Secrets of Home Theater

of and Home Theater High Fidelity review Pioneer BDP-09FD Elite Blu-ray Player (Benchmark) - May 2009

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

Introduction Also contained in the box was a remote Many people have been waiting for Blu-ray (identical in layout to the other Pioneer players to hit the magic price point of $200, BluRay players, but with metal construction where people think mass adoption will start to instead of plastic and glow-in-the-dark take place and it will slowly overtake DVD as buttons), manual, Ethernet cable, BNC by chris Heinonen the dominant home video format. However, to RCA adapters for the component video & there’s also another range of players that are jacks, and standard RCA audio and video Adrian Wittenberg starting to come out now, those of reference cables. Unfortunately, Pioneer still doesn’t quality designs with virtually no expense see fit to include an HDMI cable inside the spared. The BDP-09FD from Pioneer is their box of their Blu-ray players, but includes a entry into that arena. Featuring a top of the standard composite video cable that will line analog section, full compatibility with all almost certainly never be used by someone “The BDP-09FD delivers areas of Profile 2.0, and high quality internal purchasing this player. The remote, which in spades and should and external parts, how would it compare to has a design that I am not a fan of, was probably be on the very a standard Blu-ray player? designed so if you have other Pioneer components (Plasma display or Receiver), top of your short list.” Design the remote layout will be familiar and you can use it easily, but if you don’t have these If I hadn’t known how well built the Pioneer other components, then the layout is just not was going to be, my first clue would have that well designed. Anyone that is buying this been when the UPS driver had to use the player will almost certainly have a universal hand truck and elevator to deliver it to my remote solution I would imagine though. condo instead of just carrying it up the stairs as they will do with most deliveries I get. The Pioneer BDP-09FD is constructed Opening the box, the Pioneer was packed unlike any other BluRay player, or other AV 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.

© Copyright 2009 Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity www.hometheaterhifi.com Pioneer BDP-09FD Elite Blu-ray Player (Benchmark) - Page component, that I have had the opportunity are Composite, S-Video and Component I simply removed my current DVD player, to use. Weighing over 30 lbs, the BDP-09FD outputs for video (since I wondered about inserted the new BluRay player, attached a is constructed with gold plated outputs, this, Pioneer assured me that keeping legacy single HDMI cable and power cord, and a solid steel base plate, internal crossbar Composite and S-Video jacks on the panel everything was working. With the BDP- supports, and separate power supplies for the doesn’t affect the design in any negative way, 09FD I had a lot more work to do in able audio and video sections of the player. The since those capabilities are built into the to get all of the extra performance out of it, player also features a Blu-ray recorder drive chipset they use for the player), and Coaxial hooking up 5.1 analog outputs, dual HDMI mechanism, which has stricter tolerances and Optical outputs for audio. outputs (one straight to my display, and one than the standard Blu-ray drive mechanism, to my receiver for bitstreaming audio), and and a very attractive glossy finish that made For BD Live support, the BDP-09FD an Ethernet cable. getting a photograph without my reflection features 4 GB of memory on the board in for this review a challenge, but didn’t distract the form of an SD HC card for downloaded Pioneer has built a nice setup menu that when it was in my AV rack. content. As most movies typically only guides you though the configuration of require around 4 MB of space, you should the BDP-09FD in order and will grey out The back panel of the Pioneer features a full be able to hold the downloadable content selections that don’t matter for your setup complement of outputs, notably including for close to 1,000 discs before you run out based on previous selections. After choosing dual HDMI outputs, allowing you to run of room. I was unable to test what happens a 16x9 aspect ratio, I decided to go with one to your display and one to a receiver/ if you fill this memory up but was told that multichannel analog outputs, which opened processor, or one to a projector and one to you would need to manually delete data to up another list of choices for me. First another display or your receiver/processor. make room from the Setup menu, which choosing which speakers I had hooked up, I hooked them up in the display/receiver unfortunately required you to delete all whether they were large or small, and what setup to make sure that nothing would cause of the movie information in memory, not crossover I would prefer for routing bass to any loss of quality in the video section, while individual titles as the PS3 allows you to the subwoofer (unfortunately a single global still allowing me to send all the audio over do. This means if you do manage to fill this crossover and not an individual channel HDMI. memory up in the future, you would have selection), then onto how far each speaker to completely empty it out before you could was from my primary listening location, However, sending audio over HDMI from access the content of a new disc, so hopefully down to inches and not the more typical this player would negate one of the major they will allow you to delete individual titles half foot increments, and finally individual advantages of it: a full complement of 8 from memory in the future. channel level settings. As many receivers Wolfson 8740 DACs operating in Dual and processors will bypass all internal mode, one of every channel, which allows “The Pioneer also did a good job of crossover and level settings when you use you to control all of the audio settings in the standard DVD playback.” a multichannel input, it’s very important player: Speaker distances, size and crossover, that Pioneer builds this functionality and level adjustment while using the high One final feature that I was unable to test, into the player for those that will use the quality DAC’s which are used in Pioneer’s but was very interested in, was Pioneer’s multichannel outputs. Elite SC-05 and SC-07 receivers, as well as Precision Quartz Lock System for playing many other high end audio products. Since audio CD’s. If you have a compatible Next I’d configure my video settings, the Pioneer can internally decode all of the Pioneer receiver (the SC-05 and SC-07 both including what I wanted to do with my new audio formats (Dolby TrueHD, DTS work) and have the player connected over secondary HDMI output, if I had support Master Audio) and perform all of these HDMI, for CD playback the machine will for Deep Color or Control over HDMI, speaker level adjustments over the multi- use the higher quality clock signal inside which Color Space I wanted to use for channel outputs, and has higher quality of the receiver instead of the poorer quality output, and some additional options for if I DACs than most receivers and processors, I video clock inside of the BDP-09FD. This was using a Kuro display or Pioneer receiver. did most of my evaluation using the analog works to eliminate jitter from the disc to the Finally, one nice option that Pioneer has is audio connections instead of the single point that Pioneer can claim that the signal HDMI cable, but the HDMI outputs were is actually jitter free, which should produce tested for audio as well. an audible increase in audio quality. Pioneer has also said that this is an open standard Additional features found on the BDP- that other manufacturers are welcome to 09FD are an Ethernet jack for BD Live adopt in the future, and in the future they capability and firmware updates, a feature plan to support this jitter reduction for that was sorely missing on the BDP-51FD video playback as well with new products, so that I recently reviewed. Unfortunately, hopefully this feature will become something while their previous Elite Blu-ray players that other manufacturers adopt. could use the Ethernet port to play media from DLNA servers on your home network, Setup the new Renesis chipset that Pioneer is using for this player lacks that feature and so the My previous Blu-ray player had reminded Ethernet port can only be used for BD me how wonderful it was to setup new Live and Firmware updates. Also included components now that HDMI is a standard.

© Copyright 2009 Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity www.hometheaterhifi.com Pioneer BDP-09FD Elite Blu-ray Player (Benchmark) - Page the ability to test your Network Connection The presentation of the Oppo was more without having to download an update. Performance – Music forward as well, putting the vocals in front With some previous players I have used, the in the speakers, where the Pioneer seemed to only way to make sure that you are online As soon as I had the Pioneer hooked up in pull them back behind the speakers a bit and correctly is to try to update the software, my system, the first thing that I wanted to stay more relaxed. With Pure Audio disabled, which can then take a long time, but the test was its audio performance. The Wolfson I was able to easily tell the players apart and Pioneer lets you simply test to make sure it’s DAC’s have been used in many other highly felt that the soundstage of the Pioneer shrunk, working correctly. regarded, dedicated CD players and I wanted and the instruments and vocals sounded like to hear how they would sound. Listening to they were hiding behind a curtain, losing a Outside of the Initial Setup menu, there “Kid A” from Radiohead, the Pioneer offered good bit of detail. In the end, while I liked is a separate Video Adjustments menu. It up a very refined, relaxed presentation and I the extra detail that the Oppo added, some contains some presets for certain display types listened to the whole disc without any fatigue, might find that it’s more fatiguing to listen (LCD, Plasma, Pioneer Plasma, Projector) completely enjoying the experience. Moving for a long period of time, or prefer the extra as well as three custom types that you can forward or back a track was a little slow weight that the Pioneer can put behind the configure. These will let you easily change compared to my Oppo player, but I never music. Given that the Oppo player has been certain settings (Black Level, Pure Cinema had any issues beyond that. After listening to a consistently well regarded CD player, I Mode, Block and Mosquito noise reduction, a few more albums on the Pioneer over the think Pioneer can be happy with how the Gamma Correction) to fine tune the output week, I wanted to evaluate it head-to-head BDP-09FD sounded. of the player based on the source material with the Oppo, which is a very nice budget and your display. CD player in addition to being a fine DVD For playing back music from non-CD player, and see how it compared. sources, the Pioneer supports very few extra As many of us are routing all of our codecs (most bitrate mp3s and lower bitrate components through a receiver or processor “The BDP-09FD performed very WMA’s), but no lossless formats such as into a single input on our display, we can’t well across the board on all of our FLAC, and no support for WAV files beyond easily calibrate that input to be exact for benchmark tests.” 16-bit and 44.1 KHz sampling rates. The all of our sources, but using the settings on new chipset that Pioneer used for this player the Pioneer we could adjust the Pioneer Taking some time to make sure all of the was chosen for pure performance on Blu- internally to make those small adjustments settings on the receiver and the players ray, DVD, and CD playback and support that it might need. You could also use the were setup correctly and that the receiver for more advanced media codecs wasn’t memory settings based on if you are watching wasn’t introducing anything additional into important in comparison to that. It did a Blu-ray movie (which would typically have the signal, I setup some albums to play at manage to playback the mp3’s that I tested a much lower level of blocking and noise the same time so I could easily switch back it with, but I would doubt that many people due to more advanced codecs and space) or and forth between them. Additionally, I are going to purchase a player like this and a DVD, which might need more block noise found that using the Pioneer in Pure Audio used it to play back lossy, compressed audio reduction due to the lower quality MPEG-2 Mode 1 (no video signals at all) produced a files. compression used. noticeable increase in sound quality during CD playback, so I left that enabled while I I did have one big fault with the Pure Audio Selecting your output resolution can be done performed these listening tests as well. To my setting, however. The load times on the while you are watching video, in addition to ears, the Oppo provided me a bit more high- Pioneer are not exceptionally fast, in part due your initial settings. The Pioneer features all end detail and a bit of a wider soundstage, to its use of a recorder transport that is more of the common output formats (1080p at whereas the Pioneer provided some extra accurate but not as speedy as the typically both 60 and 24 fps, 720p60, 1080i60, 480p weight behind the voices and instruments. disc transport, and while it is loading you are and 480i), but also features Auto, where the Listening to just a human voice, the Oppo not able to stop it until it’s read the contents player chooses based on what the display tells would let me hear a little bit of extra detail at of a CD, or gotten to the menu of a movie. it over HDMI, and Source Direct, which will the top end, but the Pioneer would express Unfortunately, Pure Audio does not have a output the media at whatever format it was the power that they were putting behind setting where you can have it be automatically recorded at. This is an option for those using their singing. enabled for CD playback and then disabled an external video processor or scaler , but I for BluRay or DVD playback, and to disable chose to stick with 1080p60 as my display it you need to stop the disc and physically will not support 1080p24. The Pioneer always detected my display as 1080i60 for some reason, no matter if I was using the HDMI through my receiver or connected directly to the display, but that was simple to fix. While the BDP-09FD took a bit longer to setup than most players due to its plethora of features, the setup process was very intuitive and it didn’t have me jumping back and forth between different menus as some equipment can.

press a button on the player formats can be decoded and sent over the 7.1 bits, only going back to 8 bits at the very end as there is no button on the analog outputs. Sound quality from movies of the output stage. This allows for smoother remote. A couple of times was nothing short of spectacular. Band of gradients, and could allow for a better I would go start a movie, Brothers continued to draw me in, and the looking upconversion for DVD sources. forgetting that I had listened sound of the bullets flying everywhere in Unfortunately, to output this extra detail to a CD the day before, and the battle scenes was fantastic. Listening to you would need an HDMI 1.3 compatible be treated to a black screen “Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds: Live at display (so it can display Deep Color) and my as the disc loaded, since Radio City”, I wanted to turn it up as loud display does not support that unfortunately. Pure Audio was disabling as I could to hear all the detail from their However, since I didn’t see any of these issues the video output of the guitars. A few years ago I had grown tired when I was testing the player, those with player. I would have to wait of Dave Matthews, but that disc on a good HDMI 1.3 displays might see some extra a couple of minutes for player sounds so fantastic that I can keep detail that I could not. the BluRay disc to get to going back to it over and over now, and the the main menu, then stop Pioneer brought out all of the detail in it. Video Performance (Benchmark) it, walk up to the player, switch off Pure Audio, then The Pioneer also did a good job of standard The BDP-09FD performed very well start the disc up again and DVD playback. Scaling to 1080p I didn’t across the board on all of our benchmark wait a couple more minutes detect any motion artifacts, encountered no tests. Measurements with the Tektronix for it to load once again. If lip-sync issues even on some titles that people Oscilloscope were taken from the component Pioneer could add a menu have had issues with on other upscaling analog video outputs measured at 1080i setting for this based on players, and generally made a DVD look as resolution. The BDP-09FD showed strong media type, or at least a good as possible. I would never mistake the performance in our core video tests passing all way to disable it from the upconverted picture for a true Blu-ray disc, of the tests that check for chroma upsampling remote, that would be but it did as good a job as any player that I error test, having no problems with Y/C nice. have seen and that is what I am looking for. delay, and displaying a white level that is spot on at 100 IRE. In addition the BDP-09FD Performance – Video “... impeccably built and looks retains the full screen image and zero pixels fantastic.” were cropped. The frequency response from I had been very happy the analog outputs, as shown in the graph, is with the performance of With their recent firmware, Pioneer has also very smooth throughout the spectrum with a the Pioneer BDP-51FD finally added support for BD Live using the slight tapering off in the highest frequencies previously, and I must say players Ethernet port and 4 GB of storage. which translates to excellent picture quality. that they did a fantastic Discs that I had tested connected quickly job with Blu-ray playback and worked great, supporting all of the extra In our HD section of the Blu-ray benchmark once again. Watching a online features that discs now offer, except the BDP-09FD performed equally well variety of movies, from for the one Disney title that I was able to test passing our tests for banding, and 1920x1080 the better-than-expected (WALL-E). Since this was an early release pixel cropping. As a motion adaptive player, “Kung Fu Panda”, to The of the firmware before it has gone through the Pioneer was able to apply diagonal filtering “Dark Knight” and “Band the entire QA process, I’ve made Pioneer to material, thereby enhancing the image of Brothers”, the Pioneer played back aware of the issue and they should have this when there are a lot of jagged or diagonal lines everything and looked fantastic doing it. resolved before it is released to the general present. Proper 1080 i/p conversion is a must Looking at test patterns I would see that it public, currently planned for late April. With for a reference player and the BDP-09FD could pass BTB and WTW signals allowing DTS-MA decoding and BD Live support, was able to convert material with 2:2 and 3:2 for an easy calibration to make sure I was the Pioneer BDP-09FD should now support cadences properly so even concert footage or getting the most out of it. all features available on BluRay discs at this documentaries will play properly without any time. loss of resolution. Since Blu-ray players have Unfortunately, Blu-ray discs were still a bit hit the market there haven’t been that many slower to load compared to my PlayStation3 Unfortunately, one feature that I was unable that have really good digital noise reduction. console. Watching “Kung Fu Panda”, I could to test was the bit-depth conversion that the The Pioneer BDP-09FD on the other hand, get to the main menu in 1:30 on the PS3, Pioneer can perform internally. Color data has excellent digital noise reduction and has but it took 2:17 on the Pioneer. That didn’t on DVD and BluRay discs is stored in an 8 the most robust menu I have seen to date bother me too much as every player takes a bit format, so when you scale the picture to with individual adjustments for mosquito, while to start on a Blu-ray disc it seems, but I a different resolution, or perform any extra luma, and chroma noise reduction. The end wish the Pioneer could eject a disc from being processing on the image (noise reduction, result is the ability to fine tune the picture powered off quicker than the 40 seconds it gamma correction), you can easily introduce very precisely. takes right now. errors that can be seen as unsmooth gradients Standard DVD Performance of color, or blotchy areas of an image, since With a recent Firmware update, the Pioneer you’re only using those 8 bits per color. has added support for DTS-MA decoding The Pioneer converts everything to 16 bits Not many Blu-ray players to date also have inside the player, so now all of the audio internally, and does all of the processing at 16 offered good standard DVD performance

© Copyright 2009 Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity www.hometheaterhifi.com Pioneer BDP-09FD Elite Blu-ray Player (Benchmark) - Page as well as solid Blu-ray playback. That isn’t The frequency response was flat at 20 Hz and true of the BDP-09FD however. On our de- down 0.2 dB at 20 kHz. interlacing tests the BDP-09FD passed most of the tests with flying colors and only showed some hiccups on material that is encoded with bad edits or incorrect progressive flags. Hopefully Pioneer will address these issues in a future firmware update.

On video based material the BDP-09FD had excellent performance. The player is motion adaptive and has excellent recovery time switching back and forth between film and video modes with minimal delay. The player had superb playback of high detail material Overall, the Pioneer BDP-09FD shows as tested in our Super Speedway clip and reference quality audio performance. also showed impeccable performance on the more difficult Coliseum flyover scene from Conclusions Gladiator. The Pioneer BDP-09FD is a player that aims The only area the BDP-09FD didn’t shine to be reference quality, and performs exactly was in the usability section of our benchmark. that way on the bench with solid standard The player only had average performance DVD, and Blu-ray playback, and reference when it comes to response, and clocked in quality analog audio performance. The menu at a good but not great 1.1 seconds for layer system that is included is excellent and movie changes. playback was perfect for both audio and video. I would be quite fine to have it as my Audio Performance (On the Bench) only CD transport as well. By adding support for BD Live and DTS-MA, the BDP-09FD Distortion measurements were made within is no longer missing any features that I feel I an 80 kHz bandwidth. would need to enjoy Blu-ray movies. There are certain features that could be improved At 1 kHz, recorded at - 5 dB, THD+N was upon such as the remote control, load times, only 0.007%. a fix for Pure Audio when watching movies, and FLAC streaming from DNLA; however none of these affect the experience once the movie has started. In addition, this player is impeccably built and looks fantastic. It might not be priced for everyone, but there are many people with reference quality audio systems that don’t have HDMI inputs and need the high end analog outputs, or need dual HDMI connections, or just want the Specifications: best built player out there. The BDP-09FD delivers in spades and should probably be on • Design: Blu-ray Player the very top of your short list. • Supported Formats: BD-Rom, DVD-ROM, DVD-R DVD+R, CD, CD-R/RW. • Codecs: Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS- IMD was also very low, at 0.009%. HD Master Audio (Internal as well as Bitstream) • Supported Video Resolutions from HDMI: 480i, 480p, 1080i, 1080p60, 1080p24 • Dimensions: 5.9” H x 16.5” W x 14.2” D • Weight: 30.5 Pounds • MSRP: $2,200 USA