Pioneer releases Elite Blu-ray Disc players

Pioneer USA on Wednesday announced the Elite BDP-05FD and Pioneer BDP-51FD BonusView Blu-ray Disc players have been added to its line-up. Both receivers are said to offer the next generation in Blu-ray playback quality, with HDMI 1.3 technology, four Wolfson Professional Audio 12-bit digital-to-analog converters, and 1080p / True 24fps output. The players are designed to complement Pioneer's other home theater products, including the KURO line of plasma HDTVs and Elite receivers, to bring users a movie-theater like entertainment experience.

A range of video adjustments is available on the BD players, but the Pioneer PDP mode works best for KURO HDTVs, as it changes settings automatically to ones Pioneer engineers deemed best for the combination. Other quick-setup options include LCD, PDP, projector and professional, while professional users can turn to Pioneer's exclusive Picture Control Suite, for 13 video adjustments for further fine-tuning.

Both players sport 7.1-channel analog audio outputs, and support the newest audio formats including Dolby TrueHD and Digital Plus, along with DTS HD and DTS HD Master. DVD upscaling to 1080p resolution is also present in the new players, which also include the company's PureCinema Deinterlacer for eliminating lines during the viewing experience. Either player also sports the ability for picture-in-picture viewing.

The Elite BDP-05FD differs from the less costly BDP-51FD thanks to its gold-plated connection ports, capacitance touch key buttons and an aluminum front panel, as well as its use of a less powerful 108MHz 12-bit video encoder as opposed to a 297MHz unit.

The Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD and BDP-51FD will arrive this summer and carry prices of nearly $800 and $600, respectively.

Pioneer Elite BDP-51FP