The Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD Owner's Thread... - Page 270

Hmmm "Enhances stability of BD-ROM/DVD-Video playback". I am thinking that might be the issue with my player, as I have never had the "unknown disc" error with my BDP-09FD. My latest blu-ray purchases "Rango" locked up on one spot (repeatable) and "Rio" became a pixelated mess at some point. (neither of these titles gave me a problem on my Panasonic DMP-BD55). I am running 2.70 firmware and will update to 2.72 when it is available for download.

It's available.

More with my BDP-95FD I would occasionally have a DVD freeze (repeatable) or pixilization that would not happen on my DV-59AVi DVD player. I did have an issue prior to the repair where season 2 of Mad Men froze on my BDP-09FD but not on the 95FD. I just figure that was one player being more sensitive than the other.

If you're not getting the "unknown disc" you probably don't have a problem.

Fred

I, too had an issue and had to have my drive replaced. To those of you who had their drives replaced...when I got mine back, I could swear that the blue light on the front of the drive is different. Mine now has a lot of white in the light. Am I misremembering what it looked like or does yours now have about 50/50 blue/white light? BTW...Pioneer wiggled its way out of warranty for me because they received my unit 2 weeks after the warranty technically expired. There was no talking with them, they would not budge for me. Kinda pissed me off for what it cost initially. I was told exactly that Pioneer does not treat this unit any different than any other unit, regardless of price. As an owner of the BDP09, that made me feel real appreciated as a customer. Anyway, enough rant, how about the light?

Pioneer told me their policy was to give a 30-day grace period after the warranty expiration (2 yrs from date on sales receipt) for them to receive the unit for repair...you should speak to a supervisor if they received it 2 wks after the 2 yrs was up and wouldn't cover your repair under warranty.

I'm sorry, I meant my warranty expired 2 weeks after the additional 30 day grace period. They would not budge on the 2 weeks over.

While watching a movie last night I kept looking at the blue light.... Yeah I think it is a little brighter and has a bit more white to it....

From the number of people that have had to have their drive replaced just out of the posters here, I am really confident that the drive issue is a component failure, not normal wear and tear. The timing of it happening right around the 2 year mark for just about everybody reinforces that even more. Not only did I make my case to Pioneer, I also had my vendor (Magnolia) contact them. I wouldn't give up and would continue to press the issue. You don't expect a $2200 piece of equipment to fail like this. Also the way it fails is first you have a load issue from time to time, then it gets more frequent, then you can't play any blu-rays at all. Pioneer's standard reply when you contact them is "load the newest firmware" or "we have new firmware coming out soon". Initially I thought I had a bad disc until I sent it back to Amazon and the new one did the same thing. It's really easy to get delayed well more than 30 days + 2 weeks when that's the standard answer support will give you....

Fred

hi guys,

I own BDP-09 player in 2008 and I live in Europe and I bought it from US and never give me trouble any blu ray disc and the last update that I have is 2.70.I am not update it because what I read in this forum that when they do the update 2.71 well not read blu ray movies or say unknown disc.

to tell you the true Rango I did not try it but I well.

v2.72 is safe to use - I updated to it via the LAN connection the first day it was available.

When my BDP-09FD first began experiencing the "unknown disc" problem about a year ago I did not expect that it would require factory repair. After all, at the time, it was just one of about 200 titles I owned that could not play. Little by little, the problem began affecting more titles, but still only a fraction of my collection. And I continued to believe it was caused by and could be fixed by firmware. Eventually responses to my previous posts trying to find others who had similar experiences and learning of the success of others repairs, I sent my unit for repair. Since then all the problems I was experiencing went away and my BDP-09FD has performed flawlessly - no less than should be expected from a flagship product.


I too believe the drive unit center display light coloration is a bit different - more white in the center and now a slightly different hue of blue which no longer perfectly matches the Power button. Or I too could be imagining all that. What I know is different is the vertical rigidity of the disc tray when extended in the open position. Before my repair (and from day 1 of ownership) the original (defective) drive could be made to wiggle too much for my taste. Pioneer and the dealer assured me it was normal. Now I'm not so sure, because the new disc tray seems rather rigid.

Anyone contacting Pioneer for "unknown disc" related service should be clear to mention the first time they noticed any associated symptom that occurred during the warranty period which should be the later of (a) the date of manufacture (located on the original box and next to the serial number on the back panel) OR (b) the date on the receipt from an authorized Pioneer dealer. No one should be penalized because they believed the symptoms would be corrected in time with a firmware update. After all no one immediately suspects a $2200 product with a sporadic problem is really in need of a drive replacement.

Reading cbono's post is like reliving my own issues with the BDP-09FD, you think "Oh I got a flaky disc" or "Oops.. why did I upgrade the firmware.." I really feel bad about Napravit's not getting the support from Pioneer that he should have and after seeing the list price on the drive, he's been really let down by a normally great company for service.

I hope Napravit doesn't let it go and get's back in touch with Pioneer and they reimburse him for the expense.

Fred

Thanks for you advise I well update my player with last software because BDP-09 is like my baby I love it to much for what the player do.
the problem if something go wrong I can do nothing because is out from US and the warranty is finish and for player I payed many money to be in Europe because is ELITE and the first player that is THX.

I thought for a little bit today that when my BDP-09FD went into the shop and not only had the drive replaced but the main assembly board as well that maybe this got fixed..... I put on "Serenity" after tracking down this post and in one of the opening scenes (when a piece of Serenity falls off) there's the red "over" light again. Setting "input att" on took care of it as before. This only happens on DTS HD-MA discs and I guess that for the last couple of months I have not noticed the light flashing on. Maybe my eyes are just 2 years worse for wear....

Did anybody else have this happen using the analog inputs on DTS-MA? Somebody had to have told me about "att input", don't think I figured that out on my own....

Fred

Fred,
Where did you see the red light? The BDP-09 or your receiver? I have never seen this happen on my BDP-09 or my receiver through HDMI (SC-09TX).

Odd

Odd:

On my VSX-59TXi receiver while playing loud scenes with DTS-MA BDs. When I used my BDP-95FD via analog it never did it, but then it never decoded DTS-MA.... The 59TXi only did this after the BDP-09FD had it's firmware update to decode DTS-MA. I noticed it right away being that "Serenity" was the first DTS BD I watched after the firmware upgrade. I tried other DTS BDs afterwards and it would do the same thing on loud scenes, it's kinda like spiking in the way it goes on and off. Setting the "att input" to on (on the receiver) takes care of it, but it does temper the sound when it does it.

Fred

Since it was so long ago, I can't remember if I did this test on other DTS-MA BDs. Early today I decided to see if this "over" light issue would reoccur on any "DTS-MA disc or "TrueHD" disc with a loud soundtrack.

Here's the titles I tried:
Casino Royale - Dolby TrueHD
T2 Skynet Edition - DTS-MA
Predators - DTS-MA
Serenity - DTS-MA

Only Serenity would trigger the "over" light, played scenes with machine guns, cannons, crashes etc at a very high level of sound and no "over" light. So keeping "input att" on as a default is not necessary. I'll just keep an out and use that feature when I need it.... Like the next time I decide to rewatch "Serenity".

Conclusion: "Serenity" was the problem, could be a problem for those that use HDMI for audio as well, something to check out....

Fred

EDIT:

After a little investigation I find a reasonable answer for this:


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post15501598

another laser failure here: picture started to lock up then pixelate .
might have seen about 100 blu rays in total over 2-3 years

On every BD or just one? The "bug" we've been having is "cannot load" "unknown disc" on discs that should play. I've had a DVD that pixelated and locked up (Ebola Syndrome) that was simply a bad disc.

Fred

My particular woes began with the "Precious" BD. The very first symptoms I experienced were also "picture locking up" and "pixelation" midway into the film and then on subsequent loads typically in the forced promos or randomly in the film if I skipped through the promos. The problem quickly devolved into "cannot load" / "unknown disc" with that copy of "Precious", and two other copies of "Precious". For a while my only problem was with "Precious" title. Then I began experiencing "cannot load" / "unknown disc" with several other titles (but always a very small fraction of the BDs in my collection, and never with a DVD or a CD). And, I never again experienced "picture locking up" and "pixelation" with any other BD.

FWIW, I suggest getting in touch with Pioneer for drive replacement citing the many people on here who have had issues and repairs. Best of luck to you.

I second this suggestion!

Fred

Can someone tell me if I would get better multi-channel sound by connecting my 09 via the multi-channel analog outs to my Yamaha RX-Z11 or going HDMI and using the Yamaha DA converters?

Jim:

Not being familiar with the Z11 I did a little checking out of it and it looks like a fantastic flagship receiver! Whether to use the analogs is a personal decision on what you think sounds best, but there's some things that would incline me to use the analogs if my VSX-59TXi could do HDMI and decode the HD formats (which it doesn't).

1) The BDP-09FD has 8 DACs, one for each channel of sound. In purchasing the 09 you really are paying for it's internal audio processing. There were great options around half the price of the 09 without the internal decoding. I bought the 09 for the decoding which my non-HDMI receiver could not decode.

2) The Yamaha Z11 is 2007 technology. I briefly looked online to see if it was mentioned anywhere what internal DACs it has and could not find out which ones they use. The 09 is 2009 technology and I would presume has better DACs and certainly more of them.

I choose to let my receiver reprocess the analog signals and apply MCACC and THX Ultra2 processing to them. That's really because I am too lazy to setup the speaker distances and + - db's on the player.

Try it out though, I think the player does a great job of decoding and don't mind applying a little more volume to use the analog outs.

Fred

Edit:

After researching a little more I found the Z11 uses the Burr Brown PCM1796 DACs. and the BDP-09FD uses the Wolfson 8740 DACs. Now on Pioneer's SC-09TX Flagshiip receiver they used Wolfson 8741 DACs. With a $2200 BDP-09FD purchase price they could have afforded the 8741 DACs easily. However they would just be wasted since there's not any multichannel processing being done. Each DAC does just one channel. Something nice to test out after you connect up the analogs would be "Moody Blues at the Greek Theater" BD. It's pleasant and is a great first experiance for using your analog outputs!

2cd Edit:

Found a great PDF for your receiver at the Yamaha Z11 page. You have 7 DACS in your receiver, 5 are dedicated to the normal 7.1 (or 7.2) channels, the other 2 are for the 4 presence channels. There's probably not that much difference between what your receiver will decode and what the 09 will decode. It's worth checking out though. The Z11 looks like a fantastic receiver, I've always liked Yamaha products. My second receiver was a Yamaha CR-600, had it for 12 years. Years later it was working great for the guy I sold it to.

thank you for the input. I will try both and see what sounds best to my ears.

Jim:

You have 3 choices actually to try.

1) HDMI handling the audio.
2) Analog outs having receiver do the speaker and bass management.
3) Analog and using the 09 to do the speaker and bass management.

Step 3 is a little more work to set up, but may be the purest way to hear the audio.

Fred

I received my "repaired" 09 back from Pioneer. They charged me $352 to replace the drive.
That they would not cover it under warranty was bad enough but the unit does not work at all now.
When you turn it on it says "Power On" and stays like that forever. If a button is pressed, it says "Please Wait".

Any suggestions other than the obvious to call Pioneer support?

I would call Pioneer ASAP. I am a bit distressed that they did not cover it under warranty since there have been so many owners having drive problems. I posted this little tidbit on the 51/05 thread:

I don't know if this is coincidence but if you look up at Pioneer parts page, the VXX3325 (05/51) and the VXX3343 (09) BD replacement drives are out of stock......


That doesn't happen normally IMHO, either they have had repairs done in droves or they have pulled the replacement parts.

Fred

I tried playing 4 to 5 different DVDs on my player last night (Saturday Night Live Season 4 and Monsters Inc.) and I could only get 1 out of the 5 to play (an anime disc). The player says "load" and flashes "can not play this type of media" and stops. The display says "resume off" at that point. Pressing play again just causes the player's display to flash "resume off".

The unit plays blu-ray discs fine and has firmware 2.72. I had new blu-ray drive put in earlier this year because of the unknown disc type error. This is the first time I tried playing a DVD since I got my player back. Prior to the repair all my DVDs played fine.

Anyone else with a new drive had any issues with DVDs?

?

oops posted to the wrong thread. Pls disregard. I have a couple Sony 7000es Blu-ray juke boxes and thought I was in a different thread.

Try the "reset to factory defaults" and "initial setup" approach outlined in the manual on page 53

- Check that the player’s power is turned on.
- While pressing , press == press and hold the front panel buttons for a few seconds.
- After restoring all the settings to the factory default settings, use the Setup Navigator to reset the player (see page 21 of the manual).

Otherwise you may not have any choice but to get Pioneer to address the problem. I agree with Fred - it's terrible that you had to pay at all for the repair at all. Two suggestions ...

1 - insist Pioneer pays all costs including shipping both ways on the follow-up repair
2 - write/call Pioneer's CEO and/or other officers at the USA corporate office. You can find names, addresses, phone numbers on http://investing.businessweek.com/re...vcapId=4271744 - demand your $352 back! It may be helpful to you if you can recall any problem, no matter how minor, that first occurred with any BD, while your unit was still under warranty. Especially if you believed at that time while the warranty was in effect that a future firmware version would correct the problem.

It's a rather unfair commentary if you only recently learned how many of us also had the same symptoms as you but were lucky enough to get our repairs done during the warranty period. Pioneer needs to do right by you and any one else who has a bad drive in their BDP-095D.

Best of luck to you.

When you call to report a problem with a BD player to Pioneer this is what I saw as the normal protocol:
1) Bad media, especially rented discs (I've never rented one)
2) Load the latest firmware (I was already there)
3) Wait for the next release of firmware (who know how long that takes)

It's easy to take a long time with this type of advice. I returned to Amazon the season of "Justified", same problem on the replacement. The Pioneer Cust Rep told me new firmware was coming, I waited... Next thing you know a few months have passed and your drive is dead for BDs.

That's what happened when I addressed playback problems with Pioneer. I thought also (I was not online very much. recovering from spinal surgery) it was probably just "My" player. As soon as I returned to this thread and read how many owners are having problems with drive failures, this is not a normal wear and tear situation. We have defective BD drives in our players, plain and simple. I PM'ed the Pioneer guy who post here (Chris Walker) and asked him to read this thread. Never heard back.......

I also seen a lot of failures of the BDP-05FD in their thread, rightly so some of their problems have been firmware like lip sync issues. "Unknown Disk" is not firmware, it the begining of the end for your BD drive...

Fred