A New Addition to the Equipment Rack...

[tommyboy]

Sound and Vision mag tested that player, and it doesn't have on board DTS HD master.........

I'm a bit confused as both the back of the brochure (page two) which I posted in my second post and the owner's manual list DTS-HD Master Audio decoding built in. Sorry, if I may have misunderstood you Tommy.

Thanks everyone for the good wishes! Just about everything expressed by Roger (IndyKlipschFan) in his post says about what I would here. As he'd said, we did talk about the component versus HDMI connection for a while on the phone and in person earlier this year.

I would be the first to admit that in my own experience: A 1080p display with a 50 inch (or larger) screen viewed from a distance of 12 feet should be expected to have a superior picture when the output is 1080p via HDMI input versus 1080i/720p via component video input. The component video will be very good, but not quite as good as the HDMI. But, it has also been my experience that with 1080i/720p displays of the same size and viewing distance, showing a Blu-Ray image via component video is going to look sharper than a standard definition DVD via the same component video cable. Neither will be as good as the Blu-Ray output 1080p/HDMI combo on a 1080p display. The screen size and viewing distance are huge factors. Screens until 50 inches seem to be (for the most part) able to get away nicely with 720p resolution regardless of the input source. -Glenn

Interesting. I wonder why they said that? That was the only weakness they put down. Everything else was strengths? I waas thinking how could it be an Elite if it didn't have it? Maybe the "experrts" were wrong! And to think, they get paid to do this stuff???? No wonder our economy is the way it is right now

[picky]

Congrats on the Pioneer Glenn, I purchased a Sony PS3 last year and am very impressed with the blue ray picture. Wings and Avs Monday night and the Winter Classic coming up!!!! Its hocky season

Patrick: I am not surprised to hear you say the PS3 makes an excellent Blu-Ray player for movies as well, as you are one of the many folks I've heard sing the praises of that amazing game system. Nice going, man! I am SO looking foreward to the Winter Classic! Wings almost gave another one away last night, this time to Phoenix. They'd better get with the program REAL soon.

All: Yesterday my son Bill and I (Verna watched for a while, too) watched about 4 hours of Depeche Mode concerts on the Blu-Ray using standard def DVDs and I can tell you that the Pioneer's performance relative to upscaling (to 1080i) and audio was at least in parallel to the job our older Pioneer Elite DV-47Ai DVD player does; which I happy to report is exceptional. Both decks are connected to the receiver and projector via componenet video cables and with optical digital audio cables to the receiver. The DV-47Ai can also transmit audio to the receiver via Firewire 400. I still have yet to find time to do some extensive Blu-Ray viewing so please be patient; I'll get to it.....someday soon. Tomorrow (Monday) is my last day of work for this year as I must burn up my remaining vacation days (I did not take much vacation this year), so I should be able to find a few theater "play days" in there somewhere! LOL BTW: The Depeche Mode concerts were from 1993 (an import DVD) of Spain and Germany concerts and a DVD of their last tour together from 2006 recorded in Milan. Both DVDs are excellent and sounded wonderful on our Klipsch RF-7 / RSW-15-based system. Real Depeche Mode fans probably would not be disappointed by either concert. The band's trademark, bass-rich atmospheres did some definite chest-thumping! -Glenn