good to know though.

Never tried updating with anything else on. Probably best to eliminate any unneeded chain issues by leaving everything off except the player.

I've had my current 51 since Oct 08 (original 51 was purchased Aug 08, but had a hardware problem) and have had only 1 BD refuse to play. It was a netflix rental (Diary of Anne Frank [1959 version]) that looked pristine; the replacement disc played fine. I guess I'm lucky that the known problem titles are not ones that interest me (so far).

Other than that my only issue with BDs is the 51's sensitivity to less than perfect BD discs. I'm hoping Pioneer can/will fix this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Knowing (Netflix) played fine, without at flaw, on my BDP-05FD v 1.32 Firmware.

I've played close to 100 movies on my 51FD and only came across 1 disk that wouldn't play. That is until today. Lost season 2 disk 1 won't load on my unit. Starts to load then says "can't play disk". Since I'm sure others have been able to play this disk fine I'm going to chalk it up to the drive unit.

I'm still working on getting that SATA drive replacement thanks to another forum member so hopefully I'll be able to test and see if the error correction is improved.

This has been posted before, but anyone with a Harmony remote can access the service menu. You'll need to add a "Pioneer GGF1381" as a new device. It'll show up in Logitech's database as Pioneer DVD recorder. The 2 buttons you'll need to assign are ESC and DISP.

1. Press the ESC key and you'll see "ESC" near the middle of the screen.
2. Keep hitting the display button to cycle through the information screens.
3. To exit, press ESC.

A lot of the information is in HEX, but there's some interesting stuff like temperature, fan status, BD information, HDMI info, etc. You can even watch ATA information while a disk loads.

Disclaimer: Please don't mess beyond the information the screens if you dont know what you're doing.

FWIW, this is what the service remote looks like.

Does anyone have these two IR codes in hex format? I'd like to add them to my Pronto.

EDIT: Never mind. 10 seconds with Google, and here they are: http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin...cgi?kw=GGF1381

Silly me!

Just wanted to give some feedback on Fox's 12 Rounds BD. I don't think we should be throwing all or maybe any of the blame on the players. This is becoming a habit with too many newer titles, but I'm getting different results on 3 different players with 12 Rounds. The players I have are the Pio 51FD, LG BH200 and Sammy 2550.

I don't care if it's playing perfectly on some players, there's something weird with this disk and it just serves as a testament to the quirky/crappy BD format, as well as Fox's particular method of mastering/protection. I should also mention that I just finished testing Street Fighter-Legend of Chun-Li, also a Fox title. This title appears to be mastered like 12 Rounds and seems to have the same BD+ protection???

First, Street Fighter. It loaded and played perfectly with no weird menu issues on all 3 of my players. With that being said, what appears to be a similarly mastered title, 12 Rounds yielded very different and strange results.

On the Pio 51, 12 Rounds loaded right to the main menu and when play was chosen, went to the very first 20th Century logo/FBI screen and hung. A reboot yielded the same results. On a third try, from the main menu scene selection, I chose chapter 2 and it went to chapter 2 and played the movie. However, the "graphic" from the menu would stay onscreen. Hitting popup menu did nothing. Ruined, don't know if it's worth putting this minor workaround as an addendum in post#7???

On the BH200, it loaded properly, went to the menu and played perfectly. However, it would not allow me to choose the popup menu at all. I could skip chapters with chapter skip, but no use of the popup menu.

Lastly, on the 2550, everything worked as it should, but not without some strangeness. After stopping and ejecting 12 Rounds, I put in the True Blood DVD which loaded but went to a black screen, requiring a reboot to get it to work.

This is really getting ridiculous, the BDA and the studios are the ones that should be held accountable. To coin the new word I learned years ago from the movie Heartbreak Ridge, (a fav of mine) BD is a real clusterf*#k. How many years is it going to take BD to mature? At this rate, it may well be dead at an early age. I shouldn't need 2 or 3 players to "almost" insure that I can properly play any movie that I choose.

Ok, I'm stepping off the soapbox.

Mike T

Hi wrinklefree, of what use would the service menu be to me? In other words, what could I do in the service menu to improve my viewing/listening quality?

Thanks,
Mike T

We all should pick a date and all CALL Pioneer at the same time and bombard them with complaints about lack of a firmware fix for these titles.. It kills me to see my 05 lock up over T2 Skynet.. And now, after seeing that the 320/23 latest firmware fix of a few days ago did not fix this issue is not looking good for us at all!

Lets make a list of all of the non-playing titles, and lets all pick a day/date to call into Pioneer and put in a mass complaint. That should get there attention for sure. Telling each other here of what does not play is great for confirming bad titles, but that's as far as it goes. We all need to take it a step further and let Pioneer know that where not going to take there BS of casually realeasing non-sense firmware.

Pioneer Customer Service at 800-421-1404.

There aren't that many non-playing titles. Your time might be better spent calling the studios putting out their garbage titles that wreak havoc with most players.

Mike T

I don't own too many BD, only about 400 (310-ish listed on my signature), thus far, NOT A SINGLE DISC can't be played by my BDP-05.

That's a great idea to call Pioneer all at the same time. I'll call in and say "all my discs are playing without a hitch!"

I own 5 BD players from Pioneer, Sony, and Samsung. The only disc that can't be played properly:

1. Ratatouille -> on my Samsung BDP-1200
2. 12 Rounds -> on all 5 players (well, they all played the movie with varying degrees of success).

If BD just use HD-I like HD DVD and don't use numerous layers of DRM, all of these stupidities won't happen.