Pioneer unveils new Elite Blu-ray player
Although they are derided for such a pricey Blu-ray player while the market is still waiting for $200 players, Pioneer’s Elite line is aimed specifically at the high-end customer, and is approximately $2,000 more than the target price for the average consumer. So what do you want? Unfortunately we all can’t have the Elite quality at Walmart prices.
The new BDP-09FD was shown at CEDIA Expo 2008 this week, and it will retail for around $2,200. A bargain for a high-end DVD player … in 1998.
This player is pretty impressive. It is a full-blown BD2.0 BD-Live player, with an impressive 4GB storage capacity for downloaded content. The case itself is over-built for the highest performance standards, weighing in at close to 50 pounds. The bottom of the chassis is made of a quarter-inch steel. Supporting this weight are four TAOC vibration-free feet.
Past this superfluous build quality we find full 7.1 analog output with digital-to-analog converters (DAC) specifically for each output. Most players use one for all channels, or pairs of channels. Pioneer recommends using these outputs if possible for the best audio quality. The player decodes every available DTS and Dolby audio codec on board.
On video, this player is no slouch either. With dual HDMI outputs you can watch high-def video on two screens simultaneously. 8-bit video is converted to a mind-blowing 16-bits – that’s 2,800,000,000,000 shades of color.
This is intended to be the ultimate universal disc player. So far, it’s champ.
