Pioneer BDP-H1 Smoke & Mirrors - Sorry  

First, let me state that I am getting both an HD-DVD player and a BluRay player. I was strongly considering the Pioneer BDP-H1 and was visiting my local Best Buys on a regular basis to determine when they were getting in their demonstration unit. Well, it came in the other day, and so far I have had about two hours exclusive time with it.

After careful, contemplated, consideration, let me say that this unit is a lot of Smoke and Mirrors.

First, the demonstration on their 1080p Plasma set looks stunning. So much so that before doing anything, I watched it all the way through once. Amazing! Aladdin looked tremendous. There was some artifacting in the blue skies in the magic carpet scene, but nothing too objectionable, and something which may have been the display more than the player.

However, something was bugging me.

So, I went and got both a commercial BluRay title I was familiar with and the Samsung demonstration disc and went to play them in the Pioneer BDP-HD1 demonstration machine - neither would play. Instead an "Incompatible Disc" warning message was displayed. "Something is up," I thought.

Next, lets take the Pioneer demonstration disc and put it into the Samsung player. In order to be fair, lets connect the Samsung (first generation with the supposed "noise bug") to the same set. Done. The Samsung plays the Pioneer demonstration disc without a problem. In fact, THE SAMSUNG LOOKED DAMN NEAR IDENTICAL TO THE PIONEER!!!!! At least in terms of overall picture quality!

(Let me say that this was not a scientific test of proper material - commercial discs - on both players, as that was not possible. However, given the material which could be seen on both, there was little to no difference.)

Put the demonstration disc back in the Pioneer player and press DISPLAY. Lo and behold I learn that the clips on the Pioneer demonstration disc are averaging about 40mbps and peaking at near 50mbps!!!!!

40 - 50 mbps bandwidth is SIGNIFICANTLY ABOVE any commercial BluRay title released to date - probably ever released with multi-channel audio!!!

So, what did we learn.

First, let me praise the Pioneer BDP-HD1 for the Media Gallery (which I could not demo) and the 24fps output (which I did demo). These alone are two features which may or may not significantly impact your buying decision.

However, when looking at the picture quality of the Pioneer unit, realize that you are not looking at the quality of the BDP-HD1, but at the QUALITY OF THE DEMO DISC!!!!

The Demo Disc is AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Does it show what BluRay can do? NO!!! It shows what image quality can look like with 20 minutes of demonstration material on a disc once it has been pushed to the highest possible bit-rates!!! We all knew this would look great.

Now, this is still a Prototype Player. I am sure Pioneer is in a near panic that their player will not be ready for Christmas and that this is the way to get orders for both their 1080p Plasma and BluRay player. However, the ethics of this are, at the least, questionable. The salesmen are all running around showing off how much better the Pioneer BDP-HD1 will look based upon this misleading material.

I have used Pioneer Elite products in the past, and have stood by their quality.

I had expected better.

Agreed. Based on its feature set alone I am still interested. However, at this point I am probably more interested in Generation 2. However, my intention is not to denegrate the Pioneer player, but to bring attention to a bit of marketing "slight of hand" in the current presentation.

This is only directed at those wildly praising the image quality of the current demonstration without doing the homework to understand why. I would love to see a demonstration of the player with everything from "The Fifth Element" to "Tears of the Sun".

People should make their decisions based on real-world data and specifications, and not marketing misdirection!

Chris, Patrick, Agreed. This is why the only way to judge is to throw a commercial disc in.

Wesker, As for the highest peak I saw during hte entire Pioneer demo was 48.x (if memory serves). I did not scan the entire disc. I believe this was during the "Brother's Grimm" clip as well. You would have to check me on this.

Also, I would still put in MI:3 on the HD-XA1 and run it side-by-side with the Pioneer. Even though the demo looks amazing on the Pioneer, I think the MI:3 release disc looks just as good on the HD-DVD player (I have not seen it as of yet on BD).

Jeff, I wouldn't hesitate to say from what I've seen so far that the video output of the Panasonic is the equal of the Pioneer. However, for some the 24fps direct mode is very worthwhile. For us, since I can find no scaler that takes in 24fps and output 24psf, it is quite useless. I await the Lumagen Radiance to do what I need.

Jeff,

Pre-Release, Specs favored BluRay.
Post-Release, Reality favors HD-DVD.
Currently, planning on both.

Order is in for the HD-A2.
Order is in for the PS3.

Why the PS3?

You see, some inside information. The PS3 is MUCH more general purpose than any of the stand-alone units available.

1) HDMI 1.3
2) Can support all current advanced codecs as well as any future changes to them via firmware.
3) Can support DLNA features (as does the Pioneer)
4) Can support complete BD-Live profile.
5) Memory is expandable - no limit on Persistent Storage.
6) Only unit actually made by Sony! Possibly a small advantage.
7) If it sucks, I'll just play games, or sell it for a profit and buy the best at the time.

Yup, order is in an I'm on the list. In fact I favor neither format over another.

I dispise misleading marketing techniques.
I dispise MPEG-2 as a codec for Next Generation HD. Here I have some experience, and it is just WRONG.

No "fence sitting" just patient contemplation for another two weeks or so.

Now, if only LUMAGEN would hurry up, I would be done!!!

Darin,

Right and wrong. Position on HD vs. upscaled was on DirecTV or Cable HD.

The point back then was that neither of these looked any better than upscaled DVDs. As such they would put a palor over what people expected from HDTV, and thus the future HD Disc formats.

Of course we know that both BluRay and HD-DVD look MUCH better than either Cable or Sat HD. However, selling this is now tougher due in part to people's previous experience with HD over cable and sat.

Darin,

Was not getting into the subjective comparison. I also agree that some of the D-Theater tapes looked outstanding (some, not all). However, the issue was with what the AVERAGE CONSUMER was seeing. Not us, who are PICKY and KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR.

"My point previously, and restated here, is that given a good upscaling DVD player and the various matieral that HAD passed as HD, the AVERAGE CONSUMER was going to find it hard to justify going to HD material."

This is not to say that HD TODAY does not look much better coming from BD or HD-DVD, it does. It is just that for most people, seeing well upscaled DVD from either an HTPC or the Oppo or another quality device, most reported seeing little difference between that and either Cable HD or Sat HD. At least not enough to be excited about it.

Remember, the stats show that most people watching a regular DVD on a widescreen display think that they are already getting HD.

Chris,

I will try your suggestion with the player in question.

However, I am not attacking the player, but some of the marketing, of which Pioneer is not alone here. Producing demo discs which use in your own words, "a very high bit-rate" is a bit misleading, by anyone.

I don't think I will be able to test any of this until next week, as the store is too busy on weekends for them to let me play as I was. However, I will try with some commercial discs as soon as possible.

No one is trying to tell you that you should not be showing off your system in the best way possible. However, showing clips significantly higher in bit-rate than commercial titles is misleading. Pick the titles you think look best, and include clips from them. This is only proper.

At the store I was in, they generally have only commercial titles playing in their systems. The samsung is running either Eight Below or something else, the HD-A1 is running Sky Captain. However, the manager of the Magnolia store told me that they were instructed to only run the Pioneer demo on the Pioneer machine.

If this is not properly communicated, then I apologize.

Chris,

The purpose of any codec is EFFICIENCY!!!!

I did not say that MPEG-2 could not look good. Of course it can. Uncompressed Video can look AWESOME!!!

However, that is not the point and a distracting arguement at best. The purpose is to look good in an efficient manner. MPEG-2 is horribly inefficient! Never designed for HD in the first place, it should never have been used for HD content.