My Panasonic/Samsung LCD combo work fine. Firmware 1.6 addressed the HDMI handshake issue.

The release dates for the new Pioneer players have been announced:

Pioneer BDP-51FD, MSRP $600, Early July
Pioneer BDP-05FD, MSRP $800, Early August

Both are Profile 1.1 and full-featured (7.1 analog output, bitstreaming lossless codecs, decoding lossless codecs).

By the way, Chris Walker, the Pioneer rep who posts on AVS, said that production of the 05FD won't even begin until July.

The BDP-51FD will be mine.

The 05FD looks mighty nice.

I understand the feeling! Although I don't like the high price, the 51FD is the first BD player that meets my needs, so I am sorely tempted.

I will be interested to see if Sony holds to their previously announced prices on the S350 and S550 (I'm guessing they won't). The S550 will also be full-featured. The Panny BD50 is too expensive for now, although they might drop the price as other players become available.

But everything I have read suggests that the Pioneer players will be a step above the others in performance and support.

I would not be shocked to see Sony raise the price of the S550 (and maybe the S350).

If not mentioned or discussed, you should consider the new Samsung BD-P1500, I just got it at Walmart for 348.00 after reading some stellar reviews, and I have to say, it is awesome!! Beautiful picture, and passes all the new audio formats via bitstream! DTS MA is just amazing to hear..

I won't touch a Samsung player after their 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation player had so many bugs. I won't even mention their Dual format player that has all 2 channels of TrueHD power. Hopefully Samsung got things right this time but its too late for me.

Those at AVS who bought the 1500 seem to like it also. If/when Samsung adds Profile 2.0 and DTS-HD MA decoding via firmware updates, that player would fit the needs of many, save those of us with older non-HDMI receivers. The downside of bitstreaming lossless codecs is that one loses secondary sounds, such as commentaries and menu sounds, which have to be mixed in the player. This would require switching to PCM to listen to those sounds.

How is your player at loading java-heavy discs? What are the boot times like? [On to tray eject, On to menu screen with disc already loaded, tray closing to menu screen (varies with the title, of course), and shut down time?]

Boot time very fast, faster than I have seen from any Blu Ray, no issues at all so far with any movie I have tossed into it, I got a new Onkyo reciever with all the sound formats built into it, so for me, this Samsung was perfect.

Have you tried it with any single layer DVD-R or DVD+R and/or dl DVD+R?

On to tray eject = 5 seconds
Tray closing to menu screen = Superbad: 25 seconds to penis head loading screen + 15 seconds from penis head screen to main menu. Penis. Run Lola Run: 20 seconds to Lola loading screen + 10 seconds from Lola screen to main menu
On to menu screen with disc already loaded = Superbad: 30 seconds; Run Lola Run: 25 seconds
Shut down time = 6 seconds to blank screen + 2 seconds from blank screen to blue light on player switching to red
Oddly, while that is exactly what the manual says, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm bitstreaming the TrueHD track over optical on Superbad and I can still hear the "dings" on the Super-Meter - and I have no problem switching over to the commentary. Wouldn't those be considered "secondary audio"?
The player is also nice and quiet during play. I have to have my head at least three feet from the player before I can hear anything; only loading and shutting down produces brief noise. The only problem I've had with the BDP-1500 is that it wouldn't play Disc 2 of The Muppet Show Season 3 (which presented no problem in any of my other players). Not a big deal, since I didn't have a pressing need to watch that upconverted - but I'm hoping that problem doesn't crop up again.

You should double check what track you are actually getting. I'm pretty sure TrueHD cannot go over optical (or coax), but only via HDMI.

Yes, it's definitely the TrueHD track I'm listening to. I'm not getting its full dynamic range over optical, but the discrete channels (and the menu/supplement audio) are definitely coming through. That's with the player set to "Bitstream (Audiophile)." With the Uncompressed PCM track, the player has to be set to "Re-Encode" to get the discrete channels over optical.
BTW, no problems with single layer DVD-Rs so far.

I'm not trying to be rude, but the fact is that neither optical or coax has the capability to transmit either Dolby TrueHD or DTS-MA. Chances are you are getting the "lossy" core track that is embedded. To get the new codecs you MUST have HDMI. There is no way around it. The choices of "Audiophile,' and "Re-encode" only impact HDMI. Sorry.

You CAN'T bitstream LOSSLESS audio via OPTICAL. It doesn't have enough bandwith.

Well, yeah, that sounds like it exactly. I didn't know how to put it, but I realized I wasn't getting the full dynamic range of the TrueHD track.
No need to apologize, but that's not the case either. Even the BDP-1500 manual will tell you that changing these settings changes how the audio is sent via optical. But like I said, it also warns of resultant problems with "secondary audio" that must be either disc-specific or non-existent as I have yet to experience them.

My Toshiba A-2 took a mysterious dive on me last week. I had the extended warranty on it from Best Buy and they called me today to let me know they would not fix it and I would have to get a replacement player.

The value of the exchange is $500 which is the exact price of the LG BH200.

Edit: Basically my only option for HD DVD was the BH200 and the Sammy. The Sammy was not going to happen with all the bad Samsung BD player stories and I really didn't want to lose HD DVD.

I went with the LG BH200 Super Blu and the first one I took home was a super dud. Crashed constantly usually before I could even start the movie. It would freeze for a few seconds and just turn off. I returned it and took the stores last BH200 home with hopes it was just a bad player.

So far it seems that the first one was just a bad player. The second BH200 is performing very well. I have watched two HD DVDs, 1 DVD and 1 Blu-ray with no issues. I also tossed in a few dozen other discs to see if I could repeat the freeze ups, but it had no issues so far. The firmware and driver update made it a profile 1.1 player so unlike my piece of junk Sharp BD player it actually has the ability to navigate a Java menu without choking to death and it loads the discs just a bit slower than the PS3. Compared to the Sharp that could take minutes to load the Java menus on some discs.

I'm also fairly impressed with the Qdeo chip for DVD. Very nice upconverting on the discs I have checked out so far. All of these Linux boxes have issues, but I'm finding the BH200 problems to be pretty minor. On the plus side it decodes Dolby TrueHD 7.1, has very good video quality with all formats and can handle all the advanced features of HD DVD and BD profile 1.1. It was also a breeze to hack and is now a region free player that supports PAL. My TV can handle it so I can watch Region 2 PAL DVDs on it with no problems. It also has the ability to be profile 2.0 compatible if LG decides to upgrade it. It has the network port already for HD DVD and a front USB port that can be used to store all BD downloads if the internal gets full.

The negatives are minor so far. No DTS MA decoding though it will pass it if I had a compatible receiver, It stretches 4:3 material which is a minor hassle but can be fixed by changing the resolution to 480p for that stuff and pillarboxing with my TV, and reading through some forums some people say it has occasional audio drop outs through HDMI though I haven't noticed one yet.

I'm going to keep it in heavy use the next month to try and find other flaws, but considering the issues I have had with the Toshiba HD DVD players (A-1, A-2 and A-3 all had freeze ups and A-1 and A-2 both ended up getting disc read errors before getting retired) and my Sharp standalone BD player this one is looking to be the best player I have owned. Now I just have to hope it lasts.

Could someone help me please ? I'm getting a blu-ray player in a few weeks and have a question. On the back of the player is an HDMI port. I know that this can be used for audio, but what about video ? If I were to use it for video, how would I go about this ? Is it possible to have the HDMI cable do both video and audio at the same time ? Thank you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi

Fresh fish! Fresh fish!

Yes, as you no doubt read in the link above, you can use it for both audio and video.

Now, if your TV has HDMI but your receiver does not, you'll have to use optical or coaxial digital for audio (assuming you have a home theater system). If your receiver has HDMI, you connect a cable to that, then another HDMI cable to the TV.

A CNET review of the Panasonic BD50 is up:
http://reviews.cnet.com/video-player...-32815617.html

Yikes. CNet pretty much slammed it. PS3 still reigns supreme and for $300 less. The Sony S550 appears to be a carbon copy of the Panasonic just $200 cheaper...looks like I will for sure be waiting on that one.

Why anyone looking for just a BD player would go with anything but the PS3 is a complete mystery to me. Yeah, I know some people just want a regular CE player, but these things are so underpowered and overpriced.

To get the full use of the BD format with no issues the PS3 is the "only" real option out there. I'm liking my LG BH200, but the PS3 is still better than it and every other player on the market. I can't wait for the $2K Denon to get released just to see if something can compete with the $400 PS3 and the cell processor.

I want something that has an actual display and something that can be stacked. PS3 can not do either of these.